is clear that our President and people were in no danger of being led into acts of undue violence by "deeply affected sensibility" or the "vindication of the national honor," when a violent blow aimed by the Pacha of Tripoli at their Mediterranean trade roused them to a show of self-defence. Early in May he declared war against the United States, although Consul Cathcart offered him ten thousand dollars to leave the American flag-staff up for a short time longer. Even then, if Mr. Jefferson could have consulted no one but himself, not a ship would have sailed from these shores. But the merchants were too powerful for him; they insisted upon protection in the Mediterranean. A squadron of three frigates and a sloop under Commodore Dale was fitted out and despatched to Gibraltar; and the nations of the earth were duly notified by our diplomatic agents of our intentions, that they might not be alarmed by this armada.
In June of this year a fire broke out in the palace at Tunis, and fifty thousand stand of arms were destroyed. The Bey sent for Eaton; he had apportioned his loss among his friends, and it fell to the United States to furnish ten thousand stand without delay.
"It is only the other day," said Eaton, "that you asked for eighty twenty-four pounders. At this rate, when are our payments to have an end?"
"Never," was the answer. "The claims we make are such as we receive from all friendly nations, every two or three years; and you, like other Christians, will be obliged to conform to it."
Eaton refused to state the claim to his Government. The Bey said, Very well, he would write himself; and threatened to turn Eaton out of the Regency.
At this juncture Commodore Dale arrived at Gibraltar. The Bey paid us the compliment of believing that he had not been sent so far for nothing, and allowed Eaton a few months' respite.
Now was the time to give the Turks their lesson; but Dale's hands were tied by his orders. Mr. Jefferson's heart was not in violent methods of dealing with his fellow-men in Barbary. He thought our objects might be accomplished by a display of force better and more cheaply than by active measures. A dislike of naval war and of public expenditure2 made his constitutional conscience, always tender, very sensitive on this question of a cruise against Tripoli. Fearful lest our young sailors should go too far, he instructed the Commodore not to overstep the strict line of defence. Hence, when Sterret, in the Enterprise, captured a Tripolitan schooner, after a brisk engagement, he disarmed and dismantled her, and left her, with the survivors of her crew on board, to make the best of their way home again. Laymen must have found it difficult, even in 1801, to discover the principle of this delicate distinction between killing and taking prisoners; but it was "according to orders." Commodore Dale returned home at the end of the year, having gathered few African laurels; Commodore Morris came out the next season with a larger fleet, and gathered none at all.
There is no better established rule, in commencing hostilities, public or private, than this: If you strike at all, strike with all your might. Half-measures not only irritate, they encourage. When the Bey of Tunis perceived that Dale did little and Morris less, he thought he had measured exactly the strength of the United States navy, and had no reason to feel afraid of it. His wants again became clamorous, and his tone menacing. The jewels arrived from England in the Constellation, but did not mollify him.
"Now," said he, "I must have a thirty-six-gun frigate, like the one you sent to the Dey of Algiers."
Eaton protested that there was no frigate in the treaty, and that we would fight rather than yield to such extortion.
The Prime Minister blew a cloud from his pipe. "We find it all puff; we see how you carry on the war with Tripoli."
"But are you not ashamed to make this demand, when you have just received these valuable jewels?"
"Not at all. We expected the full payment of peace stipulations in a year. You came out with nothing, and three years have elapsed since you settled the treaty. We have waited all this time, but you have made us no consideration for this forbearance. Nor have we as yet received any evidence of the veritable friendship of the Prince of America, notwithstanding the repeated intimations we have given him that such an expression of his sincerity would be agreeable to us. His Excellency, my master, is a man of great forbearance; but he knows what steps to take with nations who exhaust his patience with illusive expressions of friendship."
Eaton answered, angrily, that the Bey might write himself to the President, if he wanted a frigate. For his part, he would never transmit so outrageous a demand. "Then," retorted the Bey, "I will send you home, and the letter with you."
The letter was composed by the dragoman and forwarded to the United States, but Eaton was allowed to remain.
Disgusted with the shameful position of our affairs in the Mediterranean, Eaton requested Mr. Madison to recall him, unless more active operations against the enemy should be resolved upon. "I can no longer talk of resistance and coercion," he wrote, "without exciting a grimace of contempt and ridicule … The operations of our squadron this season have done less than the last to aid my efforts. Government may as well send out Quaker meeting-houses to float about this sea as frigates with – in command … If further concessions are to be made here, I desire I may not be the medium through whom they shall be presented. Our presents show the Bey our wealth and our weakness and stimulate his avarice to new demands."
The display of latent force by the United States fleet, from which our Government had expected so much, increased the insolence of the Bey of Tunis to such a point that Eaton was obliged to withdraw from his post, and a new war seemed inevitable. The Americans had declared Tripoli blockaded; but, as their ships were seldom on the coast, little attention was paid to them. It happened, however, that a Tunisian vessel, bound for Tripoli, was captured when attempting to enter the harbor, and declared a prize. Shortly after, Commodore Morris anchored off Tunis and landed to visit the Consul. The Bey, who held the correct doctrine on the subject of paper blockades, pronounced the seizure illegal and demanded restitution. During his stay on shore, the Commodore had several interviews with the Bey's commercial agent in relation to this prize question. The behavior of that official was so offensive that the Commodore determined to go on board his ship without making the usual farewell visit at Court. As he was stepping into his boat from the mole, he was arrested by the commercial agent for a debt of twenty-two thousand dollars, borrowed by Eaton to assist Hamet Caramanli in his expedition against Tripoli. Eaton remonstrated indignantly. He alone was responsible for the debt; he had given abundant security, and was willing to pay handsomely for further forbearance. In vain; the agent would take nothing but the money. Eaton hurried to the palace to ask the Bey if this arrest was by his order. The Bey declined to answer or to interfere. There was no help for it; the Commodore was caught. To obtain permission to embark, he was obliged to get the money from the French Consul-General, and to promise restitution of the captured vessel and cargo. As soon as he was at liberty, the Commodore, accompanied by Eaton, went to the palace to protest against this breach of national hospitality and insult to the flag. Eaton's remarks were so distasteful to the Bey that he ordered him again to quit his court,–this time peremptorily,–adding, that the United States must send him a Consul "with a disposition more congenial to Barbary interests."
Eaton arrived in Boston on the 5th of May, 1803. The same season Preble sailed into the Mediterranean, with the Constitution, "a bunch of pine boards," as she was then called in derision, poorly fitted out, and half-manned; and with three other vessels in no better condition. But here, at last, was a captain whom no cautious or hesitating instructions could prevent from doing the work set before him to the best of his ability. Sword in hand, he maintained the principle of "Death before tribute," so often and so unmeaningly toasted at home; and it was not his fault, if he did not establish it. At all events, he restored the credit of our flag in the Mediterranean.
When the news reached home of the burning of the Philadelphia, of the attack of the fireships, and of the bombardment of Tripoli, the blood of the nation was up. Arch-democratic scruples as to the expediency, economy, or constitutionality of public armed ships were thenceforth utterly disregarded. Since then, it has never been a question whether the United States should have a navy or not. To Preble fairly belongs the credit of establishing it upon a permanent footing, and of heading the roll of daring and skilful officers the memory of whose gallantry pervades the service and renders it more effective than its ships and its guns.
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