Preble left for home without having come to terms with the Pacha
of Tripoli. He was not willing to rise above $500 for each of the
captives, and would offer nothing for peace or for tribute. Had he
remained, it is very possible that he would have forced a peace without
a ransom. Peace, however, was to come under his successor largely
through one of the extraordinary adventures of our history.
Yusuf Karamanli, the Pacha of Tripoli, was the youngest of three
brothers. In 1790 at the age of twenty he murdered the eldest, and when
his father died in 1796, and the second brother, Hamet, was absent,
he proclaimed himself Pacha. Hamet, rather a weakling, took refuge in
Tunis, leaving his family at Tripoli. He had taken up arms against
his brother, using Derne, some 500 miles east of Tripoli, as a base,
but he was unsuccessful, and in 1804 fled to Egypt. The government in
Washington, influenced largely by ex-Consul Eaton, had decided to use
Hamet as an asset in the war against Yusuf, and thus placed at the
disposition of the commodore a moderate amount of money and military
supplies. Eaton was appointed a navy agent under Commodore Barron,
with a recommendation from the Secretary of the Navy to use him in
connection with an effort to establish Hamet at Tripoli in place of his
brother Yusuf. It was a scheme in full accord with Eaton’s adventurous
spirit and worthy his real ability.
The _Argus_, Captain Hull, thus left Malta in September, 1804, for
Alexandria, nominally to convoy thence any vessels desiring protection,
but really to carry Eaton to find Hamet and convey him to whatever
should be decided as the most convenient point from which to act
against Tripoli. Hamet was up the Nile. Eaton explained frankly his
intentions to the Viceroy and passports were obtained for himself and
Hamet out of Egypt. Hamet was finally reached, but such obstacles to
leaving by sea were raised through the influence of the French consul
that it was decided to go by land, it being feared that the few Arabs
whom Hamet had raised might otherwise disappear. The _Argus_ sailed for
Malta with a letter from Eaton to the commodore requesting “that the
expedition be met at Bomba Bay sixty miles east of Derne, with two
more small vessels, a bomb-ketch, two field pieces, a hundred muskets,
a hundred marines, and ten thousand dollars.” A convention was made
with Hamet, the United States promising to do all that was proper and
right to reinstate him, reimbursement of expenses to come from tribute
paid by other nations. Eaton was to be recognized as commander-in-chief
of the land forces operating against the usurping brother.
The army was a motley array of some four hundred, though Eaton
says many thousands could have been had had there been money and
subsistence. There were besides Eaton nine Americans: Lieutenant
O’Bannon, Midshipman Peck, and seven marines; an English volunteer;
forty Greeks; some Arab horsemen, etc., and a caravan of 107 camels
and a few asses. These began on March 8th a march across 500 and
more miles to Derne. Bomba was reached after immense difficulties on
April 15th. Signal-fires were built on a high hill which were sighted
by the _Argus_. She brought a cheering letter from the commodore
announcing aid. Two days later the _Hornet_ arrived with an abundance
of provisions, and on the 23d, after a rest of a week, the march of
sixty miles to Derne was resumed. This was made in two days. Derne
was attacked on the 27th from land and from sea by the _Hornet_ and
_Nautilus_ (which had also arrived). The town was occupied after a
strong resistance and some loss. A Tripolitan force now appeared, and
there were unsuccessful efforts to dislodge Eaton’s forces. After May
18th the attacks ceased. Dispatches were sent to the commodore, and
only the _Argus_ remained at Derne. On May 19th there came dispatches
from the commodore announcing peace negotiations, and on June 11th came
the _Constellation_ announcing peace and with orders to evacuate Derne.
There was nothing for the Americans to do but to embark, taking with
them Hamet and his suite, twenty-five foreign cannoniers with their
artillery, and the small party of Greeks. It was a pitiful abandonment
of men who were our allies, brought about through the influence of
Consul-General Lear, who, as previously mentioned, had been invested
with full authority to negotiate a peace.
Lear had spent the winter of 1804-1805 with Commodore Barron at
Malta, over whom he acquired, in Barron’s weakened condition of mind
and health, a great influence. He was strongly opposed to Eaton’s
expedition, and was the main factor in causing it to collapse; the aim
of the expedition, which was the capture of Tripoli and dethronement
of the Pacha, was not in accord with his views. On May 26th Lear
arrived off Tripoli from Malta in the _Essex_, which delivered to
Captain Rodgers of the _Constitution_ a letter from Barron announcing
the necessity of the relinquishment by the latter of the command. Lear
had already been informed by a letter written by the Danish consul
at Tripoli of the probability of the Pacha’s willingness to treat,
and at once on his arrival began negotiations. The preliminaries,
after parleys of more than a week, were signed on June 3d. Prisoners
were to be exchanged, the United States paying a balance of $60,000.
A year was allowed to settle disputes before action; prisoners were
no longer to be enslaved, and were at the conclusion of peace to be
restored without ransom. No tribute was to be paid in future. Hamet
was to be “persuaded” to withdraw from Derne, and his family was to be
restored to him. There was, however, a secret article which allowed
the Pacha four years in which to make this restoration. The unwisdom
of placing the negotiations wholly in the hands of Lear had resulted
in an unsatisfactory peace, and attacks ensued which must have
caused him much bitterness; for General Eaton, as he was now called,
pursued him violently in the press and before Congress to the end,
in 1811, of Eaton’s life. Lear was strongly criticised in Congress
itself, Senator Timothy Pickering declaring his conduct inexcusable.
