[5] While the play is not considered to have great literary merit, it is discussed for its complex mix of political agendas, which offer insight into its period of early US history.
Meanwhile, Ben Hassan lies to Rebecca that her ransom has not arrived and suggests she become another of his wives; she refuses, remaining steadfast to her values and her faith in her countrymen.
Fearing violence, Rebecca and Augustus flee to the garden while Ben Hassan disguises himself as a woman, his face concealed.
Rebecca returns and finds Ben Hassan's pocketbook with a small fortune in bills of exchange – including that of her own ransom – and rejoices that she can now free many slaves.
Exposed, Ben Hassan claims to be an old woman held many years in captivity, which Sebastian accepts and allows the dignity of replacing the veil.
The dey's palace is alerted due to Fetnah and Olivia's disappearances, and Muley's guards capture Constant's rescue party.
Sebastian would have Muley put in chains but Frederic refuses to enslave another, and Rebecca states that Christian law forbids slavery.
Henry and Olivia praise their native land, wishing it to spread liberty and prosperity to every nation through peace or through force.
These events begin in 1785 with the American merchant ships, the Maria and the Dauphin, which were captured along the North African coast by seamen from the Algerian province of the Ottoman Empire.
[6]: 1 The newly founded United States, severely lacking in its treasury and naval resources, denied ransom payment to the Dey of Algiers for the hostages who, in most cases, would have either died from the plague or would have remained in their captivity for over ten years.
Journalist William Cobbett (1763–1835) condemned the play, dismaying that so inspired, women might one day hold office in Congress.
She went so far as to address the women in the audiences at the end of this play's performances to ask for their opinions on the show, giving them a forum to voice themselves over men.
"...the sons and daughters of liberty [Americans], take justice, truth, and mercy, for their leaders, when they list under her glorious banners."
The genre is frequently evoked in calls to war, and the play shows the deep-seated desires for American imperialism in the Islamic world.
In the journal Common Place, Anne G. Myles compares the play's conclusion with US President George W. Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address:[7] Henry: where liberty has established her court–where the warlike Eagle extends his glittering pinions in the sunshine of prosperity.
[a] Myles notes that the rhetoric shows a shared dream across the breadth of US history, in which "the world will become an empire of liberty under the leadership of the United States".
[7] Myles states that the message of equality "never escapes or contradicts the play's imperialism", that flaunting the freedom of American women was—and remains—a means of claiming America's superiority over the Islamic world.
Though Algiers is transformed by the American plan, Gross feels there is a call for distinct national and racial boundaries which leaves Jews with no place to go.