[alkaloid2]

Once again, the Europeans try to satiate, Americans have to take care of business. I found this while on a rant site...

[Piranha]

Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams, then America's minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress. As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, "I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro' the medium of war." Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates, Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe: "The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. . . . Every national citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both." "From what I learn from the temper of my countrymen and their tenaciousness of their money," Jefferson added in a December 26, 1786, letter to the president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles, "it will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them."

Jefferson's plan for an international coalition foundered on the shoals of indifference and a belief that it was cheaper to pay the tribute than fight a war.

Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.

[Skooz]

British naval power and the tribute or subsidies Britain paid to the piratical states protected American vessels and crews.

A very shrewed strategy by the Brits. They could have annihilated the Barbary pirates any time they wanted, but they chose to pay them tribute so the pirates would harass everyone else's shipping.

[skepsel]

Kipling: "The problem with paying the Danegeld is you never get rid of the Dane", like knuckling under to bullies or terrorists, it only invites more of the same.

[John Lenin]

Europeans can only find the will to kill each other. Amazing!

[syriacus]

I like this quote from Gawalt so much that I put it on my Free Republic home page

"Jefferson's plan for an international coalition [against the Barbary Pirates]

foundered on the shoals of [European] indifference

and a belief that it was cheaper to pay the tribute than fight a war."

Gerard W. Gawalt
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress