Ottoman Algeria in Western Diplomatic History with ... - Bibliothèque

we will not furnish them naval stores, because we think it not right to
furnish them means which we know they will employ to do wrong, and
because there might be no economy in it, as to ourselves in the end, as it
would increase the expense of that coercion which we may in future be
obliged to practice towards them. The only question then is, what sum of
money will be agreed to pay them annually for peace? 15
One may understand here that a peace treaty was seen as merely a transitory
phase before some naval action could be undertaken against Algiers. Jones who
was then at Paris claiming prize money dating back to the piracies he
committed during the war of independence, however, died before he could get
his commission. 16 Barclay, who succeeded him, also died shortly after he was
commissioned and before he could set out for Algiers.
A Jefferson determined to finish with Algiers either by force or by a
negotiated treaty issued instructions to David Humphreys, U.S. minister to
Portugal, to take negotiations at hand. The instructions were essentially the
same as those forwarded previously. One change relative to the payments in
naval stores, however, was made. Humphreys was informed that if Algiers
declined to make a treaty on any other conditions than the delivery of such
material, he might agree to that and “reserve the right to make the subsequent
annual payments in money.” 17 Humphreys reached Alicante, Spain on his way
to Algiers but he never reached it; late in 1793, he sent his letter of credence to
15 SPPD, 10:264. Providing Algiers with naval stores was assimilated to supplying Afghan mujahidin
with ground-to-air missiles. Parker, Uncle Sam in Barbary, p. 70.
16 For that chapter of Jones’ life and his desperate efforts to pass piracy for privateering with the French
government see Reginald de Koven, The Life and Letters of John Paul Jones, vol. 2 (London: T.
Werner Laurie, Ltd, 1913), pp. 242-69.
17 SPPD, 10:272, To Colonel David Humphreys, March 21, 1793.
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