s well as for things that he did. It was due to him that
the administration was an economical one, but it was through Mr.
Gallatin's skillful management of the finances that the old public debt
was in process of speedy extinction. Occasional impeachments enlivened
the proceedings of Congress, which otherwise were as harmless as they
were dull. Jefferson was never so much out of his proper element as in
war, yet a successful one was carried on, during his first term, with
the Barbary States which put an end for many years to the exactions and
outrages which had long been needlessly submitted to. It was a war,
however, of only a few naval vessels in the hands of such energetic and
brave men, destined to become famous in later years, as Bainbridge,
Decatur, Preble, and Barron; and to send off the expedition was about
all the government had to do with it. It was easy to keep clear of
"entangling alliances," or entanglements of any sort with European
powers, so long as they left the commerce of the United States to pursue
its peaceful and profitable course without molestation. This both
England and France did for several years, and there fell, in
consequence, an immense carrying trade into the hands of American
merchants, which brought prosperity to the whole country such as was
never known before, and was not known again, after it was lost, for near
a quarter of a century. All these things made Mr. Jefferson acceptable
to the people as almost a heaven-appointed President. If, as John
Quincy Adams thought, Fortune delighted to beam upon him with her
sunniest smiles, he knew, at least, how best to take advantage of them.
While they lasted, his secretary of state sat in their light and warmth,
quietly and contentedly busy and in the diligent and faithful discharge
of official duty, which could not in those years of prosperous
tranquillity be over-burdensome.

CHAPTER XVII

THE EMBARGO

Almost at the beginning of his second term, Jefferson found himself in
troubled waters, as the United States was drawn slowly but surely into
the vortex of European war. The carrying trade at home and abroad had
fallen very much into the hands of Americans, and this became the root
of bitterness. The tonnage of their vessels employed in foreign trade
and entered at the custom-houses of the United States was equal to
nearly four fifths of the tonnage of British vessels engaged in the same
traffic and entered at home. But there was this