With these instructions, and accompanied by M. Bianchi the interpreter, M. de la Bretonniere returned to the Bay of Algiers. The Sardinian Consul, who undertook to arrange the preliminaries of the negotiation proposed to the Dey that it should be conducted in conferences between His Highness and the French interpreter, who had arrived at Algiers for the purpose on the 23d of July. This, Hussein immediately refused to allow, and the Admiral was thrown into the very dilemma which he wished to avoid; that is to say he was obliged to write a letter, or to abandon the attempt at negotiation. In order to avoid this difficulty a letter was written in the Turkish language, proposing in very general terms the renewal of former relations between the two Governments, but saying nothing either about the Ambassador or the brig. Hussein in reply expressed his satisfaction at the offer which had been made by the French Admiral, whom he invited to come on shore and confer personally with himself on the subject. M. de la Bretonniere accepted this invitation, and accordingly entered the harbor on the 30th of September 1829, in his flag ship the Provence of eighty guns, {144} accompanied by the brig which had been the proximate cause of the negotiation. He landed on the following morning, and had a long conference with the Dey, of which the particulars have not transpired. On the 3d of August they had another conference, which lasted but a short time; on this occasion it is said the Admiral insisted on the mission of an ambassador as an act of reparation to France, at which the Dey became so enraged, that he ordered him immediately to leave Algiers; certain it is that the conference was suddenly broken up, and the parties separated, each in a state of high excitement. M. de la Bretonniere immediately embarked, and sailed with his ships out of the harbor; on passing by the Mole the Provence received a shot from the fort, and although the flag of truce was displayed at her mast head, the firing was continued until she was beyond their reach. The ship is said to have received eighty balls; her port holes were however kept closed, for had she returned the fire, it is probable that she would have been sunk. That this flagrant violation of good faith was the result of the Dey's orders, no one in Algiers at the time for a moment doubted; Hussein however pretended that it arose from a mistake, and that he had only ordered a gun to be fired in case the ship should approach too near to the batteries, as a signal for her to keep off. He moreover dismissed from office the Minister of Marine, on whom the responsibility of the act rested; in so doing however, he only advanced one of his own ends, for the vacancy was immediately filled by the appointment of his son-in-law Ibrahim Kara-Dengirzli, the nephew of the Aga Ibrahim.