tied by his orders. Mr. Jefferson's heart was not in violent methods of
dealing with his fellow-men in Barbary. He thought our objects might be
accomplished by a display of force better and more cheaply than by
active measures. A dislike of naval war and of public expenditure[2]
made his constitutional conscience, always tender, very sensitive on
this question of a cruise against Tripoli. Fearful lest our young
sailors should go too far, he instructed the Commodore not to overstep
the strict line of defence. Hence, when Sterret, in the Enterprise,
captured a Tripolitan schooner, after a brisk engagement, he disarmed
and dismantled her, and left her, with the survivors of her crew on
board, to make the best of their way home again. Laymen must have found
it difficult, even in 1801, to discover the principle of this delicate
distinction between killing and taking prisoners; but it was "according
to orders." Commodore Dale returned home at the end of the year, having
gathered few African laurels; Commodore Morris came out the next season
with a larger fleet, and gathered none at all.

There is no better established rule, in commencing hostilities, public
or private, than this: If you strike at all, strike with all your might.
Half-measures not only irritate, they encourage. When the Bey of Tunis
perceived that Dale did little and Morris less, he thought he had
measured exactly the strength of the United States navy, and had no
reason to feel afraid of it. His wants again became clamorous, and his
tone menacing. The jewels arrived from England in the Constellation, but
did not mollify him.

"Now," said he, "I must have a thirty-six-gun frigate, like the one you
sent to the Dey of Algiers."

Eaton protested that there was no frigate in the treaty, and that we