As the British fleet sailed proudly from the harbor of Algiers, bearing its emancipated white slaves, and the express stipulation, that Christian slavery was abolished there forever, it left behind in bondage large numbers of blacks, distributed throughout all the Barbary States. Neglected thus by exclusive and unchristian Christendom, it is pleasant to know that their lot is not always unhappy. In Morocco, negroes are still detained as slaves; but the prejudice of color seems not to prevail there. They have been called "the grand cavaliers of this part of Barbary."[154] They often become the chief magistrates and rulers of cities.[155] They constituted the body guard of several of the emperors, and, on one occasion at least, exercised the prerogative of the Prætorian cohorts, in dethroning their master.[156] If negro slavery still exists in this state, it has little of the degradation connected with it elsewhere. Into Algiers France has already carried the benign principle of law--earlier recognized by her than by the English courts[157]--which secures freedom to all beneath its influence. And now we are cheered anew by the glad tidings recently received, that the Bey of Tunis, "for the glory of God, and to distinguish man from the brute creation," has decreed the total abolition of human slavery throughout his dominions. [Footnote 154: Braithwaite's Morocco, p. 350. See also Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 168.] [Footnote 155: Braithwaite, p. 222.] [Footnote 156: Ibid. p. 381.] [Footnote 157: Somersett's case, first declaring this principle, was decided in 1772. M. Schoell says, that "this fine maxim has always obtained" in France.--_Histoire Abrégée des Traités de Paix_, tom. xi. p. 178. By the royal ordinance 1318, it was declared, that "all men are born free (_francs_) by nature; and that the kingdom of the French (_Francs_) should be so in reality as in name." But this "fine maxim" was not recognized in France so completely as M. Schoell asserts. See Encyclopédie, (de Diderot et de D'Alembert,) art. _Esclavage_.]