aladin with the blade that cut
the silken cushion. Adams felt sure that the fellow was either saint or
devil, but could not quite tell which. The envoy's love for mankind was
so great that he could not bear the thought of hostility between the
Americans and the Barbary States, and he suggested that everything might
be happily arranged for a million dollars or so. Adams thought it better
to fight than to pay tribute. It would be cheaper in the end, as well as
more manly. At the same time, it was better economy to pay a million
dollars at once than waste many times that sum in war risks and loss of
trade. But Congress could do neither one thing nor the other. It was too
poor to build a navy, and too poor to buy off the pirates; and so for
several years to come American ships were burned and American sailors
enslaved with utter impunity. With the memory of such wrongs deeply
graven in his heart, it was natural that John Adams, on becoming
president of the United States, should bend his energies toward founding
a strong American navy.

[Sidenote: Congress unable to protect American citizens.]

A government touches the lowest point of ignominy when it confesses its
inability to protect the lives and property of its citizens. A
government which has come to this has failed in discharging the primary
function of government, and forthwith ceases to have any reason for
existing. In March, 1786, Grayson wrote to Madison that several members
of Congress thought seriously of recommending a general convention for
remodelling the government. "I have not made up my mind," says Grayson,
"whether it would not be better to bear the ills we have than fly to
those we know not of. I am, however, in no doubt about the weakness of
the federal government. If it remains much longer in its present state
of imbecility, we shall be one of the most contemptible nations on the
face of the earth." "It is clear to me as A, B, C," said Washington,
"that an extension of federal powers would make us one of the most
happy, wealthy, respectable, and powerful nations that ever inhabited
the terrestrial globe. Without them we shall soon be everything which is
the direct reverse. I predict the worst consequences from a
half-starved, limping government, always moving upon crutches and
tottering at every step."

[Sidenote: Financial distress precipitates the political crisis.]

There is no telling how long the wretched state of things which followed
the Revo