On this bright spot in the story the American mind is
fixed, regardless of the dish we were made to eat for five-and-twenty
years. There is also current a vague notion, which sometimes takes the
shape of an assertion, that we were the first nation who refused to pay
tribute to the Moorish pirates, and thus, established a now principle in
the maritime law of the Mediterranean. This, also, is a patriotic
delusion. The money question between the President and the Pacha was
simply one of amount. Our chief was willing to pay anything in reason;
but Tripolitan prices were too high, and could not be submitted to.
The burning of the Philadelphia and the bombardment of Tripoli are much
too fine a subject for rhetorical pyrotechnics to have escaped lecturers
and orators of the Fourth-of-July school. We have all heard, time and
again, how Preble, Decatur, Trippe, and Somers cannonaded, sabred, and
blew up these pirates. We have seen, in perorations glowing with pink
fire, the Genius of America, in full naval uniform, sword in hand,
standing upon a quarter-deck, his foot upon the neck of a turbaned Turk,
while over all waves the flag of Freedom.
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