Did you ever, by any chance, leave the Boston State House by the back
door? If so, you found yourself in a quiet and rather shabby
thoroughfare, cobble-paved and lined on the farther side by
old-fashioned red-brick houses, with white, brass-knockered doors, and
iron balconies, and green blinds. That is Derne Street. Though a man
standing on Boston Common could break one of its violet-glass windows
with a well thrown ball, it is, as it were, a placid backwater of the
busy streams of commerce which flow so noisily a few rods away. I wonder
how many of the smug frock-coated politicians who hurry through it as a
short cut daily have any idea how it got its name; I wonder if any of
the people who live upon it know. Though the exploit which this Boston
byway was named to commemorate has been overlooked by nearly all our
historians, perhaps because its scene was laid in a remote and barbarous
country, yet it was a feat which, for picturesqueness, daring, and
indomitable courage, is deserving of a more generous share of the
calcium light of public appreciation. Though I am perfectly aware that
history only too often makes dull reading, this chronicle, I promise
you, is as bristling with romance and adventure as a hedgehog is with
quills.
You must understand, in the first place, that the declining years of the
eighteenth century found a perfectly astounding state of affairs
prevailing in the Mediterranean, where the four Barbary states--Morocco,
Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli--which stretched along its African shore,
collected tribute from every nation whose vessels sailed that sea as
methodically as a street-car conductor collects fares. Asserting that
they were no common, vulgar buccaneers who plundered vessels
indiscriminately, the Barbary corsairs, claiming for themselves the
virtual ownership of the Mediterranean, turned it into a sort of
maritime toll-road, and professed themselves at war with all who refused
to pay roundly for using it. Nor was their boast that they were the
masters of the Middle Sea a vain one, scores of captured merchantmen and
thousands of European slaves laboring under the African sun proving
indubitably that they were amply capable of enforcing their demands. As
far as the question of economy was concerned, it was about as cheap for
a nation to be at war with these bandits of the sea as at peace, for so
heavy was the tribute they demanded that their friendship came almost as
high as their enmity. It cost Spain, at that time a rich and powerful
empire, upward of three million dollars to obtain peace with the Dey of
Algiers in 1786. Though England boasted herself mistress of the seas,
and in token thereof English admirals carried brooms at their mastheads,
she nevertheless spent four hundred thousand dollars annually in
propitiating these African despots. Previous to the Revolution there
were close on a hundred American vessels, manned by more than twelve
hundred seamen, in the Mediterranean, but with the withdrawal of British
protection this commerce was entirely abandoned. The ink was scarcely
dry on the treaty of peace, however, before we had despatched diplomatic
agents to the Barbary coast to purchase the friendship of its rulers,
and had taken our place in the line of regular contributors. We were in
good company, too, for England, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland,
Denmark, and the Italian states had been paying tribute so long that
they had acquired the habit. Think of it, my friends! Every great
seafaring nation in the world meekly paying tribute to a few thousand
Arab cutthroats for the privilege of using one of the seven seas, and
humbly apologizing if the payment happened to become overdue!
Our friendly relations with the Dey of Algiers were of short duration,
however, and by 1793 his swift-sailing, heavily armed cruisers had
captured thirteen American vessels, and sixscore American slaves were at
work on the fortifications of his capital. In his prison-yard, indeed,
one could hear every American inflection, from the nasal twang of Maine
to the drawl of Carolina. After two years of procrastination, Congress,
spurred to action by public indignation, purchased the liberty of the
captives and peace with Algiers for eight hundred thousand dollars,
though the Dey remarked gloomily, as he scrawled his Arabic flourish at
the foot of the treaty: "If I keep on making peace at this rate, there
will soon be no one left to fight. Then how shall I occupy my corsairs?
What shall I do with my fighting men? If they have no one else to rob
and slaughter, they will rob and slaughter me!"
