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

Lamb’s first option was not heeled by Jefferson and Adams; as for the second,
the ministers held different views. By the end, when George Washington
leaned the balance for a peace treaty a decade after, the cost involved was
going to be much higher than the initial cost of 1786 which was then
considered as exorbitant; but reasonably Jefferson and Adams could not foresee
that. Nonetheless, either because of worries about Confederation finances or
because the Americans had other running plans, the process of that first
diplomatic contact was amateurish and the results were disappointing. Former
ambassador Parker considers that “the fatal flaw in the American approach at
this point was an unwillingness as well as an inability to pay what was
needed.” 94 Washington himself, even though he had retired from public life to
Mount Vernon at the end of the war, could but see the mess of Confederation
diplomacy and foresee its outcome. While Lamb was still at Algiers, he wrote
Confederation delegate Henry Lee:
my opinion is, that there is more wickedness than ignorance in the
conduct of the States, or, in other words, in the conduct of those who
have too much influence in the government… I was more certain of the
aggregate of our [ills], than I am now of the remedy, which will be
applied. Without the latter, I do not see upon what ground your agent at
the court of Morocco, and the other at Algiers, are to treat, unless,
having to do with new hands, they mean to touch the old strings, and
make them dance awhile to the tune of promises. 95
2. 2. A Predilection for Enmity
When the British historian H. G. Barnby writes that “the proverb says
that it takes two to make a quarrel, but history frequently makes nonsense of
94 Parker, Uncle Sam in Barbary, p. 64
95 WGW, 11:28, fn 2, Washington to Henry Lee, 5 April, 1786.
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