771. BARBARY STATES, Weakness of.—
These pirates are contemptibly weak.
Morocco, who has just dared to commit an outrage
on us, owns only four or five frigates of
18 or 20 guns. There is not a port in their
country which has more than 13 feet of water.
Tunis is not quite so strong (having three or
four frigates only, small and worthless); is
more mercantile than predatory, and would
easily be led to treat either by money or
fear. Tripoli has one frigate only. Algiers
alone possesses any power, and they are
brave. As far as I have been able to discover,
she possesses about sixteen vessels, from 22 up
to 52 guns; but the vessels of all these powers
are wretched in the last degree, being mostly
built of the discordant pieces of other vessels
which they take and pull asunder; their cordage
and sails are of the same kind, taken from
vessels of different sizes and powers, seldom
any two guns of the same bore and all of them
light.—
To James Monroe.
Ford ed., iv, 31.
(P.
1785)
See Morocco, Tripoli and Tunis.