The Bashaw of Tripoli at this time was a peculiarly insolent and
tyrannical Arab named Yussuf Karamanli, who had gained the throne by
the effective method of winning over the body-guard, quietly
surrounding the palace one night, and deposing his elder brother, Ahmet,
whom he promptly exiled. Despite the annual tribute of twenty-two
thousand dollars which we were paying to the Bashaw, not to mention the
seventeen thousand dollars' worth of presents which we presented
biennially to the officers and officials of his court, he complained
most bitterly to the American consul at Tripoli that he was not getting
as much as his neighboring rulers, and that unless the matter was
remedied immediately, he would have to get some American slaves to teach
him English. Now, Yussuf was a bad man to have for an enemy, for his
cruisers were numerous and loaded to the gunwales with pirates who would
rather fight than eat, and he had, in addition, the reputation of being
most inconsiderate to those sailors who fell into his hands, sometimes
going so far as to wall a few of them up in the fortifications which he
was constantly building. To put it bluntly, he was not popular outside
of his own circle. As Mr. Cathcart, the American consul, did not take
his demands for a larger tribute very seriously, the Bashaw wrote to
President Jefferson direct, mincing no words in saying that the American
government had better grant his request, and be quick about it, or
American seamen would find the Mediterranean exceedingly unhealthy for
them.
Incredible as it may seem in this day and age, the authorities at
Washington ordered a vessel to be loaded with the arms, ammunition, and
naval stores demanded by the Bashaw, their total value being thirty-four
thousand dollars, and hurriedly despatched it to Tripoli, with profuse
apologies for the delay. A few months later the Bashaw, who evidently
knew a good thing when he saw it, suggested that a token of our esteem
for him in the form of jewels would be highly acceptable, whereupon the
American minister in London was instructed to purchase jewelry to the
value of ten thousand dollars and have it hurried to Tripoli by special
messenger. Emboldened by his undreamed-of success in shaking the
republican tree, the Bashaw reached the very height of audacity by again
sending a peremptory note to President Jefferson, demanding that the
United States immediately present him with a thirty-six-gun war-ship! As
no attention was paid to this modest request (and in view of the other
outrageous concessions made by our government, it is somewhat surprising
that this demand was not granted also), the Bashaw ordered the flagstaff
of the American consulate to be chopped down as a sign of war, and
turned his corsairs loose on American commerce in the Mediterranean. The
war opened most disastrously for the United States, for a few months
later the frigate _Philadelphia_ ran aground in the harbor of Tripoli,
the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge and his entire crew. No
wonder the Bashaw went to the mosque that day to give thanks to Allah,
for had he not received an even larger war-ship than he had demanded,
and did he not have two hundred American slaves to instruct him in the
English tongue? "God is great!" exclaimed the Bashaw devoutly, as he
knelt on his silken prayer-rug, and "God is great!" echoed the rows of
corsairs who knelt behind him.
It was shortly after this American misfortune that William Eaton,
soldier, diplomat, and Indian-fighter, swaggered upon the scene, and
things began to happen with a rapidity that made the Bashaw's turbaned
head whirl. By birth and upbringing Eaton was a Connecticut Yankee, and
he possessed all the shrewdness, hardihood, and perseverance so
characteristic of that race. The son of a schoolmaster farmer, before he
was sixteen he had run away from home to join the Continental Army,
which he left at the close of the Revolution with the chevrons of a
sergeant on his coat-sleeve. Far-sighted enough to see the value of a
college education, he went from the camp straight to the college
classroom. Graduating from Dartmouth in 1790, he re-entered the army as
a captain, served against the Indians in Georgia and Ohio, and in 1798
received an appointment as American consul at Tunis. Resolute,
energetic, and daring, impatient with any one who did not agree with his
views, no better man could have been selected for the place. Thoroughly
understanding the Arab character, from the very outset he took a high
hand in his dealings with the Tunisian ruler. He alternately quarrelled
with and patronized the Bey, bullyragged his ministers, and actually
horsewhipped an insolent official of the court in the palace courtyard,
for five years keeping up an uninterrupted series of altercations,
provocations, and procrastinations over the payment of tribute-money. He
acted with such energy and boldness, however, that he secured to the
commerce of his country complete immunity from the attacks of Tunisian
cruisers, and made the name American respected on that part of the
Barbary coast at least. In 1801, as I have already remarked, the
American flagstaff in the adjoining kingdom of Tripoli came crashing
down at the Bashaw's order, and war promptly began between that
country and the United States. Two years later the Bey of Tunis, harried
beyond endurance by the half-insolent, half-patronizing fashion in which
Eaton treated him, ordered that gentleman to leave the country.
[Illustration: The frigate _Philadelphia_ ran aground in the harbor of
Tripoli, the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge and his entire
crew.]
