The Wall Street Journal offered an article yesterday on How to Fight pirates. It reported how, in the late 18th century and early 19th Century, Moroccan pirates-- Barbary pirates-- were attacking American ships and kidnapping their crews, holding the crews and the goods on board for ransom. In 1785, the Pasha of Morocco demanded a million bucks, ten percent of the fledgling USA's national budget, for protection. Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson had no alternative. For at least a decade, for lack of a navy and support from other nations to fight back, the US paid those ransoms.
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