CHAPTER ison revived a usage exceedingly convenient, and ever since continued.

XVI.

1801.

Another change from the alarming monarchical style of the former administrations, announced also in the same letter, was the disuse of speeches and answers at the opening of the session, and the substitution of a written message, to be sent in manuscript and read by the clerk, to which no special answer would be expected; a change to which Jefferson was perhaps the more inclined, at least so the Federalists maliciously suggested, by reason of his tall, ungainly figure, comparing but ill with Washington's or Adams's, and his total destitution of gifts as a public speaker. The change thus introduced has not only been retained, but has been gradually copied in most of the states, being, perhaps, one cause of that intolerable prolixity into which executive communications have tended more and more to run.

But while thus giving up the forms, Jefferson clung with instinctive tenacity to the substance of power. A Nov. 5. circular addressed to his cabinet ministers, though filled with flattering declarations of "unlimited, unqualified, and unabated confidence," very plainly evinced that the new president had no intention to tolerate any of the pretensions set up by Adams's ministers, or to allow the government to be parceled out, as he expressed it, among four independent heads, drawing sometimes in opposite directions. Deferring for once to the example of Washington, he very properly claimed, since the people had imposed the responsibility upon him, the unrestrained right of final decision.

Though the late administrations had been forced into the purchase of treaties of peace with the Barbary powers mainly by the clamor of the opposition, who dreaded the expense of coercion, yet the large sum expended in

BARBARY STATES.

433

XVI.

presents (near two millions of dollars) had formed a fa- CHAPTER
vorite topic of electioneering declamation, more especial-
ly as it had not entirely answered its purpose. The 1801.
treaty with Tripoli, the last of the series, had been pur-
chased by the payment of a gross sum down. But with
this arrangement the Bey naturally grew dissatisfied
when he compared his case with that of Algiers; and on
various pretenses of quarrel, he threatened war against
the United States. The building of national ships had
first been commenced for the restraint of the Barbary
pirates; and one of Jefferson's first acts was to dispatch
Commodore Dale, with four out of the six vessels still
retained in commission, to watch the proceedings of the
Bey, and, if necessary, to repel hostilities.

The insolence of these piratical states, fostered by an
almost unaccountable submission to their pretensions by
the Christian nations of Europe, had been strikingly ex-
hibited in the conduct of the Dey of Algiers toward Cap- 1800.
tain Bainbridge, on his arrival there in the frigate George Sept.
Washington with the annual tribute. The frigate,.
which came to anchor under the guns of the castle, and
which could hardly attempt to depart without danger of
destruction, was pressed into the Dey's service for the
purpose of carrying presents and an embassador to Con-
stantinople, under threats, in case of refusal, of an im-
mediate renewal of hostilities against the United States.
To Bainbridge's remonstrances and those of the consul
O'Brien, the Dey replied, "You pay me tribute, by which
you become my slaves, and therefore I have a right to
order you as I think proper." All the tributary nations
of Europe submitted, so he added, to render him like serv-
ices. "I hope," wrote Bainbridge, in his account of this
matter to the Navy Department, "I shall never again.
be sent to Algiers with tribute, unless I am authorized

CHAPTER to deliver it from the mouth of our cannon."

XVI.

Under

the advice of O'Brien, and understanding that English, 1800. French, and Spanish ships of war had submitted to the same thing, Bainbridge at last yielded to the Dey's demands, and his ship was the first to display the American flag-though not under the most agreeable circumNov. 9. stances before the ancient city of Constantinople. The Turkish officers had never heard of the United States, but when, at length, they were made to understand that Bainbridge came from the New Western World which Columbus had discovered, he was received with great courtesy. Indeed, the sultan drew omens specially favorable to the future friendship of the two nations from the fact that the American flag was emblazoned with the stars and his with the crescent, indicative, as he imagined, of a certain similarity in their institutions. With the Capudan Pasha, the Turkish admiral, Bainbridge be1801. came a great favorite, and received from him a firman, Jan. 21. which, on his return to Algiers, protected him from any further insolences on the part of the Dey, and enabled him to render essential services to the French residents, exposed to great danger by a declaration of war by Algiers against France. The Pasha was anxious that an American embassador should be sent to Constantinople, and a treaty made; but the recall of Smith, the minister to Portugal, who held also a commission to treat with the Porte, prevented any thing being done.