Returning to the United States, Eaton went immediately to Washington and
laid before President Jefferson and his Cabinet a scheme for bringing
the war with Tripoli to a successful conclusion, and exchanging our
humiliating position as a contributor to a gang of pirates for one more
consistent with American ideals. The plan which he proposed was,
briefly, that the United States should assist in restoring to the
Tripolitan throne the exiled Bashaw, Ahmet Karamanli, on the
understanding that, upon his restoration, the exaction of tribute from
the American government and the depredations on American commerce should
cease. Eaton was outspoken in urging the desirability of carrying out
this plan, arguing that the dethronement of one of the Barbary despots
would impress the people of all that region as nothing else could do. I
can see him standing there beside the long table in the Cabinet room of
the White House, his lean Yankee face aglow with enthusiasm, his every
motion bespeaking confidence in himself and his plan, while Jefferson
and his sedate, conservative advisers lean far back in their chairs and
regard this visionary half curiously, half amusedly, as he outlines his
schemes for overturning thrones and reapportioning kingdoms. From the
President and his Cabinet he received the sort of treatment which timid
governments are apt to bestow on men of spirit and action. He was given
to understand that he was at liberty to carry out his plans, but that,
if he was successful, the government would take all the credit, and
that, if he failed, he would have to take all the blame. The only way to
explain the astounding apathy of the American government to events in
the Mediterranean is that a bitter political struggle was then in
progress in the United States, and that the very remoteness of the
theatre of war probably lessened its importance in the eyes of the
administration. At any rate, President Jefferson signed the appointment
of Eaton as American naval agent in the Mediterranean, and, happy as a
schoolboy at the beginning of the long vacation, at the wide latitude of
action conferred upon him by this purposely vague commission, he sailed
a few days later with the American fleet for Egypt. His great adventure
had begun.
Aware that the dethroned Bashaw had fled to Cairo, Eaton landed at
Alexandria, and, hastening to the Egyptian capital by camel, succeeded
in locating the exiled Ahmet, whom he found in the depths of poverty and
despair. Seated cross-legged beside him in a native coffee-house, Eaton
outlined his plan and proposition. He told Ahmet that the United States
would undertake to restore him to the Tripolitan throne upon his
agreeing to repay the expenses of the expedition immediately upon his
restoration, and upon the condition that Eaton should be
commander-in-chief of the land forces throughout the campaign, Ahmet and
his followers to promise him implicit obedience. Ahmet snapped at the
chance, slim though it was, to regain his kingdom, as a starving dog
snaps at a proffered bone. Eaton's plan of campaign was as simple as it
was reckless. He proposed to recruit a force of Greek and Arab
mercenaries, officered by Americans, in Alexandria, and, following the
North African coast-line westward across the Libyan Desert, to surprise
and capture Derna (or, as it was spelled in those days, Derne), the
capital of the easternmost and richest province of Tripoli. With Derna
as a base of operations, and with the co-operation of the American
fleet, he held that it would be a comparatively simple matter to push on
along the coast, taking in turn Benghazi, Tobruk, and the city of
Tripoli itself. The chief merit of the scheme lay in its sheer
audacity, for of all the leaders who have invaded Africa, this unknown
American was the only one who had the courage to face the perils of a
march across a waterless, trackless, sun-scorched, and uninhabited
desert. But there was in Eaton the stuff of which great conquerors are
made, and instead of letting his mind dwell on the dangers which the
desert had to offer, he dreamed of the triumphs which awaited him beyond
it.
To raise the men for so hazardous an expedition, Eaton had need of all
the energy and magnetism at his command, alternately employing the
specious promises of a recruiting sergeant and the persuasive arguments
of a campaign orator. On March 3, 1805, Eaton and the man to whom he had
promised a kingdom reviewed their forlorn hope--and it was very forlorn
indeed--at a spot called the Arab's Tower, some forty miles southwest of
Alexandria. I doubt if so strangely assorted a force ever marched and
fought under the shadow of our flag. The army, if army it could be
called, consisted of eight Americans besides Eaton: Lieutenant O'Barron,
Sergeant Peck, and six marines borrowed from the American fleet;
thirty-four Greeks, who went along professedly because they wanted to
fight the Moslem, but really because they needed the money; twenty-five
Egyptian Copts, Christians at least in name, who claimed to be trained
artillerymen, and to lend color to their assertion brought with them a
small brass field-gun; those of Ahmet's personal adherents who had fled
with him into exile, numbering about ninety men; and a squadron of Arab
mercenaries, whose services had been obtained by the promise of
unlimited opportunities for loot--these with the drivers of the
baggage-camels bringing the total strength of the "Army of North Africa"
to less than four hundred men. With this motley and ill-disciplined
force behind him, and six hundred miles of yellow sand in front, Eaton
turned his horse's nose Tripoliward, so that at about the time President
Jefferson was delivering his second inaugural address the adventurous
American was leading his little army across the desert, with the courage
of an Alexander the Great, to conquer an African kingdom.
