ts of our little navy in the Mediterranean at the
beginning of the present century form an interesting episode in American
history, but in the weak days of the Confederation our commerce was
plundered with impunity, and American citizens were seized and sold into
slavery in the markets of Algiers and Tripoli. One reason for the long
survival of this villainy was the low state of humanity among European
nations. An Englishman's sympathy was but feebly aroused by the plunder
of Frenchmen, and the bigoted Spaniard looked on with approval so long
as it was Protestants that were kidnapped and bastinadoed. In 1783 Lord
Sheffield published a pamphlet on the commerce of the United States, in
which he shamelessly declared that the Barbary pirates were really
useful to the great maritime powers, because they tended to keep the
weaker nations out of their share in the carrying trade. This, he
thought, was a valuable offset to the Empress Catherine's device of the
armed neutrality, whereby small nations were protected; and on this
wicked theory, as Franklin tells us, London merchants had been heard to
say that "if there were no Algiers, it would be worth England's while to
build one." It was largely because of such feelings that the great
states of Europe so long persisted in the craven policy of paying
blackmail to the robbers, instead of joining in a crusade and destroying
them.

[Sidenote: Tripoli demands blackmail, Feb. 1786.]

In 1786 Congress felt it necessary to take measures for protecting the
lives and liberties of American citizens. The person who called himself
"Emperor" of Morocco at that time was different from most of his kind.
He had a taste for reading, and had thus caught a glimmering of the
enlightened liberalism which French philosophers were preaching. He
wished to be thought a benevolent despot, and with Morocco, accordingly,
Congress succeeded in making a treaty. But nothing could be done with
the other pirate states without paying blackmail. Few scenes in our
history are more amusing, or more irritating, than the interview of John
Adams with an envoy from Tripoli in London. The oily-tongued barbarian,
with his soft voice and his bland smile, asseverating that his only
interest in life was to do good and make other people happy, stands out
in fine contrast with the blunt, straightforward, and truthful New
Englander; and their conversation reminds one of the old story of
Coeur-de-Lion with his curtal-axe and S