ON July 25, 1785, while the schooner Maria, Captain Isaac Stevens, of Boston, was sailing past Cape St. Vincent, on the southwest corner of Spain, she was captured by an armed ship from Algiers, and carried to that port. Five days later the ship Dauphin, Captain Richard O'Brien, of Philadelphia, when fifty leagues west of Lisbon, suffered a similar fate. These vessels with their cargoes were confiscated, and the crews, numbering twenty-one men all told, were sold into slavery.
In connection with these facts consider a quotation from Lord Sheffield's Observations on the Commerce of the United States, published in 1784;—
"It is not probable that the American States will have a very free trade in the Mediterranean; it will not be the interest of any of the great maritime powers to protect them from the Barbary states. They cannot protect themselves from the latter; they cannot pretend to a navy."
It will now be instructive to recall a letter written by Edward Church, American consul at Lisbon, on October 12, 1793, in regard to the Algerine pirates. Portugal had been protecting her trade from the Algerines by means of war-ships, and had incidentally afforded convoy to such American merchantmen as needed it in those waters. Having learned that a number of Algerine corsairs had gone cruising in the Atlantic, Consul Church went to the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs to learn why the Portuguese war-ships had allowed them to leave the Mediterranean. The minister replied that Charles Logie, British consul at Algiers, acting under orders from the British government, had concluded a treaty of peace between Algiers and Portugal. Portugal, he said, had not authorized such a treaty, nor had she been consulted as to the terms. The British government had guaranteed the execution of the treaty, and the payment of the tribute that it called for, however, and with the British to aid them the pirates had gone forth to prey on commerce. Church, with more attention to accuracy than diplomatic language, termed the arrangement thus made a "hellish conspiracy" against American shipping.
A brief account of the Algerine pirates will now prove interesting. For time out of mind the people of the north coast of Africa lived by piracy, but it was not until the seafaring outlaws of Europe taught them to build and handle large ships that they became really menacing to commerce. While the English were fighting the Dutch in the middle of the seventeenth century, they were obliged to send Blake with twenty-five well-armed ships to overawe these pirates. In 1672 another squadron was sent for the same purpose. These two squadrons proved that it was easy and inexpensive to crush the power of the pirates; but instead of continuing to use their navy to protect their merchantmen, the British made no further attacks upon the pirates until 1816. Indeed, instead of crushing their power, the British government adopted the policy of adding to their means of destroying commerce. And in this policy several European powers soon joined.
Secretary of State Jefferson, in a report on "Mediterranean Trade," dated December 30, 1790, said that Spain paid "from three to five million dollars to Algiers" in one lump to induce the Dey to make "peace." France in 1788 had paid an unknown sum in hand, and had since paid an annual subsidy of $100,000 for immunity from attack. Great Britain paid an annual subsidy of 60,000 guineas to the four Barbary powers. Portugal alone of the European maritime powers used her fleet to protect her trade. In addition to the regular subsidies, the powers named made presents to the Barbary chiefs, and these presents included usually, if not always, armed ships and other war material.
The reason for paying subsidies instead of fighting is most interesting. It was done to encourage the pirates to ravage the shipping belonging to the rivals of the subsidy payers.
In 1793 England was at war with France. America was the leading neutral maritime nation. The British statesmen saw that the American shipping would secure much of the trade in the Mediterranean which English ships had been doing, unless checked promptly by some extraordinary means, and it was to administer this check that the pirates were loosed upon the Atlantic.
The injury done to our shipping in the raid mentioned above was insignificant, save only as the story gives emphasis to the other facts given—facts which show the state of civilization among the most enlightened nations of Europe. The state of American civilization, at the time, is shown by the treaty made with the pirates, under which we agreed to pay them tribute; for it was tribute and not subsidy as in our case. We paid it in war material, too, as shown by the following extract from the Life of General William Eaton, who, in 1798, was American consul at Tunis:—
"On the 22d of December Mr. Eaton ... went on board the U. S. brig Sophia, Capt. Henry Geddes, commander, bound to Algiers; in company with the Hero, a ship of 350 tons burden, loaded with naval stores for the Dey of Algiers; the Hassan Bashaw, an armed brig of 275 tons, mounting eight 6-pounders, destined to Algiers; the Skjoldabrand, a schooner of 250 tons, 16 double fortified 4-pounders, destined to Algiers; and the La Eisha, of 150 tons, 14 4-pounders, also destined to Algiers. All these vessels excepting the Sophia were to be delivered to the Dey of Algiers, for arrearages of stipulation and present dues."