The actions of the "President" with the British squadron, and of the "Constitution" with the "Cyane" and the "Levant," were the last frigate engagements of the war. Indeed, the treaty of peace had already been signed, and it only awaited ratification. What had been the results of the naval war? The British Navy, numbering more than forty times our own, had met in the battles on the ocean with more defeats than victories, and on the lakes its squadrons had been twice annihilated. Its naval prowess, of which the wars with Dutch and Danes and French and Spaniards gave it so much cause to boast, was now matched by the naval prowess of a new rival in the Western Continent. The people who for twenty years had submitted to aggression, learned that those to whom their defence upon the ocean was intrusted were worthy of the trust, and would prove brave and efficient champions against a foreign foe, however great his power or prestige; and from that time forward no political party in the United States dared to rely for popular support upon a platform of tame submission to foreign encroachment. CHAPTER XVIII. THE WAR WITH ALGIERS. When the war with Great Britain broke out in 1812, it was no longer possible to keep ships cruising in the Mediterranean to overawe the States of Barbary. It was true that the severe lesson which Tripoli had received from Commodore Preble in 1804 was well remembered, and the Pasha had no desire to have it repeated. But Algiers, the most powerful State upon the northern coast of Africa, had always cherished a contemptuous feeling for the United States, which was still weakly paying tribute; and no sooner did the Dey learn that England, the mistress of the seas, was at war with the American Government, than he resolved to take advantage of the stress thus put upon the American Navy to break his treaty obligations. In order that he might have some pretext, he made complaint that the naval stores sent to him were not so good as the treaty called for, and after extorting by savage threats a heavy payment from the Consul of the United States, he finally expelled him, with all the other Americans, from his dominions. He even went beyond this, and took up again his old trade of pirate, capturing the brig "Edwin," of Salem, and imprisoning her officers and crew, whom he refused to release even on payment of the heaviest ransom.