Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/126

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106
DRAMATIC MOMENTS

not fight, it could not pay any such sum as this. But if this blackmail was bad, worse was to come.

In the following July the long-suffering Dey sent forth eight sails through the Strait of Gibraltar on a merry hunt. These fell in with the schooner Maria, of Boston. Scimitar in hand the buccaneers swarmed over the rail and had Isaac Stephens, captain, Alex Forsythe, mate, and six Gloucester seamen tied hand and foot without time to struggle. The good ship Dauphin, of Philadelphia, fell foul of the outfit on the way home. The delighted Corsair captain confiscated the Yankee boats and the cargoes and packed the twenty-one sailors as slaves into the interior—and waited.

It is disgusting to relate that instead of a broadside of round shot, after so long a time there turned up among the minarets two "ambassadors" sent by Adams from London, Messrs. Lamb and Randall. The old pirate received them with great ceremony and marked