From this time on we had no incidents of consequence until we got within a hundred miles of the coast as we headed for the Straits of Gibraltar. Then we had an incident with some excitement in it.
We were sailing along nicely one morning, about eight bells, when a sail was discovered dead ahead. The Warwick was off on our weather beam about two miles, and a little astern. The strange sail was heading directly for us, and in a little while we made her out to be a Moorish or Algerine galiot. She was laying her course so straight for us that our captain felt sure she meant business and would capture us if she could.
At that time the Algerine corsairs were scouring the Mediterranean and the portion of the Atlantic just outside the Straits of Gibraltar, and were ready to capture anything. For hundreds of years they had been carrying on their piracy, capturing the vessels of every nation of Europe, confiscating the ships and their cargo, and selling the ship's crew into slavery. Sometimes the crew were ransomed, if they happened to have wealthy friends at home, and occasionally their ransoms were bought by wholesale by the nations to whom they belonged. Now and then nations made treaties with the pirates, paying them a stipulated sum each year to let their commerce alone; and payments were partially in cash and partially in guns, ammunition, naval stores, etc., the kind of goods that were required to keep up the piratical operations.
When the United States came into existence as a nation and its commerce was carried to the Mediterranean Sea, the Deys of Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and the other states of the Barbary Coast rejoiced to think they had a new country against which they could press their depredations. American ships fell into their hands very early in our national history, and President Washington called the attention of the national government to these piracies as early as 1790.
In an able report, Secretary Jefferson laid before Congress important details touching the position of American interests in that part of the globe. Little could be done, however, as the Americans had no navy, and the commerce of the United States in the Mediterranean was for a long time dependent upon the Portuguese fleet for protection. Portugal was at war with Algiers for several years, and ships of other nations sought the protection of her flag, and were thereby saved from capture.