Now was the time to give the Turks their lesson; but Dale’s hands were 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 would fight rather than yield to such extortion.

The Prime Minister blew a cloud from his pipe.  “We find it all puff; we see how you carry on the war with Tripoli.”

“But are you not ashamed to make this demand, when you have just received these valuable jewels?”

“Not at all.  We expected the full payment of peace stipulations in a year.  You came out with nothing, and three years have elapsed since you settled the treaty.  We have waited all this time, but you have made us no consideration for this forbearance.  Nor have we as yet received any evidence of the veritable friendship of the Prince of America, notwithstanding the repeated intimations we have given him that such an expression of his sincerity would be agreeable to us.  His Excellency, my master, is a man of great forbearance; but he knows what steps to take with nations who exhaust his patience with illusive expressions of friendship.”

Eaton answered, angrily, that the Bey might write himself to the President, if he wanted a frigate.  For his part, he would never transmit so outrageous a demand.  “Then,” retorted the Bey, “I will send you home, and the letter with you.”