The task which lay before him was one which great military leaders, all
down the ages, had declared impossible. For a distance equal to that
from Philadelphia to Chicago stretched an unbroken expanse of pitiless,
sun-scorched desert, boasting no single living thing save an occasional
band of nomad Arabs or a herd of gazelles. Midway between Alexandria
and Derna was the insignificant port of Bomba, where, according to a
prearranged plan, the _Argus_, under Captain Isaac Hull--the same who
became famous a few years later for his victories over the British in
the War of 1812--was to meet the expedition with supplies. Unless you
have seen the desert it will be difficult for you to appreciate how
hazardous this adventure really was. Imagine a sea of yellow sand with
billow after billow stretching in every direction as far as the eye can
see; without a tree, a shrub, a plant, a blade of grass; without a
river, a brook, a drop of water except, at long intervals, a stagnant,
green-scummed pool; the air like a blast from an open furnace-door and
overhead a sky pitiless as molten brass! During the seven weeks of the
march the thermometer never dropped during the day below 120 degrees.
The arrangements for the transport had been left to Ahmet Pasha, and it
was not until the expedition was two hundred miles into the desert, and
the camel-drivers abruptly halted and announced that they were going
back to Egypt, that Eaton learned that they had been engaged only to
that point. As the desertion of the camel-drivers and the consequent
inability to transport the tents, ammunition, and supplies would wreck
the expedition, Eaton pleaded with the men to stick by him two or three
days longer, until he could reach an encampment of Arabs with whom he
could make another contract. This they consented to do on condition that
they were paid in advance. By borrowing every piaster which his
Americans and Greeks had to lend, Eaton succeeded in raising six hundred
and seventy-three dollars, and with this the camel-drivers were
apparently content. Nothing shows more strikingly the shoe-string on
which the enterprise was being run than the fact that this unexpected
disbursement reduced Eaton's war-chest to three Venetian
sequins--equivalent to six dollars and fifty-four cents! Despite this
payment, all but four of the camel-drivers deserted the very next night,
and the four that remained sullenly refused to go any farther. In the
darkness of the following night they, too, quietly untethered their
camels and slipped silently away. Here, then, were three hundred and
fifty men, with a rapidly diminishing supply of food and water and
absolutely no means of transport, as completely marooned as though they
were on a desert island.
To make matters worse, if such a thing were possible, Eaton learned that
Ahmet had induced his Tripolitans and the Arabs to refuse to advance
until they had news of the arrival of the _Argus_ at Bomba. Eaton,
striding across to Ahmet's tent, shook his fist menacingly in the face
of the cringing Tripolitan. "I know you're a coward," said he, "and I
suspect that you're a traitor and I've a damned good mind to have you
shot." The Pasha, now thoroughly frightened, replied that his men were
too tired to march any farther. "You can take your choice between
marching and starving," Eaton retorted, turning on his heel, and placing
a guard of American marines around the tent containing the provisions,
he ordered them to shoot the first Arab who approached it. This resolute
action had an immediate effect, for the Pasha and his men lost their
tired feeling with amazing quickness, fifty of the camel-drivers
returned, and the desperate march was resumed. It was but a day or two,
however, before the Arabs became as turbulent and unruly as ever. Then
another mutiny broke out, Ahmet and his people announcing that they
preferred to be well-fed cowards rather than starved heroes, and that
they were going back to the flesh-pots of Egypt forthwith. Just as they
were on the point of departure, however, a messenger who had been
despatched to Bomba reached camp with the news that the _Argus_ was
awaiting them in the harbor. These unexpected delays had wholly
exhausted the supplies, which were slim enough, goodness knows, in the
beginning, so that during the remainder of the march to Bomba they were
compelled to kill some of the camels for food, living upon them and upon
such roots as they could gather on the way.
