I have met some Frenchmen who believed that the French went to put down piracy: I know no Englishman who doubts it. England attacked Algiers with the view of putting an end to Christian slavery, and relieving the smaller powers from the disturbance of their Mediterranean trade, she having no quarrel of her own with that State. She succeeded,[57] retired--kept and claimed nothing. The first quarrel between France and Algiers was about a debt to a Jew merchant of Algiers, which France refused to pay. This was an outstanding balance of eighteen millions of francs, on the accounts for the supply of France with grain for her necessities. By enormous bribing of the Chamber of Deputies, the money was repaid: _it went into French pockets_. In the list of recipients are names which may not astonish a future age, but which would astonish this. The last quarrel was about the same Jew and the coral fisheries. The French consul having, according to instructions, made a quarrel,[58] and excited the anger of the Pacha, he flung towards him his fan. The consul was not touched. France got the pretext she wanted for not paying the money, and pillaged the treasury of Algiers of £5,000,000. England and Holland, who, at their own cost twenty years before, had put an end to roving and to Christian slavery, nevertheless believe that France went to Algiers to put down piracy and to spread civilization: an instance of the value of the press in enlightened times. Rome conquered the warlike west, and the rich east, and possessed the countries she conquered. The great people, lying in the heart of Europe, possessed of unparalleled power, in as far as warlike means go, and unequalled unity, subjugates a little state of pirates--or at least so called pirates--without numbers, wealth, service, or literature, and immediately France is subjugated by Algiers. I have heard Hassam Pacha, the Ex-Dey of Algiers, say, “the barricades of July have avenged me.” Abd-el-kadir in like manner sees himself avenged by the barricades of February. Each African treachery is followed by a Parisian revolution. Had it been Rome, Abd-el-kadir might have become pro-consul, or like Severus,[59] emperor: pro-consul or emperor, he could have become Roman. But it is a modern government: it is France which conquers Algiers; then the Frenchman becomes an Algerine, and order has to be restored in a constitutional state, by Algerine practices. France, in putting down the Algiers of Africa, was preparing herself to become the Algiers of Europe.