8592. TRIPOLI, Grounds for war.—
The
war with Tripoli stands on two grounds of fact.
1st. It is made known to us by our agents with
the three other Barbary States, that they only
wait to see the event of this, to shape their conduct
accordingly. If the war is ended by additional
tribute, they mean to offer us the same alternative.
2dly. If peace was made, we should
still, and shall ever, be obliged to keep a frigate
in the Mediterranean to overawe rupture, or
we must abandon that market. Our intention in
sending Morris with a respectable force, was
to try whether peace could be forced by a coercive
enterprise on their town. His inexecution
of orders baffled that effort. Having broke him,
we try the same experiment under a better commander.
If, in the course of the summer, they
cannot produce peace, we shall recall our force,
except one frigate and two small vessels, which
will keep up a perpetual blockade. Such a
blockade will cost us no more than a state of
peace, and will save us from increased tributes,
and the disgrace attached to them.—
To Judge Tyler. Washington ed. iv, 574.
(M.
March. 1805)
