and contempt stimulates cupidity. Qui se fait brebis, le loup le mange.  What are you afraid of?  The naval strength of the Regencies amounts to nothing.  If, instead of sending a sloop with presents to Tunis, you will consign to me a transport with a thousand trusty marines, well officered, under convoy of a forty-four-gun frigate, I pledge myself to surprise Porto Farina and destroy the Bey’s arsenal.  As to Tripoli, two frigates and four gun-boats would bring the Pacha to terms.  But if you yield to his new demands, you must make provision to pay Tunis double the amount, and Algiers in proportion.  Then, consider how shameful is your position, if you submit.  ‘Tributary to the pitiful sand-bank of Tripoli?’ says the world; and the answer is affirmative, without a blush.  Habit reconciles mankind to everything, even humiliation, and custom veils disgrace.  But what would the world say, if Rhode Island should arm two old merchantmen, put an Irish renegade into one and a Methodist preacher in another, and send them to demand a tribute of the Grand Seignior?  The idea is ridiculous; but it is exactly as consistent as that Tripoli should say to the American nation,—­’Give me tribute, or tremble under the chastisement of my navy!’”

This was sharp language for a Consul to hold to a Secretary of State; but it was as meekly borne as the other indignities which came from Barbary.

An occurrence in Algiers completes the picture of “Americans in the Mediterranean” in the year 1800.  In October, the United States ship Washington, Captain Bainbridge, lay in that port, about to sail for home.  The Dey sent for Consul O’Brien, and laid this alternative before him:  either the Washington should take the Algerine Ambassador to Constantinople, or he, the Dey, would no longer hold to his friendship with the United States.  O’Brien expostulated warmly, but in vain.  He thought it his duty to submit.  The Ambassador, his suite, amounting to two hundred persons, their luggage and stores, horses, sheep, and horned cattle, and their presents to the Sultan, of lions, tigers, and antelopes, were sent on board.  The Algerine flag was hoisted at the main, saluted with seven guns, and the United States ship Washington weighed anchor for Constantinople.

Eaton’s rage boiled over when he heard of this freak of the Dey.  He wrote to O’Brien,—­“I frankly own, I would have lost the peace, and been myself impaled, rather than have yielded this concession.  Will nothing rouse my country?"[1]

When the news reached America, Mr. Jefferson was President.  He was not roused.  He regretted the affair; but hoped that time, and a more correct estimate of interest, would produce justice in the Dey’s mind; and he seemed to believe that the majesty of pure reason, more potent than the music of Orpheus,

     “Dictas ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque
     leones,”