eaty with
us: but not truly, that Congress has not attended to his advances, and
thereby disgusted him. It is long since they took measures to meet his
advances. But some unlucky incidents have delayed their effect. His
dispositions continue good. As a proof of this, he has lately released
freely, and clothed well, the crew of an American brig he took last
winter; the only vessel ever taken from us by any of the States of
Barbary. But what is the English of these good dispositions? Plainly
this; he is ready to receive us into the number of his tributaries. What
will be the amount of tribute, remains yet to be known, but it probably
will not be as small as you may have conjectured. It will surely be
more than a free people ought to pay to a power owning only four or five
frigates, under twenty-two guns: he has not a port into which a larger
vessel can enter. The Algerines possess fifteen or twenty frigates,
from that size up to fifty guns. Disinclination on their part has lately
broken off a treaty between Spain and them, whereon they were to have
received a million of dollars, besides great presents in naval stores.
What sum they intend we shall pay, I cannot say. Then follow Tunis and
Tripoli. You will probably find the tribute to all these powers make
such a proportion of the federal taxes, as that every man will feel them
sensibly, when he pays those taxes. The question is whether their peace
or war will be cheapest. But it is a question which should be addressed
to our honor, as well as our avarice. Nor does it respect us as to these
pirates only, but as to the nations of Europe. If we wish our commerce
to be free and uninsuked, we must let these nations see that we have an
energy which at present they disbelieve. The low opinion they entertain
of our powers, cannot fail to involve us soon in a naval war.

I shall send you with this, if I can., and if not, then by the first
good conveyance, the _Connoissance des Tems_ for the years 1786 and
1787, being all as yet published. You will find in these the tables for
the planet Herschel, as far as the observations, hitherto made, admit
them to be calculated. You will see, also, that Herschel was only the
first astronomer who discovered it to be a planet, and not the first who
saw it. Mayer saw it in the year 1756, and placed it in the catalogue of
his zodiacal stars, supposing it to be such. A Prussian astronomer, in
the year 1781, observed that the 964th star of Mayer's c