Tom and the Pirates

Tom came home from the war and just weeks after he had come home, his wife died leaving him with 3 young daughters.  It broke his heart and nearly broke his mind.  He would hitch up the horses to the wagon and he and his ten year old daughter, Margaret, would ride around the farm endlessly saying nothing.  Neighbors noticed and they appealed to his neighbor, George, who maybe could do something.  And so George Washington asked Thomas Jefferson if he would be his ambassador to France.  Tom knew he needed a change of scenery and agreed.  He Margaret with him intending to send for the two younger girls, Mary who was six and Lucy who was just 2 when he was settled in in Paris.  A month after he got to France he got a letter from Aunt Eppie who was taking care of the girls.  Lucy had contracted whooping cough and died.  Now Tom was really broken up and determined to get Mary over to France to be with him. 

            But there was a problem.  The Muslim Barbary States of northern Africa had fleets of pirates who preyed on shipping.  They would take over a ship for a prize and then hold the passengers and crew for ransom or worse enslave them.  The things they did to children were unspeakable, making little girls sex slaves in harems and castrating little boys and making them eunuchs, forced conversions to Islam. One day Tom had dinner with the Ambassador of Tripoli and he asked him, “Sir, our country means no harm to yours.  Is there any possibility you could stop pirating our ships?” And the ambassador said, “No.”  According to his holy book, the Quran,” Abdrahaman said, “all nations who have not acknowledged the Prophet are sinners and subhumans, whom it is the Right and Duty of the Faithful to plunder and enslave.” Jefferson couldn’t believe what he was hearing!  But being an intellectual, he thought, I will check it out, get a copy of the Quran to read to see if Abdrahaman knows what he is talking about. So Tom found a Quran, translated into French, and read it. “Wow!  That Muslim is correct!” Therefore, we can only deal with the Barbary Pirates with force.  We must build a navy and go after them.  This was ironic because Jefferson was the pacificist who had argued to disband the army just a couple years before.  So he wrote a letter asking Congress to build a navy when he returned home to the job of Washington’s Secretary of State.  USA did build a navy and then as President, Thomas Jefferson built a bigger navy and the rest is history.  Stephen Decatur and the Marines burned Tripoli harbor and tiny USA put the Barbary Pirates out of business. The emirates stopped all pirate activity, even against other countries. 

            One of the great indicators of the truth of the gospel is that it points to eternal truth instead of getting bogged down in some in a mindset of the moment.  Much of Islam is steeped in Arab culture’s faults—cruelty, polygamy, slavery.  Quran, Sura 9:3 says “terrorize the infidels and beleaguer them.  Cut off their heads and cut off their fingers.” Hard as it may be for some to accept, Islam is at war with us. Yet we have the Eternal Savior. I’ve read the end of His book. We will win.