"I'm getting off the track a little," said Haines, after a pause, "as I promised to tell you how we owe our present navy to the Algerine pirates. The capture of our ships was a very bad blow to American commerce, as it drove the American flag out of the Mediterranean, and limited our trade altogether to the West Indies. Matters had come to a very bad state. Mr. Humphreys was appointed Commissioner for the United States in 1793, to negotiate with the Dey of Algiers. He was treated with great contempt by that chief of pirates, and what do you suppose the beggar said when he talked with the American about the business?" "I don't know, I'm sure," was the reply of all of us. "Well, he said, 'If I were to make peace with everybody what should I do with my corsairs? They would take off my head for the want of other prizes, not being able to live on their miserable allowance.' "Mr. Humphreys did not waste any time in writing to President Washington and telling him what the barbarian scoundrel said, and he added this comment at the end of his letter. 'If we mean to have a commerce we must have a navy to defend it.' "Well, the President in his next message to Congress suggested that we must have a navy, and he gave his reasons for the suggestion. I disremember 'em exactly; but the substance of 'em was that the United States would never have any rank among nations if she had the reputation of weakness. We would be sure to be insulted if we hadn't the strength to hit back, and the only way we could have peace was to let everybody know we were always ready to fight. "Congress took the words of the President in good part," Haines continued, "and passed a bill authorizing the building of six frigates, four of them forty-four gunners, and the two thirty-six gunners; and that's the way we owe our navy to the Algerine pirates. Would you believe it, there were a good many members of Congress who opposed building the navy, and thought it would be better and cheaper to make a trade with the Dey of Algiers by paying him ransom and tribute money instead of spending our money on ships. They made a clause in the bill appropriating a million dollars toward buying a peace with the Dey, and in case they did so, the building of the ships was to be stopped. "And that's just what happened. In 1795 we made a treaty of peace with this sea-robber which cost the government a million of dollars, as I've already told you about. They stopped work on the ships, but they were pretty well along by that time; and when, in 1797, we got into trouble with France and things looked very squally, it didn't take a great while to finish the ships and get them ready for sea." "How did the trouble with France come about? Please tell me." "As near as I can remember," said Haines, "this was the way of it,--