The various states of Barbary, Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli, and Algeria, ruled by lawless potentates, then exacted tribute from other governments both great and small.
The Corsair fleets of infamous memory then threatened the maritime commerce of the world, respecting only the ships that sailed under the flags of tribute-paying nations.
Algeria was the most arrogant of all these iniquitous principalities. For two hundred years she was virtually mistress of the Mediterranean, meriting well the epithet, the "Scourge of Christendom." Europe shamefully acknowledged her supremacy and took no effective steps to crush the common enemy until the then young American republic, emerging victorious from the War of 1812, had expended a little of her surplus western energy in chastising the high-sea robbers and disproving their invincibility.
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NEARING THE STRAITS
