of Bizerte. In early 1655, an English fleet under Robert Blake blockaded nine warships in Porto Farina's harbor in order to pressure the dey Mustafa Laz to free Englishmen held as slaves and to provide compensation for English ships recently seized by local pirates. The dey offered to provide a new treaty going forward but refused emancipation or compensation for people and ships already taken. Any such action, he felt, should begin with the English, one of whose captains had recently sold a company of Tunisian troops as galley slaves to the Knights of Malta instead of transporting them to Smyrna (present-day Izmir) as arranged. When Blake maintained his blockade, the dey had his warships' rigging removed, the town's fortifications strengthened, and its garrison increased. On April 14, 1655, Blake finally attacked. Dividing his fleet to attack the warships and the 20-gun fort simultaneously, he had his men storm and burn the warships in turn before declaring victory and leaving the harbor. Because his sustained assault was able to silence the town's defenses entirely, the engagement is celebrated as the first successful naval attack on shore-based fortifications. The port and its defenses were then quickly rebuilt. The Ottoman Empire erected Borj el-Loutani as a fort in 1659; Fort Nadur and the "Genovese fort" were also raised around the same time. Borj el-Loutani was later used as an artillery base and as a prison; the others gradually fell into disrepair. The town began to be used by British and Maltese privateers, as well as Turkish and local corsairs. Muhammad Talak and Ali Bey were arrested and strangled in Porto Farina in 1682 as part of the chaotic struggles of the later Muradid dynasty. Shortly afterward, three ships arriving from Turkey proper infected the town with the plague. When Husain I took advantage of Ibrahim Sharif's Algerian imprisonment to usurp control of Tunisia in 1705, the Algerians released Sharif to return home. Husain, intent upon consolidating his power, had Sharif killed en route at Porto Farina. The former dey's tomb lies beside one of the town's forts. Husain established an arsenal at Porto Farina two years later. Locals were calling the town Ghar el-Melh (recorded by a visiting Frenchman as "Gramela") by 1724. French annoyance at piracy in the area prompted to order an attack in 1770 by Admiral de Broves, commanding a squadron consisting of 2 warships (bearing 74 and 50