HISTORY. 111 ancient times the Numidians oc cupied Eastern and the Moors (or 1\lauri) West ern Algeria. Under the Romans the former pos sessed the province of Numidia, the latter that of Mauretania C4esariensis. Like all of northern Africa, these provinces enjoyed a high degree of prosperity and civilization under Roman sway, which was checked by the Vandal conquest about 440 A.D. The settlement of Arabic immigrants in the country after the Mohammedan conquest in the seventh and eighth centuries reared an Orien tal civilization in place of that of Rome, and Arab princes ruled the land until the rise of the Almohades (q.v.), who governed until 1209, after which the country was split up into small states. After the expulsion of the Moors from Spain in 1492, they settled in Algeria, and began that career of piracy against the Christian na tions which gave the country its evil reputation through many centuries. Hard pressed by Spain, one of the Algerine chiefs, the Emir of Idetidja, called in the Turkish corsair 'Honk, known as Barbarossa (q.v.), a renegade Greek, who turned against the Emir. and made himself Sultan of Algiers. lie was overthrown by the Spaniards, and beheaded in 1518: but his brother, Khair-ed-Din, also known to the Christians as Barbarossa, succeeded him, repulsed the Span lards with the assistance of a Turkish army, and established a military despot km sustained by piracy. which lasted until the Freneh conquest. Khair-ed-Din placed the country under the su zerainty of the Turkish Sultan. The Emperor Charles V., in 1541, led a great expedition against this daring corsair, but met with disaster. In 1600 the soldiery of Algiers obtained from the Turkish Sultan the privilege of setting up an officer, called the Dey, who was to share the authority with the Turkish Pasha. The history of Algiers in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen turies is a part of the history of the Barbary pirates, and of the fruitless efforts of the Ch•is tian powers to suppress them. Spanish, French, English, and Dutch were equally unsuccessful. Early in the eighteenth century the lley Ali Baba effected the virtual emancipation of the country from the dominion of Constantinople. He ban ished the Turkish Pasha, who had heretofore represented the Sultan, persuaded the latter to leave the power solely in his hands, and paid no more tribute.
Algeria was now ruled by a military oligarchy, at the head of which stood the Dey, and after him the powerful Turkish militia, recruited from Constantinople and Smyrna. Besides these, there was a divan or Council of State, chosen from the sixty principal civil functionaries. The
internal history of the country henceforth pre sents nothing but a bloody series of seraglio revolutions caused by the Janissaries, who per mitted few of the deys to die a natural death. Algeria continued to defy the greater Christian powers, and to enforce tribute from the lesser. A final Spanish attack, made on a formidable scale in 1775, was as unfortunate as those that had preceded. During the French Revolution and the time of the Empire, its aggressions were much diminished, in consequence of the presence of powerful fleets in the Mediterranean Sea; but at the close of the Napoleonic wars they were recommenced vigorously. The first substantial rebuke was administered by a small United States squadron, commanded by the younger De catur, which defeated an Algerine squadron off Cartagena, June 20, 1815, and compelled the Dey to acknowledge the inviolability of the American flag. About the same time, Admiral Lord Ex mouth, with a strong English and Dutch fleet, bombarded the capital, and compelled the Dey to conclude a treaty (1816), by which all Chris tian slaves were released without ransom, and a promise was given that both piracy and Chris tian slavery should cease forever. The pledges were not kept. As early as 1817. Algerine pirates ventured as far as the North Sea, and seized all ships in their course not belonging to any of the Powers that sent them tribute, as was done by Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Naples, Tuscany, and Sardinia. Treaties were of no avail. The Spanish, the Italian, and in particu lar the German shipping suffered severely. In 1817 the Dey Ali greatly curtailed the power of the Janissaries. His successor, Hussein, by his rash conduct, brought on the conflict with France, which broke the Moslem power in Al geria and made it a French province. In addi tion to the standing grievances against Algeria, there was a dispute regarding the payment of a debt incurred by the French Government to two Jewish merchants of Algiers at the time of the expedition to Egypt. This matter had long been pending in the French Courts, and as the Dey was a creditor of these Jews, he took a personal in terest in the matter, and wrote to the King of France, who did not reply. At a reception of the consuls, he taxed the French consul with this, and when the latter replied that "a King of France could not condescend to correspond with a Dey of Algiers," Hussein angrily struck him.