One or two successful discoveries of this kind made the hungry pirates believe that the passport of every vessel they met with, even those of Gibraltar, were false in themselves, and issued to protect their enemies. Violent commotions were excited amongst the soldiery, abetted under hand by several of the neutral consuls there. By every occasion I had wrote home, but in vain, and the Dey could never be persuaded of this, as no answer arrived. Government was occupied with winding up matters at the end of a war, and this neglect of my letters often brought me into great danger. At last a temporary remedy was found, whether it originated from home, or whether it was invented by the governor of Mahon and Gibraltar, was never communicated to me, but a surer and more effectual way of having all the nation at Algiers massacred could certainly not have been hit upon. Square pieces of common paper, about the size of a quarter-sheet, were sealed with the arms of the governor of Mahon, sometimes with red, sometimes with black wax, as the family circumstances of that officer required. These were signed by his signature, countersigned by that of his secretary, and contained nothing more than a bare and simple declaration, that the vessel, the bearer of it, was British property. These papers were called _Passavants_. The cruiser, uninstructed in this when he boarded a vessel, asked for his Mediterranean pass. The mailer answered, He had none, he had only a passavant, and shewed the paper, which having no check, the cruiser brought him and his vessel as a good prize into Algiers. Upon my claiming them, as was my duty, I was immediately called before the Dey and divan, and had it not been from personal regard the Turks always shewed me, I should not have escaped the insults of the soldiery in my way to the palace. The Dey asked me, upon my word as a Christian and an Englishman, whether these written passes were according to treaty, or whether the word _passavant_ was to be found in any of our treaties with the Moorish regencies? All equivocation was useless. I answered, That these passes were not according to treaty; that the word _passavant_ was not in any treaty I knew of with any of the Barbary states; that it was a measure necessity had created, by Minorca’s falling into the hands of the French, which had never before been the case, but that the remedy would be found as soon as the greater business of settling the general peace gave the British ministry time to breathe. Upon this the Dey, holding several _passavants_ in his hand, answered, with great emotion, in these memorable terms, “The British government know that we can neither read nor write, no not even our own language; we are ignorant soldiers and sailors, robbers if you will, though we do not wish to rob you; but war is our trade, and we live by that only. Tell me how my cruisers are to know that all these different writings and seals are