Madison’s instructions as Secretary of State anticipated that peace
would be made “without any price or pecuniary compensation whatever”;
and so undoubtedly it would have been had negotiations been put in
the hands of the commodore of the now powerful force before Tripoli.
Nor would Eaton’s wonderful action have gone for nought, nor would
Hamet, whom we had made our ally, been thrown overboard with so little
consideration. Commodore Rodgers allowed him two hundred dollars
monthly to support himself and some fifteen dependents at Syracuse (the
winter headquarters of the fleet) until twenty-four hundred dollars
was voted him by Congress in 1806. His family, through pressure of our
consul, was restored to him in October, 1807, and though his brother
gave him residence in Morocco and a pension, and later the governorship
of Derne, he had, two years later, to flee with his family to Egypt,
where he died.
Eaton was received on his return with honor. Massachusetts granted him
ten thousand acres in Maine (then a part of Massachusetts) and Congress
met his disbursements. The expedition to Derne had cost forty thousand
dollars but Eaton declined everything for himself but his personal
expenses. He died in 1811 at the age of fifty-seven, ending, too early,
a life of picturesque adventure, patriotic effort, and undaunted
courage. He is worthy of memory.
* * * * *
Commodore Rodgers now turned his attention to Tunis, where threatening
conditions had arisen from the capture of two Tunis vessels which had
attempted to run the blockade of Tripoli. He appeared on August 1st
with nearly his whole force. A fortnight later, on an appearance of
delay, Rodgers informed Lear officially that the Dey “must do one of
three things by simple request or must do all three by force. He must
give [a guarantee for the maintenance of peace to be witnessed by the
English and French consuls], or he must give sufficient security for
peace and send a minister to the United States, or he must make such
alterations in the [existing] treaty as you may require and as may
satisfy you that there is confidence to be placed in what he does. I
have only to repeat that if he does not do all that is necessary and
proper, at the risk of my conduct being disapproved by my country, he
shall feel the vengeance of the squadron now in this bay.”
Rodgers now in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy of August 21,
1805, laid down the honorable dictum which has ever been a rule of
conduct with the navy that: “Peace on honorable terms is always
preferable to war.” If chastisement were to be inflicted he begged the
honor of being the instrument, pledging that if he should be instructed
by March, 1806, that he would obtain an honorable peace before
September, making the Dey to pay all the expenses of the war, and that,
too, without any increase of force. The Dey had, however, already
accepted the proposal of sending a minister to the United States, and
had agreed to keep the peace until the result of the mission should be
known.
Our Barbary difficulties were, with occasional troubles of a moderate
nature, ended for nearly ten years. We continued, under the treaty
with Algiers, to send an annual tribute of marine stores to the value
of twenty-one thousand dollars. This, however, was but a remnant of
our early weakness and an honorable carrying out of a treaty. The
spectacle of the treatment of our commerce by France and England
roused the envy of the Dey of Algiers, and finally the War of 1812
overcame any good resolutions the then Dey had, and spoliation began
anew. Thus, immediately after the peace, a powerful fleet was sent
into the Mediterranean under Decatur, followed by another under
Bainbridge, whose flagship, the _Independence_, 74, was the first
American ship-of-the-line in foreign waters. Farragut, who had already
seen three years of most stirring service and was then but fourteen,
was a midshipman aboard. But before Bainbridge had arrived Decatur had
appeared before Algiers and “at the mouths of our cannon,” as Decatur
expressed in his dispatch to the Navy Department, dictated a peace
which abolished tribute in any form forever, released all Americans,
and forced compensation for, and restoration of, all American property
seized or in the Dey’s hands. This was within six weeks of the sailing
of the fleet from home. Decatur then visited Tunis and Tripoli, and
forced the instant payment at each place of indemnities for British
prizes which, taken into port by an American privateer, had been seized
later by the British. Of course the British consul protested, but
without avail. He also caused the release of two Danes in remembrance
of the unceasing kindness to Americans, through many years, of
the Danish consul, Nissen, and of a Sicilian family of eight, in
consideration of aid given to Preble by the king of the two Sicilies.
It was a fine instance of gratitude acknowledged.
Thus, practically, ended our troubles with Barbary. “It was not
to be endured,” said the English naval historian, Brenton, “that
England should tolerate what America had resented and punished,” and
thus after one abortive threat, when he paid heavy ransom for 1,200
Neapolitans and Sicilians, during the negotiations for which he was
grossly insulted, and the British consul and his family treated “in a
manner the most scandalous and insulting,”[24] Lord Exmouth was sent
in August, 1816, with a powerful fleet, which, combined with a Dutch
force, bombarded Algiers to subjection, and Christian slavery was at
an end. The Dey shortly before this having shown signs of regretting
having made the American treaty, another powerful American fleet
appeared shortly after Lord Exmouth’s bombardment, which removed the
intention of renewal of hostile acts.
Thus ended, practically, the extraordinary career of piracy and slavery
which through so many generations had been submitted to by Europe.
It was not, however, until 1824, when the demand for continuance of
tribute from Holland was successfully resisted, that Algiers finally
dismissed the idea of return to her ancient ways.
It should be a proud memory to Americans that it was the American navy
which first resisted and brought to terms the barbarous corsairs, so
long the scourge of commerce and enslavers of white men. The Frenchman
Dupuy, at the end of his admirable history of our Barbary wars, pays
us a fine tribute, saying: “The statesmen [of America], breaking
loose from the unworthy yielding of Europe to the Barbary States, had
in hardly thirty years broken the abominable traditions which the
Christian powers had shamefully respected for ages.”[25]