So narrow and bitter was this commercial enmity, so ardent this desire to banish the Stars and Stripes from blue water, that Lord Sheffield in 1784 advised Parliament that the pirates of Algiers and Tripoli really benefited English commerce by preying on the shipping of weaker nations.

"It is not probable that the American States will have a very free trade in the Mediterranean," said he.

"It will not be to the interest of any of the great maritime Powers to protect them from the Barbary States.

If they know their interests, they will not encourage the Americans to be carriers.

That the Barbary States are advantageous to maritime Powers is certain." Denied the normal ebb and flow of trade and commerce and with the imports from England far exceeding the value of the merchandise exported thence, the United States, already impoverished, was drained of its money, and a currency of dollars, guineas, joes, and moidores grew scarcer day by day.