38, DECEMBER, 1860***


THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS

VOL. VI.--DECEMBER, 1860.--NO. XXXVIII







THE UNITED STATES AND THE BARBARY STATES.

Speak of the relations between the United States and the Barbary
Regencies at the beginning of the century, and most of our countrymen
will understand the War with Tripoli. Ask them about that Yankee crusade
against the Infidel, and you will find their knowledge of it limited to
Preble's attack. On this bright spot in the story the American mind is
fixed, regardless of the dish we were made to eat for five-and-twenty
years. There is also current a vague notion, which sometimes takes the
shape of an assertion, that we were the first nation who refused to pay
tribute to the Moorish pirates, and thus, established a now principle in
the maritime law of the Mediterranean. This, also, is a patriotic
delusion. The money question between the President and the Pacha was
simply one of amount. Our chief was willing to pay anything in reason;
but Tripolitan prices were too high, and could not be submitted to.