Jefferson's War (15 page)

Eaton also disliked and distrusted Joseph Etienne Famin, the French trader who, at Joel Barlow's request, had midwifed the original U.S. treaty with Tunis. As Eaton built up his own network of contacts in Tunis, he became convinced Famin was systematically undercutting the United States with the bey and advising the bey's chief minister, the sapitapa, about how to squeeze more money from America.

Eaton initially tried to ignore and shun Famin, but fate set them on a trajectory toward collision. The master of the U.S. merchantman
Lizzie
one day complained to Eaton that Famin had solicited a $1,000 bribe from him, claiming he could help him circumvent the Tunisian taxes on his cargo. Eaton was certain that Famin would have kept the bribe money, informed the sapitapa that the
Lizzie
was cheating him on taxes, and gotten the master
thrown in prison, thereby winning points with the dey. And Eaton would have had to use his own money to free him. As he and the
Lizzie‘
s master walked through Tunis's streets together talking, Eaton's anger grew.

They unexpectedly encountered Famin, and Eaton confronted him with the
Lizzie
master's allegations. Famin told him to mind his own business. Eaton's quick temper flared. Snatching a whip from a mule-cart driver, he began horsewhipping Famin in the street, before a crowd of Tunisians. Bleeding and utterly humiliated, the Frenchman finally managed to crawl away on his hands and knees. He went straight to the sapitapa. The bey summoned Eaton and Famin to explain what had happened. The articulate Eaton was better prepared, even quoting Famin as having referred to the bey's prime minister and his officers as “thieves and robbers.” The bey sent Famin away and invited Eaton to dine with him.

 

O‘Brien and Cathcart believed that, with encouragement, the Barbary States gradually would embrace legitimate trade and abandon piracy. Eaton, however, was convinced Barbary would never change willingly. “The United States set out wrongly, and have proceeded so. ... There is but one language which can be held to these people, and this is
terror.
” Congress must “send a force into these seas, at least to check the
insolence
of these scoundrels and to render
themselves
respectable.” If America's elected officials would not resolve to fight Barbary, “I hope they will resolve at their next session to wrest the
quiverofarrows
from the left talon of the eagle, in their arms, and substitute a
fiddlebow
or a
segar
in
lieu.
”

O‘Brien and Cathcart came around to Eaton's bleak view after a wearing, frustrating year of attempting to placate the dey and bashaw, respectively. The demands never ceased. For example,
Bobba Mustapha expected to be paid $20,000 in silver upon the appointment of a new consul. On his birthday, he looked forward to a gift of $17,000 in hard cash. And that amount was deemed a fitting present for his eldest son's birthday, too, and for each of the various Moslem holidays.

Eaton, whose fraying relationship with the bey was now punctuated by shouting matches, believed that France and England were instigating the trouble. He forwarded what evidence he could gather to Pickering. “I don't pray often, but on this occasion I pray devoutly that the armies of Europe may bleed each other till they faint with the loss of blood.”

In the nick of time for Eaton, the repaired Hero arrived in Tunis in April 1800 with masts, gunpowder, cannons, and small arms. Tensions eased temporarily between Tunis and America. The bey, however, wished to be at war with some nation; his corsair crews were restless. The shadow fell on Denmark, whose treaty also pledged annual tribute of naval stores. Unfortunately for Denmark, its naval stores arrived after America's. The bey found them to be inferior and left them to rot on Tunis's docks. Tunisian soldiers chopped down the flagpole at the Danish consulate. Freshly armed with new American cannons, ammunition, and powder, Tunisian corsairs sailed into the Mediterranean to hunt Danish merchantmen, bagging eight, with cargo and crews worth millions of dollars. The Danish ship captains despaired over their heavy losses.

Eaton came to their rescue, buying six of the seized vessels on credit. He restored the ships to their captains at cost, his good deed earning him the Danish king's gratitude. But the Danes got the message delivered by the Tunisian corsairs and signed a new, more generous treaty in August 1800.

Eaton and O‘Brien's troubles in Algiers and Tunis paled beside Cathcart's problems in Tripoli. Cathcart and Bashaw Yusuf Karamanli had never really established a rapport, and now their relations had become acrimonious and accusatory. While the Barbary States invariably presented a unified front to the Europeans and Americans, they nursed rivalries among themselves, and the bashaw was unhappy that America regarded Algiers as the preeminent Barbary power, when Yusuf believed his growing navy made Tripoli the equal of Algiers. Yusuf wanted a new treaty with the United States.

At Cathcart's first meeting with him, Yusuf had indifferently pushed aside the new consul's carefully chosen presents—a diamondstudded gold watch, diamond rings, handkerchiefs, and eight silver snuffboxes, among other choice items, valued at $3,000. Yusuf wanted to know where the naval stores and the brig were that America had promised. It was the first Cathcart had heard of a promised brig. Brian McDonough, British consul in Tripoli, informed Cathcart that O‘Brien indeed had pledged to deliver a brig during the Tripolitan—U.S. treaty negotiations. When it became apparent to Yusuf that no amount of bullying was going to induce Cathcart to produce a brig and naval stores he did not have, Yusuf said he would settle for $18,000 cash for the brig and $25,000 for the naval stores. McDonough bargained the bashaw down to $18,000 for both, and Cathcart paid, borrowing at high interest from Yusuf's banker, Leon Farfara.

