Lord Exmouth had not yet reached England, when accounts arrived which determined the Government not to await the issue of the proposed negotiations with Algiers, but at once to exact the most ample satisfaction and security. On the 23rd of May, the crews of the coral fishing-vessels at Bona had landed to attend mass, it being Ascension-day, when they were attacked by a large body of Turkish troops, and most barbarously massacred. Lord Exmouth was at Algiers when this took place; but as Bona is two hundred miles to the eastward, and he sailed as soon as he had agreed with the Dey, he did not hear of it until he arrived in England; and thus it devolved upon the British Government to direct the measures which such an atrocity demanded. Justly concluding that these barbarians, so long the common enemies of the civilized world, and whose very existence was a reproach to it, had filled the measure of their crimes by this last bloody outrage, they determined to exact complete submission, or to inflict the most signal vengeance. They appointed Lord Exmouth to complete his work, and placed at his disposal whatever force he thought necessary to effect it. CHAPTER XI. THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS. The town of Algiers is built on the declivity of a hill fronting to the eastward. It is of a triangular form, having for its base the sea-front, which is about a mile in length, and rises directly from the water. It is strongly fortified on the land side, and the sea defences are most formidable, as well from the great thickness of the walls, as the number of heavy guns. The harbour is artificial. A broad straight pier, three hundred yards in length, and upon which the storehouses were built, projects from a point about a quarter of a mile from the north extremity of the town. A mole is carried from the end of this pier, which bends in a south-westerly direction towards the town, forming nearly a quarter of a circle. Opposite the mole-head is a small insulated pier, which leaves the entrance to the harbour about a hundred and twenty yards wide. The rock upon which the mole is built extends about two hundred yards to the N.E. beyond the angle at which the pier joins it. The shores recede considerably from the base of the pier, forming a small bay on either side of it.