President's orders were to act only on the defensive, the crew
of the Enterprise dismantled the captured vessel and let her go.
Would Congress, asked the President, take under consideration the
advisability of placing our forces on an equality with those of
our adversaries? Neither the President nor his Secretary of the
Treasury seems to have been aware that this single cloud on the
horizon portended a storm of long duration. Yet within a year it
became necessary to delay further reductions in the naval
establishment and to impose new taxes to meet the very
contingency which the peace-loving President declared most
remote. Moreover, the very frigates which he had proposed to lay
up in the eastern branch of the Potomac were manned and
dispatched to the Mediterranean to bring the Corsairs to terms.



CHAPTER III. THE CORSAIRS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

Shortly after Jefferson's inauguration a visitor presented
himself at the Executive Mansion with disquieting news from the
Mediterranean. Captain William Bainbridge of the frigate George
Washington had just returned from a disagreeable mission. He had
been commissioned to carry to the Dey of Algiers the annual
tribute which the United States had contracted to pay. It
appeared that while the frigate lay at anchor under the shore
batteries off Algiers, the Dey attempted to requisition her to
carry his ambassador and some Turkish passengers to
Constantinople. Bainbridge, who felt justly humiliated by his
mission, wrathfully refused. An American frigate do errands for
this insignificant pirate? He thought not! The Dey pointed to his