July.

On arriving at Gibraltar, Dale found two Tripolitan cruisers lying there, on the watch for American vessels, the Bey having already declared war. These were blockaded by the Philadelphia frigate, while Bainbridge, who now commanded the Essex frigate, was employed in giving convoy to the American Mediterranean trade. Dale himself in the President, followed by the schooner Ex

XVI.

periment, sailed to cruise off Tripoli. On her passage CHAPTER thither the Experiment fell in with, and, after three hours' hard fighting, captured a Tripolitan cruiser of 1801. fourteen guns. The prize had twenty killed and thirty Aug. 6. wounded, while the Experiment lost not a man. As there was yet no formal declaration of war against Tripoli, the captured vessel was dismissed with the survivors of the crew, being first completely dismantled, her masts cut away, and her guns thrown overboard. The appearance of Dale's squadron in the Mediterranean was seasonable; for already Algiers and Tunis, as well as Tripoli, were pretending to additional presents.

The seventh Congress, on coming together, showed a Dec. 7. decided administration majority in both branches. The Senate stood eighteen administration members to fourteen Federalists; the House, thirty-six Federalists to sixty-nine for the administration. On the administration side in the Senate there were, of former members of note, Wilson Cary Nicholas and Baldwin; of new members, John Armstrong, of New York, the author of the Newburg letters, and brother-in-law of Chancellor Livingston, but who resigned his seat before the end of the session, and was succeeded by De Witt Clinton; Dr. Logan, of Pennsylvania; Sumter, of South Carolina; Jackson, of Georgia, an active member of the first and the third Congress, lately governor of that state, where he had been succeeded by Josiah Tatnall; and John Breckenridge, of Kentucky. On the Federal side were Chipman, of Vermont; Dwight Foster and Jonathan Mason, of Massachusetts, who had taken their seats during the last Congress as successors to Dexter and Goodhue; Tracy and Hillhouse, of Connecticut; Foster, of Rhode Island; Gouverneur Morris, of New York; Dayton, of New Jersey; Ross, of Pennsylvania; and Willes, of Delaware.

XVI.

CHAPTER Of the new members only three were Federalists, Samuel White, of Delaware, and James Sheafe and Simeon 1801. Olcott, of New Hampshire, in place of Livermore, who had resigned, and of Langdon, whose term had expired. Langdon had long been the only Republican senator for New England; but his single vote was now replaced by those of Bradley, of Vermont, and Ellery, of Rhode Island. In the House, on the administration side, there were, of former members, Varnum, of Massachusetts; Gregg, Smilie, and Leib, of Pennsylvania; Smith and Nicholson, of Maryland; Macon, of North Carolina; Giles, again re-elected after an interval of one Congress, and John Randolph, of Virginia. Among the new members on the same side were Dr. William Eustis, representing the Boston District, and Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, a better chemist than politician, from the city of New York. The Federalists had, of old members who had made themselves known, Griswold, Dana, Davenport, and John Cotton Smith, of Connecticut; Bayard, of Delaware; John Stanley, of North Carolina; and Rutledge and Thomas Lowndes, of South Carolina. Of the new members there were few on that side, and none of them distinguished. Thatcher, of Massachusetts, a member during the whole of the two preceding administrations, and remarkable for his zeal against slavery, had accepted a seat on the Massachusetts Supreme bench, where he found his late colleague Sewall, and was soon joined by Sedgwick. the members of former Congresses, Hartley, of Pennsyl vania, was lately dead; Peter Muhlenburg had received office as supervisor for Pennsylvania; John Nicholas had removed from Virginia to Western New York, and henceforth disappears from the political arena; Harper, the late Federal leader in the House, had married a daughter of John Carroll, of Carrollton, and had removed from South Carolina to Maryland.

Of