It was a half-starved and utterly exhausted expedition that plodded up
the sand dunes which overlook the little port of Bomba, so what must
their despair have been when they found no vessel awaiting them in the
harbor, and that the town itself had been deserted. Captain Hull,
apparently having given them up as lost, had departed. This time a more
serious mutiny occurred, the Arabs, desperate with hunger and furious
from disappointment, preparing to attack Eaton and his handful of
Europeans. Appreciating the peril of his position, Eaton hastily formed
his men into a hollow square. Just as the Arabs were preparing to charge
down upon them the musket of one of the marines was prematurely
discharged, the bullet whistling in uncomfortable proximity to the
Pasha's ear. So terror-stricken was that worthy that he called off his
men and attempted to parley with Eaton, who, standing alone well in
front of his command, relieved his mind by telling Ahmet his opinion of
him in what, according to the accounts of those who heard it, must have
been an epic in objurgation. While the two factions were growling at
each other like angry bull-dogs one of the Americans, happening to
glance seaward, suddenly broke the dangerous tension by shouting: "A
sail! A sail!" Hull, true to his promise, was returning, and the
expedition was saved. Supplies were quickly landed from the _Argus_ for
the starving men; with full stomachs the courage of the Arabs returned,
and Eaton and his little band once more turned their faces toward the
setting sun.
On the evening of April 25 the vanguard sighted the walls of Derna. A
feat that veteran soldiers had jeered at as impossible had been
accomplished, and Eaton, without the loss of a man, had brought his army
across six hundred miles of desert, in the heat of an African spring,
and in the remarkable time, when the scantiness of the rations and the
many delays are considered, of fifty-two days. With their goal actually
in sight, still another mutiny took place, the craven Arabs claiming
that they were too few in number to attempt the capture of a walled and
heavily garrisoned city, and it was not until Eaton promised them a
bonus of two thousand dollars if they succeeded in taking it that they
could be induced to advance. The more one learns of this man the more
one must admire his unfailing resource, his tenacity of purpose, and his
bull-dog courage; for, in addition to the appalling natural obstacles
which he overcame, he was constantly harried by intrigue, treachery, and
cowardice.
On the morning of the 26th a message was sent to the governor of Derna,
under a flag of truce, offering him full amnesty if he would surrender
and declare his allegiance to his rightful sovereign, Ahmet. The answer
that came back was as curt as it was conclusive: "My head or yours," it
read. Just as the sun was rising above the sand-dunes the following
morning the _Argus_, the _Nautilus_, and the _Hornet_ swept grandly into
the harbor, their crews at quarters, their decks cleared for action, and
the red-white-and-blue ensign of the oversea republic floating defiantly
from their main trucks. Under cover of a terrific bombardment by the
war-ships, Eaton's force advanced upon the city, planning, with their
single field-piece, to effect a breach in the walls and carry the place
by storm. So murderous was the fire that the Tripolitan riflemen poured
into them from the walls and housetops, however, that they were thrown
into confusion, their single piece of artillery was put out of action
by a well-directed cannon-shot, and Eaton himself was severely wounded.
Seeing that his raw troops were on the verge of panic, and knowing that
his only chance of holding them together lay in a charge, Eaton ordered
his buglers to sound the advance, and with a cheer like the roar of a
storm his whole line--Americans, Greeks, and Arabs--swept forward on a
run. "Come on, boys!" shouted Eaton, as he raced ahead, sword in one
hand, pistol in the other. "At the double! Follow me! Follow me!" And
follow him they did. Cheering like madmen they crossed a field swept by
a withering rifle-fire. They clambered over the ramparts, and by the
very fury of their assault drove back the defenders, who outnumbered
them twenty to one. They fought with them hand to hand, sabre against
cimiter, bayonet against clubbed matchlock. Swarming into the batteries,
they cut down the gunners and turned their guns upon the town. The
defences of the city once in his possession, Eaton directed an assault
upon the palace, where the governor had taken refuge, utilizing his Arab
cavalry meanwhile to cut off the retreat of the flying garrison. Before
the sun had disappeared into the Mediterranean, Eaton, at a cost of only
fourteen killed and wounded (all of whom, by the way, were Americans
and Greeks), had made himself master of Derna. His moment of triumph
came when, still begrimed with dirt and powder, his arm in a
blood-stained sling, he stood with drawn sword before the line formed by
his ragged soldiers and the trim bluejackets from the fleet, and,
watching a ball of bunting creep up that palace flagstaff from which so
recently had flaunted the banner of Tripoli, saw it suddenly break out
into the Stars and Stripes. Our flag, for the first and only time, flew
above a fortification on that side of the Atlantic.
