University of Virginia Library

768. BARBARY STATES, Tribute to.—[further continued].

Such [European] powers
as should refuse [to join a confederation to
suppress the Barbary piracies] would give us a
just right to turn pirates also on their West
India trade, and to require an annual tribute
which might reimburse what we may be obliged
to pay to obtain a safe navigation in their seas.—
To James Monroe. Ford ed., iv, 33.
(P. 1785)