The "Turk" in this case was a Salee rover, like the one that attacked Robinson Crusoe's ship. She gave chase to the transport and overhauled her, but when she got near enough to see her decks crowded with redcoats she considered discretion to be the better part of valour and hauled off. It is probable that occasional forays were made on our shipping by such marauders in the early part of the eighteenth century, and we have a very detailed account of the wreck of the _White Horse_, an Algerine frigate, near Penzance, in September, 1740. The return of the greater part of her survivors to Algiers on board the _Blonde_ frigate is an early instance of our national weakness for too tenderly dealing with alien enemies. Slavery had not been abolished; we could easily and legitimately have sold them for slaves to the West Indian planters or to the Knights of Malta, or exchanged them for some of the hundreds of our fellow-countrymen the pirate cities of North Africa still held in bondage. But no, we preferred to set them free and to put them in a position to murder, rob, and enslave yet more Englishmen. The very last appearance of the Turkish pirate in our waters I have been able to find is of so recent a date as 18th May, 1817, when a couple of Moorish vessels captured a ship coming from Oldenburgh, off the Galloper Shoal, which is not far from the Goodwin Sands. This must have been a very exceptional case, though up to the time Lord Exmouth subjected Algiers to a severe bombardment the "Turks" were still a danger to merchantmen in southern waters. The pest was not stamped out until the capture of the famous pirate city by the French in 1830. So confident and so truculent were the Deys of Algiers as late as the early part of the nineteenth century that, in 1804, even Nelson, in command of a powerful fleet, was unable to make the Dey give an interview to Captain Keats of the _Superb_, whom he had sent as bearer of a letter setting forth certain British claims. Incredible to relate, no further steps were taken, and the fleet put to sea and resumed the blockade of Toulon. We can hardly, therefore, be surprised to read that in the same year the "Turks" should have had the hardihood to attack the United States frigate _Philadelphia_, which took the ground off Tripoli when in pursuit of a pirate. The Americans fought for four hours, but, the ship being by that time almost on her beam ends, had eventually to strike their colours, and both officers and men were carried ashore into slavery. FOOTNOTES: [25] Nicholas. _History British Navy._ [26] Massinger. [27] From the Parish Books of Portishead, Somerset: Acct. of Disbursements:-- "1722.--Gave 5 sailors taken by Pierates 10_d._ 1723.--Gave 1 man that had been in turkey 1_d._ 1726.--Gave 6 poor men tacking by the pirits 6_d._ 1726.--Gave 7 poor sailors burnt 1_s._"