To attempt to trace in detail the relations of the Pashas, Deys, and Beys of the three Barbary States, and the Sherīfs of Morocco, with the various European Powers, would be a task at once difficult and wearisome. Those with England will be quite sufficient for the purpose, and here, in regard to Algiers, we have the advantage of following the researches of the Agent and Consul-General there, Sir R. Lambert Playfair, who in his _Scourge of Christendom_,[81] has set forth the principal incidents of British relations with the Dey in great detail, and has authenticated his statements by references to official documents of unimpeachable veracity. The facts which he brings to light in a volume of over three hundred pages can here of course be but slightly touched upon, but the reader may turn to his interesting narrative for such more particular information as space excludes from these pages. The general results arrived at from a study of Sir Lambert Playfair's researches are painful to English self-respect. It is possible that our consuls were not always wisely chosen, and it was a vital defect in our early consular system that our agents were allowed to trade. Mercantile interests, especially in a Corsair state, are likely to clash with the duties of a consul. Some consuls, moreover, were clearly unfitted for their posts. Of one it is recorded that he drank to excess; another is described as "a litigious limb of the law, who values himself upon having practised his talents in that happy occupation with success, against every man that business or occasion gave him dealings with;" a third is represented as "sitting on his bed, with his sword and a brace of pistols at his side, calling for a clergyman to give him the Sacraments that he may die contented." Still, in the long list of consuls, the majority were honourable, upright men, devoted to their country, and anxious to uphold her interests and rights. How were they rewarded? If their own government resented a single act of the ferocious monster they called the Dey--who was any common Janissary chosen by his comrades[82]--the consul went in fear of his life, nay, sometimes was positively murdered. If he was a strong-minded, courageous man, and refused to stoop to the degradation which was expected of him at the Dey's palace, he could not reckon on support at home; he might be recalled, or his judgment reversed, or he might even pull down the consular flag only to see it run up again by a more temporising successor, appointed by a government which had already endorsed his own resistance. He might generously become surety for thousands of pounds of ransoms for English captives, and never receive back a penny from home. Whatever happened, the consul was held responsible by the Algerines, and on the arrival of adverse news a threatening crowd would surround his house. Sometimes the consul and every Englishman in Algiers would be seized and thrown into prison, and their effects ransacked, and never a