Page:Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies, from the papers of Thomas Jefferson - Volume 1.djvu/69

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ject to habitual depredations from them. I accordingly prepared, and proposed to their Ministers at Paris, for consultation with their governments, articles of a special confederation, in the fol- lowing form.

'Proposals for concerted operation among the powers at war with the piratical States of Barbary.

1 . Tt is proposed, that the several powers at war with the pira tical States of Barbary, or any two or more of them who shall be willing, shall enter into a convention to carry on their operations against those States, in concert, beginning with the Algerines.

2. This convention shall remain open to any other power, who shall, at any future time, wish to accede to it ; the parties reserving the right to prescribe the conditions of such accession, according to the circumstances existing at the time it shall be proposed.

3. The object of the convention shall be, to compel the piratical States to perpetual peace, without price, and to guaranty that peace to each other.

4. The operations for obtaining this peace, shall be constant cruizes on their coast, with a naval force now to be agreed on. It is not proposed, that this force shall be so considerable as to be in convenient to any party. It is believed that half a dozen frigates, with as many Tenders or Xebecs, one half of which shall be in cruize, while the other half is at rest, will suffice.

5. The force agreed to be necessary, shall be furnished by the parties, in certain quotas, now to be fixed; it being expected, that each will be willing to contribute, in such proportion as circum stances may render reasonable.

6. As miscarriages often proceed from the want of harmony among officers of different nations, the parties shall now consider and decide, whether it will not be better to contribute their quotas in money, to be employed in fitting out and keeping on duty, a single fleet of the force agreed on.

7. The difficulties and delays, too, which will attend the man agement of these operations, if conducted by the parties them selves separately, distant as their courts may be from one another, and incapable of meeting in consultation, suggest a question, whe ther it will not be better for them to give full powers, for that pur pose, to their Ambassadors, or other Ministers resident at some one court of Europe, who shall form a Committee, or Council, for car rying this convention into effect ; wherein, the vote of each mem ber shall be computed in proportion to the quota of his sove reign, and the majority so computed, shall prevail in all questions within the view of this convention. The court of Versailles is pro posed, on account of its neighborhood to the Mediterranean, and