Corsair

Начало книги

“. . . that it is founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it is written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it is their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle are sure to go to Paradise.”

—Thomas Jefferson’s testimony to the Continental Congress explaining the justification given to him by the Barbary ambassador to England, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja , concerning their preying on Christian ships, 1786

“We ought not to fight them at all unless we determine to fight them forever.”

—John Adams on the Barbary pirates , 1787

THE BAY OF TRIPOLI FEBRUARY 1803

NO SOONER Had THE SQUADRON SIGHTED THE FORTIFIED walls of the Barbary capital than a storm struck suddenly, forcing the ketch Intrepid and the larger brig Siren back out into the Mediterranean. Through his spyglass, Lieutenant Henry Lafayette, the Siren’s First Officer, had just by chance spotted the towering masts of the USS Philadelphia, the reason the two American warships had ventured so close to the pirates’ lair.

Читать дальше →