The two most important measures of the first administration were, however, the repression of the Barbary pirates and the acquisition of Louisiana. Mr. Jefferson’s ineffectual efforts, while he was minister to France, to put down by force Mediterranean piracy have already been rehearsed. During Mr. Adams’s term, two million dollars were expended in bribing the bucaneers. One item in the account was as follows, “A frigate to carry thirty-six guns for the Dey of Algiers;” and this frigate went crammed with a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of powder, lead, timber, rope, canvas, and other means of piracy. One hundred and twenty-two captives came home in that year, 1796, of whom ten had been held in slavery for eleven years. Jefferson’s first important act as President was to dispatch to the Mediterranean three frigates and a sloop-of-war to overawe the pirates, and to cruise in protection of American commerce. Thus began that series of events which finally rendered the commerce of the world as safe from piracy in the Mediterranean as it was in the British channel. How brilliantly Decatur and his gallant comrades carried out this policy, and how at last the tardy naval powers of Europe followed an example which they ought to have set, every one is supposed to know. The second important event was the acquisition of Louisiana. Louisiana meant the whole territory from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, embracing about one million square miles. All this region belonged to Spain by right of discovery; and early in the year 1801 news came from the American minister at Paris that Spain had ceded or was about to cede it to France. The Spanish ownership of the mouth of the Mississippi had long been a source of annoyance to the settlers on the Mississippi River; and it had begun to be felt that the United States must control New Orleans at least. If this vast territory should come into the hands of France, and Napoleon should colonize it, as was said to be his intention,—France then being the greatest power in Europe,—the United States would have a powerful rival on its borders, and in control of a seaport absolutely necessary for its commerce. We can see this now plainly enough, but even so able a man as Mr. Livingston, the American minister at Paris, did not see it then. On the contrary, he wrote to the government at Washington: “... I have, however, on all occasions, declared that as long as France conforms to the existing treaty between us and Spain, the government of the United States does not consider itself as having any interest in opposing the exchange.”