A few months after this dispute had been amicably adjusted, a much more serious difference arose. It was discovered that some passengers on board an English ship were really Greek slaves. The British Consul demurred to their disembarkation; and the Bey seized them by force. In consequence of this outrage to the flag an English squadron arrived off Goletta on Christmas Day 1823, but we obtained nothing more than profuse promises as to the future. On the 28th March following Sidi Mahmoud died. His successor Hossein Bey sent an embassy to Paris to congratulate Charles X., and offer several costly presents to the French King. Like his predecessor Hossein, he did not fail to furnish several ships to the Turkish fleet. In 1827 the war between France and Algeria broke out. Although the Bey maintained a strict neutrality, he did not neglect to keep his army in a state of efficiency. Under these circumstances the _tribute_ offered by Sweden in 1827 proved very acceptable. It consisted of a cargo of wood and no less than 125 cannons. The attitude of Hossein in the matter of Algiers can be easily understood. In the first place, he was not sorry to see the humiliation of an inveterate and almost hereditary enemy; and secondly, he hoped that a successor to the Bey of Algiers would be selected from amongst the descendants of Hossein Ben Ali,—an idea which the French Consul-General lost no opportunity of encouraging. It was under these circumstances that the treaty with France of the 8th August 1830 was executed. A clause, for some time kept secret, ceded to France a conspicuous spot on the site of the Carthaginian Byrsa or citadel for the erection of a memorial chapel in honour of Louis IX.[31] The fifth article of the convention restored to France the coral fishery as far as Cape Négre; but the Bey protested against it, and some particulars of the conditions agreed on were never carried into effect.