directs him to evade the thirty-six-gun frigate, and to offer the Bey ten thousand dollars a year for peace, to be arranged in the same underhand way.
Tripoli refused the money; it was not enough. The Bey of Tunis rejected both the offer and the Consul. He wrote to Mr. Jefferson that he considered some of Cathcart's expressions insulting, and that he insisted upon the thirty-six-gun frigate. Mr. Jefferson answered on the 27th of January, 1804, after he knew of the insult to Morris and of the expulsion of Eaton. Beginning with watery generalities about "mutual friendships and the interests arising out of them," he regretted that there should be any misconception of his motives on the part of the Bey. "Such being our regard for you, it is with peculiar concern I learn from your letter that Mr. Cathcart, whom I had chosen from a confidence in his integrity, experience, and good dispositions, has so conducted himself as to incur your displeasure. In doing this, be assured he has gone against the letter and spirit of his instructions, which were, that his deportment should be such as to make known my esteem and respect for your character both personal and public, and to cultivate your friendship by all the attentions and services he could render.... In selecting another character to take the place of Mr. Cathcart, I shall take care to fix on one who, I hope, will better fulfil the duties of respect and esteem for you, and who, in so doing only, will be the faithful representative and organ of our earnest desire that the peace and friendship so happily subsisting between the two countries may be firm and permanent."
Most people will agree with Eaton, that "the spirit which dictated this answer betrays more the inspiration of Carter's Mountain6 than of Bunker Hill."
Lear, who was appointed Consul-General in 1803, was authorized by his instructions to pay twenty thousand dollars down and ten thousand a year for peace, and a sum not to exceed five hundred dollars a man for ransom.
When Barron's squadron anchored at Malta, Consul O'Brien came on board to say that he had offered, by authority, eight thousand dollars a year to Tunis, instead of the frigate, and one hundred and ten thousand to Tripoli for peace and the ransom of the crew of the Philadelphia, and that both propositions had been rejected.
Finally, after fitting out this fourth squadron, at an expense of one million five hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and with Eaton in possession of Derne, the Administration paid sixty thousand dollars for peace and ransom, when Preble, ten months previously, could have obtained both for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Thus they spent two millions to save ninety thousand, and left the principle of tribute precisely where it was before.
What makes this business still more remarkable is, that the Administration knew from the reports of our consuls and from the experience of our captains that the force of the pirates was insignificant, and that they were wretched sailors and poor shots. Sterret took a Tripolitan cruiser of fourteen guns after an engagement of thirty minutes; he killed or wounded fifty of her crew, and did not lose a man, nor suffer any material damage in his hull or rigging. There was no one killed on the American side when Decatur burned the Philadelphia. The Constitution was under the fire of the Tripolitan batteries for two hours without losing a man, and was equally fortunate when she ran in a second time and lay within musket-shot of the mole, exposed to the fire of the enemy for three-quarters of an hour. These Tripolitan batteries mounted one hundred and fifteen guns. Three years later, Captain Ichabod Sheffield, of the schooner Mary Ann, furnished in person an example of the superiority of the Yankee over the Turk. Consul Lear had just given forty-eight thousand dollars to the Dey of Algiers, in full payment of tribute "up to date." Nevertheless, the Mary Ann, of and from New York to Leghorn, was seized in the Straits of Gibraltar by an Algerine corsair. A prize-crew of nine Turks was sent on board; the captain, two men, and a boy left in her to do the work; she was ordered to Algiers; and the pirate sailed away. Having no instructions from Washington, Sheffield and his men determined to strike a blow for liberty, and fixed upon their plan. Algiers was in sight, when Sheffield hurled the "grains" overboard, and cried that he had struck a fish. Four Turks, who were on deck, ran to the side to look over. Instantly the Americans threw three of them into the sea. The others, hearing the noise, hurried upon deck. In a hand-to-hand fight which followed two more were killed with handspikes, and the remaining four were overpowered and sent adrift in a small boat. Sheffield made his way, rejoicing, to Naples. When the Dey heard how his subjects had been handled, he threatened to put Lear in irons and to declare war. It cost the United States sixteen thousand dollars to appease his wrath.
The cruise of the Americans against Tripoli differed little, except in the inferiority of their force, from numerous attacks made by European nations upon the Regencies. Venice, England, France, had repeatedly chastised the pirates in times past. In 1799, the Portuguese, with one seventy-four-gun ship, took two Tripolitan cruisers, and forced the Pacha to pay them eleven thousand dollars. In 1801, not long before our expedition, the French Admiral Gaunthomme over-hauled two Tunisian corsairs in chase of some Neapolitan vessels. He threw all their guns overboard, and bade them beware how they provoked the wrath of the First Consul by plundering his allies. But all of them left, as we did, the principle of piracy or payments as they found it. At last this evil was treated in a manner more creditable to civilization. In 1812, the Algerines captured an American vessel, and made slaves of the crew. After the peace with England, in 1815, Decatur, in the Guerrière, sailed into the Mediterranean, and captured off Cape de Gat, in twenty-five minutes, an Algerine frigate of forty-six guns and four hundred men. On board the Guerrière, four were wounded, and no one killed. Two days later, off Cape Palos, he took a brig of twenty-two guns and one hundred and eighty men. He then sailed into the harbor of Algiers with his prizes, and offered peace, which was accepted. The Dey released the American prisoners, relinquished all claims to tribute in future, and promised never again to enslave an American. Decatur, on our part, surrendered his prizes, and agreed to consular presents,–a mitigated form of tribute, similar in principle, but, at least, with another name. From Algiers he went to Tunis, and demanded satisfaction of that Regency for having permitted a British man-of-war to retake in their port two prizes to Americans in the late war with England. The Bey submitted, and paid forty-six thousand dollars. He next appeared before Tripoli, where he compelled the Pacha to pay twenty-six thousand dollars, and to surrender ten captives, as an indemnity for some breaches of international law. In fifty-four days he brought all Barbary to submission. It is true, that, the next spring, the Dey of Algiers declared this treaty null, and fell back upon the time-honored system of annual tribute. But it was too late. Before it became necessary for Decatur to pay him another visit, Lord Exmouth avenged the massacre of the Neapolitan fishermen at Bona by completely destroying the fleet and forts of Algiers, in a bombardment of seven hours. Christian prisoners of every nation were liberated in all the Regencies, and the slave-system, as applied to white men, finally abolished.
Preble, Eaton, and Decatur are our three distinguished African officers. As Barron's squadron did not fire a shot into Tripoli, indeed never showed itself before that port, to Eaton alone belongs the credit of bringing the Pacha to terms which the American Commissioner was willing to accept. The attack upon Derne was the feat of arms of the fourth year, and finished the war.
Ours is not a new reading of the earlier relations of the United States with the Barbary powers. The story can be found in the Collection of State Papers, and more easily in the excellent little books of Messrs. Sabine and Felton. But a "popular version" despises documents. Under the pressure of melodrama, history will drift into Napoleon's "fable agreed upon"; and if it be true, as Emerson says, that "no anchor, no cable, no fence, avail to keep a fact a fact," it is not at all likely that a paper in a monthly magazine will do it.
SUNSHINE
I have always worked in the carpet-factories. My father and mother worked there before me and my sisters, as long as they lived. My sisters died first;–the one, I think, out of deep sorrow; the other from too much joy.
My older sister worked hard, knew nothing else but work, never thought of anything else, nor found any joy in work, scarcely in the earnings that came from it. Perhaps she pined for want of more air, shut up in the rooms all day, not caring to find it in walking
The scene of Mr. Jefferson's celebrated retreat from the British. A place of frequent resort for Federal editors in those days.
