The President listened sympathetically to Bainbridge's story, for he was not unfamiliar with the ways of the Barbary Corsairs and he had long been of the opinion that tribute only made these pirates bolder and more insufferable. The Congress of the Confederation, however, had followed the policy of the European powers and had paid tribute to secure immunity from attack, and the new Government had simply continued the policy of the old. In spite of his abhorrence of war, Jefferson held that coercion in this instance was on the whole cheaper and more efficacious. Not long after this interview with Bainbridge, President Jefferson was warned that the Pasha of Tripoli was worrying the American Consul with importunate demands for more tribute. This African potentate had discovered that his brother, the Dey of Algiers, had made a better bargain with the United States. He announced, therefore, that he must have a new treaty with more tribute or he would declare war. Fearing trouble from this quarter, the President dispatched a squadron of four vessels under Commodore Richard Dale to cruise in the Mediterranean, with orders to protect American commerce. It was the schooner Enterprise of this squadron which overpowered the Tripolitan cruiser, as Jefferson recounted in his message to Congress.
The former Pasha of Tripoli had been blessed with three sons, Hasan, Hamet, and Yusuf. Between these royal brothers, however, there seems to have been some incompatibility of temperament, for when their father died (Blessed be Allah!) Yusuf, the youngest, had killed Hasan and had spared Hamet only because he could not lay hands upon him. Yusuf then proclaimed himself Pasha. It was Yusuf, the Pasha with this bloody record, who declared war on the United States, May 10,1801, by cutting down the flagstaff of the American consulate.
To apply the term war to the naval operations which followed is, however, to lend specious importance to very trivial events. Commodore Dale made the most of his little squadron, it is true, convoying merchantmen through the straits and along the Barbary coast, holding Tripolitan vessels laden with grain in hopeless inactivity off Gibraltar, and blockading the port of Tripoli, now with one frigate and now with another. When the terms of enlistment of Dale's crews expired, another squadron was gradually assembled in the Mediterranean, under the command of Captain Richard V. Morris, for Congress had now authorized the use of the navy for offensive operations, and the Secretary of the Treasury, with many misgivings, had begun to accumulate his Mediterranean Fund to meet contingent expenses.