Tea at Trianon: The Shores of Tripoli

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, May 9, 2016

The Shores of Tripoli

From the Counter Jihad Report:

Although Bush and Obama have said America is not at war with “radical Islam” after September 11, 2001, America’s war with Islam began well before 2001. It didn’t start during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. America’s self defense from Islam began in 1801, with its first major victory on April 27, 1805.

At the time of the Revolutionary War, four Islamic countries, known as the Barbary Powers, attacked countries throughout the entire Mediterranean region, along trade routes, and against any nation it deemed “Christian.”

Once America won its independence, American merchant ships became immediate targets and were completely defenseless. The Continental Congress disbanded the military after the war, but in 1784, without a central government, Congress gave John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin negotiating power to ensure safe American passage. Jefferson and Adams questioned the Ambassador of Tripoli over the motivations behind the unprovoked attacks, which Jefferson expressed in a 1786 letter to John Jay:

“The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
Peace negotiations continued after George Washington became president. The signed treaties included the U.S. government paying yearly “tributes” of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Barbary Powers. (Read more.)