May 7th, 1800. After the storm was directed from the United States, it lowered over Naples-passed over Spain, and broke upon Denmark. * * * * In October 1797, the Bey addressed a letter to the king of Deumark, containing the following modest article. "On account of the long friendship which has subsisted between us, I take the liberty to give you a commission for sundry articles of naval and military stores, as per note subjoined, which I find indispensable, to assist me in certain public works now in operation. I give you six months to answer this letter, and one year to forward the commission : and, remember, if we do not receive the answer and the articles in the time limited, we know what steps to take." The king of Denmark did not give this commission the prompt attention it required. He however ordered out a ship, laden with timber, which arrived in · the summer of 1798; but it was so far short of the Bey's expectations, that he rejected the compliment altogether, even after it was unladen, and the articles have since lain, in a perishing condition, exposed to the open elements. The projects the Bey has been meditating, and which were actually on the point of execution, against Americans, directed his thoughts from the Danes. The arrival of the HERO filled his eye (never were such naval stores seen in Tunis.) The Neapolitan humility suspended his operations against that kingdom; Spain, about the same time sent him a douceur, and a number of ship builders to work in his dock yard at Porto Farina and the cruisers are consequently let loose upon Denmark. Here is a demonstration of two facts I have before stated that the cruisers cannot be restrained; and that treaties are dead languages here. Hence also may be infered, that my apprehensions have been none too lively. If the Hero had miscarried, no document could have saved us until the arrival of the spring shipments. The stars are beginning to acquire gravity here. I wish they may be permited to receive some lustre. It is not enough to tell that we are the descendants of the English conviction of some kind, if it be on ly the construction of a ship, should be added, that we are worthy of such ancestors. Notwithstanding our present flattering prospect of our affairs, I am still of opinion it would be well to show one or two of our best frigates here. It would be better if they should have one or more Frenchmen in tow. This display would at least convince the cruisers of our ability to meet them on their own ground; and it would confirm what I have uniformly declared at court, and what has been as uniformly denied by Famin, that it is not our weakness but our love of peace which induces the concessions we make. It cannot be attended with great extraordinary expence, because, it is presumed, the government will not risque the residue of the regalia, upon which so much depends, to the laws of war, I say laws of war, because, if at peace ourselves with France, Tunis is not; though it is a truth beyond a doubt that these terrible pirates dare not cruise against the terrible republic. If the residue come forward safely and seasonably, and the jewels, for which I have commissioned, we may calculate on twenty or thirty years tranquility here. A trifling defect would be made a pretext for a rupture, if no impressions of fear be made with all our evidence of generosity. * * * * May 10th. Last evening his Britanic Majesty's Consul General, Peckins Magra, Esq. at the Ameri can house, desired me to consent that he might mention me to the Duke of Portland as charge des af fairs of the British nation in case of accident which should render the office vacant. Major Magra's declining state of health, probably, induced this step. I consented, on condition that the confidence should be reciprocal between us. To this he agreed. I hope the relation of the two governments is such as to admit the propriety of the measure. This gentleman has been between thirty and forty years in the king's service, twelve in this regency; a man of extensive information and strict good faith. He has an English head, and an American heart. May 11th, 1800. Yesterday morning a Danish merchantman from Leghorn, unapprised and unsuspicious of danger, anchored at the Goulette. No sooner was the flag distinguished, than Famin wrote express to Bardo, (the palace) that a Danish ship had entered. In consequence of this early information, the Bey caused to be arrested, the Master and people, before they could weigh anchor and escape. Same day a Danish ship, laden with coffee, sugar and other West India produce, was sent into Biserte. Last evening his Danish Majesty's Consul General, Lewis Hammekin, Esq. at the American house, intimated his expectation of being compelled, by imperious circumstances, to leave the kingdom; and desired me, in such case, to take charge of the affairs of the Danish nation here. To this I consented, so far as to be the medium of communication for his court. I know no contrasting interests between the two courts which render this compliance improper. P. S. 12th May. At Bardo, to day, the demand of a cruiser was revived; and a fixed time insisted on for the arrival of the residue of the regalia. The former was rejected without debate; the latter suspended on hope. To Mr. PICKERING. June 24th, 1800. It is doubtless, and with reason, considered as whimsical as absurd, that Barbary Consuls, boys whose minds have been formed in camps and prisons, should intrude counsel to men full of years and wisdom. Facts demonstrate the position. But, if it be admitted that moderate capacities, on the spot, may discover projects, plots and intrigues, hidden by intermediate space from the eye of keen penetration; and if it be admitted that these discoveries may excite a restlessness as much the emotion of patriotism as presumption, it may be also hoped that even our clamor as well as importunity, may be viewed with an eye of grace, at the seat of government. It is presumed, Volney's Travels in Egypt and Assyria have been read. The general character there given the Turks, exactly fit them here, with this addition, that the insolence of the Pachas of the Barbary Regencies, are in an increased ratio to their independence on the Porte. Ignorance, exalted to a station of receiving tribute from every slave below him, from the wandering Beduoin to the sedentary Monarch of Spain, feels none of those manly restraints of justice, which the balance and the sword are calculated to inspire between beings mutually afraid of each other. Refusal of a favor produces in him the same effect as in an ungoverned brat of an indulgent mother: he will tear the breasts which have nursed him. This figure is far fetched; it is nevertheless in point; correction is as feasible in one case as the other; and correction alone will reduce the churl to decency. The Danes are running on a lee shore here. They have gone aground at Algiers and Tripoli; and Sweden keeps company. The United States have been beating off and on, ever since their treaty of amity with France; and the harbor of safety seems as distant as at the moment of their departure from their own-dignity! Can avarice and the grave be satisfied? Give! Give ! is the eternal cry! Every breeze will waft it to America; and as often as it is not responded with accord will be brandished over our heads the ottagan of a contemptible pi rate! "We know what steps to take," says the General* of 16,000 ragged, undisciplined Turks to a king of Denmark! and "we know what steps to take,' says the Captaint of an undisciplined squad of sunburnt cavalry, to the government of the United States! Denmark, like a proverbial domestic bird of our poultry yards, spreads his feathers, swells the magnitude of his terrors, swaggers and yields. America yields implicitly! If there were a rational hope that these indignities would of themselves come to a crisis, they might be more tolerable: but if it be just to reason from analogy, this hope is abortive. When has a tyrant ever been known to lift his foot from the neck of a voluntary slave? Where is the evidence of Barbary's being satisfied with the generosity of its friends? Does Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, exhibit it? Will the United States ever exhibit it? Never, so long as they have powder to give, and want the energy to burn it! "Do you not give money to Algiers ?" says the Organ of a nation, to an American Envoy! "Are you not tributary to the pitiful sandbank of Tripoli ?" says the world: and the answer is affirmative without a blush! Habit reconciles mankind to every thing, even humiliation; and custom veils disgrace. But what would the world say if Rhodeisland should arm two old merchantmen; put an Irish renegade in one, and a Methodist preacher in the other, and send them to demand a tribute of the Grand Signior? The idea is rediculous; but only so because novel: 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 !" (One old clump from Boston, and a polacre or two from some other complaisant christian capitals,) and that my yankee adventurers should succeed, would not be more unaccountable, than that these wretched hordes of sea robbers should have so gotten the ascendancy of the enterprizing world! Bashaw of Tunis. + Bashaw of Tripoli. |