Some of Cathcart's problems with the bashaw were of his own making. When news of George Washington's death reached Barbary in 1800, O‘Brien and Eaton wisely suppressed it. O'Brien went to the length of canvassing Algiers for American newspapers
carrying the news and confiscating them. Eaton saluted Washington's passing with a black armband, but when the bey asked about it, he would say only that a friend had died. Both knew better than to furnish the rulers with any reason for demanding more gifts, which even a death could prompt. Cathcart, however, lowered the Tripoli consulate flag to half-staff. He instructed U.S. ships in Tripoli harbor to lower their flags, too, and to fire a 21-gun salute. When the bashaw discovered the reason, he demanded a $10,000 gift to help console him for Washington's death.

Yusuf complained unceasingly about his treaty to Cathcart and to anyone who would listen. In a letter to President Adams, he made the thinly veiled threat that Tripoli would remain at peace with America, “provided you are willing to treat us as you do the two other Regencies, without any difference being made between us.” Parity meant a frigate like Algiers's 36-gun Crescent. It also meant a new treaty requiring America to pay annual tribute similar to what Algiers was receiving.

As Yusuf lobbied for better terms, he quietly allowed his corsairs to slip the leash. In July 1800, the 18-gun Tripolitan polacre
Tripolino
—a brig-size corsair—captured the New York brig
Catherine,
bound for Leghorn with a cargo valued at $50,000. The Tripolitan crew boarded, searched, and stripped the brig of everything of value, then brought it into Tripoli. It was intended as a strong warning only. Yusuf released the ship, crew, and cargo in October. But in unmistakable language, he said that if he did not get the treaty he wanted within six months, Tripoli would be at war with the United States. Cathcart grimly foresaw “the necessity of sending a sufficient force into this Sea to repel the Bashaw's demand....”

William Bainbridge's
Retaliation
was the only American warship captured by the French during the Quasi-War, but Bainbridge's career had not suffered for it—he remained one of the infant Navy's foremost rising young officers. A lieutenant when he surrendered his flag to the
L‘Insurgente
and
Voluntaire,
Bainbridge in 1800 was a captain, and the skipper of the 24-gun frigate
George Washington,
one of the merchantmen converted into warships during the hasty outfitting for the French war.

Bainbridge and the
George Washington
sailed into Algiers harbor in September 1800, the first Mediterranean port of call paid by a U.S. warship. The
George Washington‘
s cargo included gunpowder, sugar, coffee, and herring—and a late tribute payment for the dey. Bainbridge never dreamed what Bobba Mustapha had in store for him.

The dey had displeased the sultan by signing a treaty with France while the Turks were fighting Napoleon in Egypt and Syria. The sultan's unhappiness rightly made Bobba nervous, for while Algiers was arguably the supreme Barbary power, the Ottoman fleet and janissaries could easily crush Bobba's forces and depose him if it came to that. Bobba needed to placate the sultan. And that's where the
George Washington
and Bainbridge came into play.

After the diplomatic protocols had been observed, Bobba dropped his bombshell: He wanted Bainbridge to transport Bobba's presents and bribe money on the
George Washington
to the sultan in Constantinople. Deeply shocked, Bainbridge said he could never do that. No U.S. warship would serve as a delivery service for another nation, he said emphatically. Bobba delicately pointed out that the
George Washington
happened to be moored beneath the city's fortress cannons, which could blow the American frigate out of the water in minutes.

Bainbridge could see that escape was impossible. Rebuking himself bitterly for having brought his warship so close to the batteries, he acquiesced reluctantly to the dey's “request,” displaying his knack of foreseeing the worst and giving up before it came to pass. He was certain that his submission to this affront to U.S. honor would doom his career.

The
George Washington
sailed for Constantinople on October 19, looking like Noah's ark. Besides its 130 crewmen, the frigate carried the Algerian ambassador and his suite of 100 attendants; 100 black slaves; 4 horses; 150 sheep; 25 cattle; 4 lions; 4 tigers; 4 antelope; 12 parrots; and money and regalia worth nearly $1 million. It also flew the Algerian flag—another indignity Bainbridge and his crew were forced to bear. Once they were out of sight of Algiers, Bainbridge lowered the Algerian colors and raised the Stars and Stripes. The menagerie staggered across the Mediterranean, the decks so crowded that crewmen were able to maneuver the ship only with difficulty.

The Americans took pleasure in tacking into the wind whenever the Moslems prostrated themselves facing east toward Mecca, as they were required to do five times a day. This forced the worshipers to change position incessantly so they always faced approximately east, toward Mecca. The constant shifting about was doubly irksome because they could never be entirely sure whether they were really facing east. They solved the problem by posting a Moslem beside the ship's compass to call out directions.

Bainbridge sailed through the Dardanelles, around the Golden Horn and into Constantinople with the dey's presents. The Turks had never seen the American flag before. It puzzled them at first, but they were impressed by its design. When they discovered that the frigate belonged to a mysterious new nation thousands of
miles away, the sultan's officers rolled out the red carpet and gave Bainbridge and his officers the run of the exotic Ottoman capital. Bainbridge reciprocated their courtesies by inviting the Turkish officials to dinner on the
George Washington.
Throughout the meal, the Americans poured water from pitchers positioned at the corners of the table, explaining to their guests that each contained water from a different continent: Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America.