sought to accommodate it: Simpson also sent copies of a decree that Mawlay Sulayman issued at Tangier on 21 Jumada al-Thani 1218 (9 Oct. 1803). The order informed regional governors, sea captains, and other officers that Americans were at peace with Morocco, their ships were to have safe passage, and anyone who molested them would be severely punished. The order also affirmed the treaty of peace of the year 1200 (i.e. 1786) between the United States and Morocco. One copy of the decree that Simpson sent was in Arabic, which on its arrival in Washington was mistaken for the sultan’s letter printed above (Tr in DNA: RG 59, CD, Tangier, in Arabic, endorsed by Wagner: “Letter from the Emperor of Morocco to the President 30 Septr. 1803”; Tr in same, in English, in Simpson’s hand, attested by him to be his translation of a Spanish translation of the original; Tr in same, also in English by Simpson; Tr in DLC: Preble Papers, printed in NDBW description begins Dudley W. Knox, ed., Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers, Washington, D.C., 1939-44, 6 vols. and Register of Officer Personnel and Ships’ Data, 1801-1807, Washington, D.C., 1945 description ends , 3:118; enclosed in Simpson to Madison, 15 Oct., which is summarized in Madison, Papers description begins William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, J. C. A. Stagg, and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison, Chicago and Charlottesville, 1962- , 35 vols.; Sec. of State Ser., 1986- , 9 vols.; Pres. Ser., 1984- , 7 vols.; Ret. Ser., 2009- , 2 vols. description ends , Sec. of State Ser., 5:533-4).

Edward Preble and Simpson, with Tobias Lear observing, met with the sultan at Tangier on 10 Oct. On Simpson’s suggestion, the American commodore, with the schooner Nautilus and the frigates Constitution, New York, and John Adams anchored in the harbor, offered to release the Mirboka and its crew in return for confirmation of the treaty between Morocco and the United States. Sulayman expressed a desire for peace, sent a present of livestock to the U.S. ships, and ordered the release of an American brig and its cargo that the Moroccans had seized at Mogador. He agreed to insert an acknowledgment of the treaty into the order of 9 Oct. and to write the letter to the president printed above. Receiving the letter for transmittal on 12 Oct., Preble, “agreeable to my promise,” as he reported to the Navy Department, turned over the Mirboka (same, 421, 461-2, 503, 532-4, 536-9, 541-7; NDBW description begins Dudley W. Knox, ed., Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers, Washington, D.C., 1939-44, 6 vols. and Register of Officer Personnel and Ships’ Data, 1801-1807, Washington, D.C., 1945 description ends , 3:119-20, 141; Mohamed El Mansour, Morocco in the Reign of Mawlay Sulayman [Wisbech, Eng., 1990], 110).

renewed that treaty in the year 1210: the United States and Morocco agreed to the treaty of peace and friendship in 1786, during the reign of Mawlay Sulayman’s father, Sidi Muhammad ibn Abd Allah. In 1795, Sulayman received money and presents from the United States in exchange for writing a letter to George Washington that acknowledged the peaceful relationship between the two countries (Miller, Treaties description begins Hunter Miller, ed., Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America, Washington, D.C., 1931-48, 8 vols. description ends , 2:227; ASP description begins American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1832-61, 38 vols. description ends , Foreign Relations, 1:525-7; Madison, Papers description begins William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, J. C. A. Stagg, and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison, Chicago and Charlottesville, 1962- , 35 vols.; Sec. of State Ser., 1986- , 9 vols.; Pres. Ser., 1984- , 7 vols.; Ret. Ser., 2009- , 2 vols. description ends , Sec. of State Ser., 5:533; Vol. 38:117n).