prizes to Americans in the late war with England. The Bey submitted, and
paid forty-six thousand dollars. He next appeared before Tripoli, where
he compelled the Pacha to pay twenty-six thousand dollars, and to
surrender ten captives, as an indemnity for some breaches of
international law. In fifty-four days he brought all Barbary to
submission. It is true, that, the next spring, the Dey of Algiers
declared this treaty null, and fell back upon the time-honored system of
annual tribute. But it was too late. Before it became necessary for
Decatur to pay him another visit, Lord Exmouth avenged the massacre of
the Neapolitan fishermen at Bona by completely destroying the fleet and
forts of Algiers, in a bombardment of seven hours. Christian prisoners
of every nation were liberated in all the Regencies, and the
slave-system, as applied to white men, finally abolished.

Preble, Eaton, and Decatur are our three distinguished African officers.
As Barron's squadron did not fire a shot into Tripoli, indeed never
showed itself before that port, to Eaton alone belongs the credit of
bringing the Pacha to terms which the American Commissioner was willing
to accept. The attack upon Derne was the feat of arms of the fourth
year, and finished the war.

Ours is not a new reading of the earlier relations of the United States
with the Barbary powers. The story can be found in the Collection of
State Papers, and more easily in the excellent little books of Messrs.
Sabine and Felton. But a "popular version" despises documents. Under
the pressure of melodrama, history will drift into Napoleon's "fable
agreed upon"; and if it be true, as Emerson says, that "no anchor, no
cable, no fence, avail to keep a fact a fact," it is not at all likely
that a paper in a monthly magazine will do it.