their friendship expensive. Peace with Algiers in 1786 was reported to have cost Spain upwards of three million dollars, while the annual presents of Great Britain to the four states were valued at nearly three hundred thousand.
At the outbreak of the Revolution it was estimated that one-sixth of the wheat and flour exported from the United States, and one-fourth of their dried and pickled fish, and a quantity of rice found their best market in the ports of the Mediterranean. In this commerce, which had grown up under the protection of the British flag, there were employed from eighty to a hundred ships, manned by twelve hundred seamen. Early in the war it was entirely abandoned, and its loss was severely felt. In the plan of a treaty furnished to Franklin and his colleagues the Continental Congress, accommodating its demands to its wishes, proposed that France should take the place of Great Britain as the protector of American vessels; but the king of France went no further than to agree to lend his good offices. During the Revolution the Mediterranean commerce therefore remained in abeyance; but on May 12, 1784, Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson were commissioned to treat with the Barbary powers, and on the 11th of the ensuing March they were authorized to send agents to those countries to negotiate. The government acted none too soon. Before an agent was appointed to Morocco an American vessel was captured by a cruiser of that state. The emperor, however, exhibited much mildness. On the friendly interposition of Spain he restored the vessel and cargo and released the crew; and in January, 1787, he concluded a liberal treaty, at a cost to the United States of less than ten thousand dollars.
The other powers proved to be less tractable, and especially troublesome was the Dey of Algiers, by whose activities the revival of American commerce with the Mediterranean was for a time effectually prevented. On July 25, 1785, the schooner Maria of Boston was captured off Cape St. Vincent by an Algerine cruiser, and five days later the ship Dauphin of Philadelphia was taken. The vessels and their cargoes were carried to Algiers, and all on board, embracing twenty-one persons, were, according to custom, consigned to slavery till they should be ransomed. A new difficulty was thus created. When Congress issued its commission to Adams and his associates there were thousands of captives in Barbary; but as there were no Americans among them the question of ransom was not considered, and the whole expense of the negotiations was limited to eighty thousand dollars. For the liberation of the twenty-one Americans subsequently captured Algiers demanded two-thirds of that sum. For this emergency no provision had been made. When the new government under the Constitution was formed, Jefferson, as Secretary of State, declared the determination of the United States "to prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form," but a navy was wanting to make this declaration effective. By December, 1793, the number of American vessels captured by Algerine corsairs had risen to thirteen, and the number of captives to a hundred and nineteen. From Boston to Norfolk almost every seaport had furnished its victim. Nor was the Dey anxious to make peace with America. So successful had he been in bringing other governments to terms that he remained at war only with the United States and the Hanse Towns, and he began to grow apprehensive at the prospect of inactivity. "If," he exclaimed, "I were to make peace with everybody, what should I do with my corsairs? What should I do with my soldiers? They would take off my head for the want of other prizes, not being able to live upon their miserable allowance." Reasoning thus, he was not disposed to compromise; but the government of the United States, urged on by the cry of the captives, whom it was then unable to rescue by force, accepted his conditions, and by the expenditure of nearly eight hundred thousand dollars obtained the release of its citizens and purchased a peace, which was signed on September 5, 1795. A treaty with Tripoli followed on November 4, 1796, and with Tunis in August, 1797.
The respite thus secured was of brief duration. The Dey of Algiers received, under his treaty with the United States, an annual payment of twelve thousand sequins (equivalent to nearly twenty-two thousand dollars) in naval stores; but