Reinforced by a party of bluejackets from the fleet, Eaton wasted not a
moment in preparing the city for defence. He was none too soon, either,
for the Bashaw, learning of the loss of his richest province, despatched
an overwhelming force for its recapture. This army arrived before the
walls of Derna on May 13, and immediately made an assault, which Eaton
repulsed, as he did a second one a few weeks later. By this time the
news of Eaton's victory had spread across North Africa as fire spreads
in dry grass, and thousands of natives, many of them deserters from the
Bashaw's forces, hastened to assert their undying loyalty and to offer
their services to Ahmet, for your Arab is far-seeing and takes good care
to be found on the side which he believes to be the winning one. With
his army thus largely augmented, with ample supplies, with Derna as a
base of operations, and with his own prestige equivalent to an
additional regiment, Eaton had completed the preparations for continuing
his victorious advance along the African coast-line. There is little
doubt, indeed, that with the co-operation of the fleet he could have
marched on to Benghazi, taken that city as easily as he did Derna, and
in due time planted the American flag on the castle of Tripoli itself.
So it was with undisguised amazement and indignation that on June 12 he
received orders from Commodore Rodgers to evacuate Derna and to withdraw
his forces from Tripoli, Colonel Tobias Lear, the American consul at
Algiers, having, in the face of Eaton's successes, signed an inglorious
treaty of peace with the Bashaw of Tripoli. No more degrading terms were
ever assented to by a civilized power. The Bashaw at first demanded two
hundred thousand dollars for the release of Bainbridge and the
_Philadelphia's_ crew, but as Eaton had captured a large number of
Tripolitans in the storming of Derna, an exchange was eventually
arranged, the United States agreeing to pay the pirate ruler sixty
thousand dollars to boot. The city of Derna and the great province of
which it was the capital were surrendered without so much as the mention
of an equivalent, not even the relinquishment of the ransom of the
American prisoners. The unfortunate Ahmet Pasha, who had been decoyed
from his refuge in Egypt on the promise of American assistance in
effecting his restoration, was deserted at a moment when success was
actually ours, and had to fly for his life to Sicily, his wife and
children being held as hostages by his brother and the heads of his
adherents being exposed on the walls of the Tripolitan capital. Thus
shamefully ended one of the most gallant and romantic exploits in the
history of American arms; thus terminated an episode which, more than
any other agency, compelled the rulers of the Barbary coast to respect
the citizens and fear the wrath of the United States. Though an
expedition of scarcely four hundred men may sound insignificant, the
humbling of a Barbary power was an achievement which every European
nation had attempted and which none of them had accomplished.
Disappointed and disgusted, Eaton returned to the United States in
November, 1805, to find himself a national hero. From the moment he set
his foot on American soil he was greeted with cheers wherever he
appeared; it was "roses, roses all the way." The cities of Washington
and Richmond honored him with public dinners; Massachusetts, "desirous
to perpetuate the remembrance of an heroic enterprise," granted him ten
thousand acres of land in Maine; Boston named a street after the city
which he had captured against such fearful odds; President Jefferson
lauded him in his annual message; and in recognition of his services in
effecting the release of some Danish captives in Tripoli, he was
presented by the King of Denmark with a jewelled snuff-box. He was
complimented everywhere except at the seat of government, and received
every honor except that which he most deserved--a vote of thanks from
Congress. Though his expedition had involved an expense of twenty-three
thousand dollars, for which he had given his personal notes and the
repayment of which exhausted all his means, Congress never reimbursed
him. Notwithstanding the astounding indifference and ingratitude of the
nation on whose flag he had shed such lustre, he indignantly rejected
the advances of Aaron Burr, who tried ineffectually to enlist him in his
conspiracy to establish an empire beyond the Mississippi, and died,
poverty-stricken and broken-hearted, on June 1, 1811. Though the most
modest of monuments marks his resting-place in Brimfield churchyard, and
though not one in a hundred thousand of his countrymen have so much as
heard his name, his fame still lives in that wild and far-off region
where it took an Italian army of forty thousand men to repeat the
exploit which he accomplished with four hundred.