cruised along the northern shores of the Mediterranean,
effectually protecting American commerce; and in January, 1803, all the
vessels collected at Malta. In the spring they appeared off the ports of
the Barbary States, as these African provinces were called, and
effectually imprisoned their corsairs, or pirate ships, in their
harbors. In May the _John Adams_, which had been blockading the harbor
of Tunis, had a severe combat with Tunisian gun-boats and land
batteries, and was much bruised. Very soon Tripolitan and Algerine
corsairs appeared, and the whole American squadron was compelled to
abandon the blockade of the African ports, after they had destroyed a
cruiser from Tripoli. The squadron left the coast, the Africans regained
their spirits, and very soon American commerce was again suffering from
the depredations of corsairs.

The government of the United States, annoyed by the failure of this
naval campaign in the Mediterranean, resolved to act with more vigor in
that direction. A squadron of seven vessels was placed under the command
of Commodore Preble, and sent to the Mediterranean in 1803.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE STORY OF THE DAISIES.

BY MRS. MARGARET EYTINGE.

Daisies, golden-hearted, star-like, smiling daisies, all over the fields
and meadows, all along the highways and by-ways--bonny wee flowers
looking bravely up at the dazzling sun, and giving with child-like
generosity their beauty to the loneliest spots and most desolate places.
Close up to a fence that surrounded a garden where bloomed hundreds of
rare and lovely blossoms they crowded, praising with sweet artlessness
the grace and fragrance of their more precious sisters, and wondering
every morning when the gardener came out at early dawn and collected
many young plants together, and gathered roses, and pansies, and
gladioles, and verbenas, and pinks, and other flowers by the basketful,
to carry away, where he took them and what became of them.

"I will tell you," said a tall, graceful white lily that grew near the
garden gate, one day, as she inclined her fair head toward them. "I have
been where they are going--I and the tuberoses over yonder. (We are
growing in pots sunk in the ground, and therefore can be taken up and
moved from place to place without harm.) Once I helped deck a large,
sunshiny room--I was a very young bud then--where a great many little
children, looking like flowers themselves in their gay dresses, sang,
and pl