Later, the Dey of Algiers succeeded in negotiating a treaty with the British, represented by Lord Exmouth, under which the British, in spite of an immense fleet to back them, agreed to pay $400,000 for the release of certain captives. His success in this made the Dey feel very badly about his treaty with Decatur. Consul Shaler was compelled to haul down his flag and leave, but the timely arrival and prompt action of an American squadron once more inclined the Dey to peace. The appearance of the same squadron off Tunis and Tripoli soothed the rulers there, also, after they had been made restive by European consuls, and from that time to this there has been no war between the United States and the Barbary pirates. CHAPTER XVII LED A HARD LIFE AND GOT FEW THANKS WORK THAT NAVAL MEN HAVE HAD TO DO IN OUT-OF-THE-WAY PARTS OF THE WORLD IN TIMES OF PEACE--CHASING SLAVERS ON THE AFRICAN COAST WHEN SLAVE-OWNERS RULED THE YANKEE NATION--THE AMERICAN FLAG A SHIELD FOR AN INFAMOUS TRAFFIC--CAPTURE OF THE _MARTHA_ AND THE _CHATSWORTH_--TEACHING MALAYANS TO FEAR THE FLAG--STORIES OF PIRATICAL ASSAULTS ON YANKEE TRADERS, AND THE NAVY’S PART IN THE MATTER--A CHINESE ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN FLAG--“BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER”--A MEDAL WELL-EARNED BY A WARLIKE DISPLAY IN TIME OF PEACE. Of the work done by the Navy between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, there was no part that was more disagreeable or quite so thankless as that of watching the slavers on the coast of Africa. It is becoming in an American, whatever his personal beliefs may have been in the old days, to speak of the slave-trade with humility. And this is true not alone because human beings were kept in slavery in the United States until a frightful civil war well-nigh destroyed the country, but because Northern capitalists, men who lived where the self-righteous gave thanks because their hands did not hold the slave in bondage--these Northern capitalists were the most ingenious and persistent dealers in slaves, and the most devilish in the treatment of the unfortunates, known to the transatlantic slave-trade.