Jefferson's War (16 page)

Two months after leaving Algiers, the George Washington returned, lighter, less congested, and bearing a chilly letter from the sultan demanding more money from Bobba within sixty days. Bainbridge wisely anchored far from the fortress cannons this time, so he could no longer be forced to serve as the dey's courier. When Bobba requested that the warship shuttle the additional tribute back to Constantinople and Bainbridge again refused, the dey was powerless to make him change his mind.

 

If Jefferson had misgivings about sending warships to the Mediterranean, they evaporated when he learned soon after taking office about the
George Washington‘
s ordeal. “The sending to Constantinople [of] the national ship of war the
George Washington,
by force, under the Algerine flag, and for such a purpose, has deeply affected the sensibility, not only of the President, but of the people of the United States,” Madison informed O'Brien. It demanded “a vindication of the national honor.”

Eaton agreed wholeheartedly. He was astonished at Bainbridge's meek submission to Bobba's demands. “I would have lost the peace, and been empaled myself rather than yielded this concession. Nothing but blood can blot the impression.... Will nothing rouse my country?”

News of the
George Washington
incident flashed through the other Barbary regencies, with the unfortunate consequence that they became bolder in their own demands. Tunis's bey, Hamouda Pacha, told Eaton he wanted an American ship to carry Tunisian goods to Marseilles. Eaton reminded the bey that they had agreed to eliminate the treaty provision permitting him to commandeer U.S. ships. Eaton warned that if the dey persisted, he would order the ship to sail to America instead of Marseilles, and there the matter would be settled by the U.S. government. Eaton's threat deflated the bey's truculence to the point where he offered to pay $4,000 to use the merchant ship. Seeing that he had won, but needing to allow the bey to save face, Eaton accepted the offer. For all his griping about the bey, Eaton had to concede that Hamouda was more reasonable than Yusuf or Bobba Mustapha. “He seldom robs a man without first creating a pretext. He has some ideas of justice and [is] not wholly destitute of a sense of shame.”

 

 

 

Bainbridge returned to the United States with letters from Cathcart, Eaton, and O‘Brien—all urging that a naval force be sent to Barbary, all hinting at tendering their resignations. Particularly disheartening was Cathcart's portrayal of the grave situation developing in Tripoli, where the bashaw had become so openly hostile toward Cathcart that Eaton was asked to try parleying. But Yusuf denied Eaton an audience after he traveled to Tripoli and appeared at the palace. The rejection undoubtedly colored Eaton's unflattering first impression of the bashaw: “He was a large, vulgar beast, with filthy fingernails and a robe so spotted with spilt food and coffee that it was difficult to distinguish the
original color of the garment.” “He is a cur who can be disciplined only with the whip.”

Bobba Mustapha wrote to the bashaw urging moderation. But his intercession really was only a pretext for extorting more presents from O‘Brien, who was told the letter wouldn't be sent unless gifts were forthcoming. One of Bobba's officers helpfully supplied a list of what the dey had in mind: two pieces of muslin, two handkerchiefs, twelve finely woven pieces of cloth, two caftans, two pieces of Holland linen, thirty pounds of sugar, and a sack of coffee. The total came to $503. O'Brien dutifully went about gathering up the bribe, and then the dey threw in a last-minute request for a watch and ring. The dey sent the letter to the bashaw, but it did no good.

 

Cathcart knew Yusuf wasn't bluffing when he released the
Catherine
in October 1800 with the warning that he would be at war with America in six months if he didn't get a new warship and a new treaty. His foreboding deepened with each passing month. On January 3, 1801, he took the highly unusual step of issuing a warning to U.S. representatives throughout the western Mediterranean that Tripoli was poised to declare war. The catalyst was Sweden's new treaty, which meant Tripoli soon would need a new enemy. Sweden had agreed to pay $250,000 for peace and to ransom Swedish captives, plus $20,000 in annual tribute. The Swedes believed they had no choice if they wished to have an unmolested Mediterranean trade; of particular concern was the 3,000 tons of salt they imported from the region each year.

Cathcart's communique to the U.S. diplomats bristled with pessimism. “I have every reason to suppose the same terms will be
demanded from the United States of America and that our fellow Citizens will be captured in order to ensure our compliance with the said degrading, humiliating and dishonorable terms.”

Consuls and agents, he said, should inform U.S. merchant captains of the situation so they “may fly the impending danger.”

VI

WAR AND EARLY TRIUMPH

—Thomas Jefferson, congratulatory letter to Lt. Andrew Sterett

 

 

M
editerranean peace was unraveling as Jefferson had predicted so astutely all those years ago when he argued for a naval force to break The Terror. In the early spring of 1801, Tripoli's corsairs were readying for war against America. The bashaw set the price of a new treaty at $225,000, plus $25,000 in annual tribute. It was a shocking sum compared to the $60,000 treaty of 1797, but not far out of line with what Yusuf was extorting from the European nations, testimony to the strides he had made in transforming Tripoli into a regional naval power.

With fierce single-mindedness Yusuf had pursued this goal since claiming the throne in 1795, a devotee of the axiom that a strong navy commands respect—and, in Barbary at least, respectable tribute from the Christian infidels. His more indolent father, Ali Pasha, had neglected the navy and left just three rickety warships for Yusuf when he seized the throne by treachery and murder. In two years, he had doubled his navy's size, thanks
mainly to France's generosity. It was just the beginning. The Ottoman sultan expressed his pleasure with Yusuf's progress in 1797 by sending a 36-gun frigate and a 24-gun sloop, and, by 1800, Tripoli had eleven corsairs. Three years later, Yusuf's war fleet had expanded to nineteen warships, in addition to several skiffs and gunboats.

Tripoli's rapid rearmament enabled Yusuf to begin extorting higher tribute that, in turn, helped pay for more new warships. America's $60,000 treaty appeared embarrassingly paltry when compared with the sums Yusuf now commanded routinely: $100,000 each from Sweden, Denmark, and Sicilian Ragusa between 1797 and 1800; $80,000 in ransom and captured ship buybacks in 1799; in 1802 alone, $158,000 from Sweden, $40,000 each from Holland and Denmark, and $25,000 and a new ship from France. Small wonder that America's treaty chafed Yusuf and that he thought it was time for the United States to dig deeper.

Just as irritating was America's dismissive attitude. Four years after signing the treaty, the United States still owed $6,000. What's more, the consul promised by the treaty had arrived only in 1799, without a generous present or the promised ship. Clearly, the United States did not respect Tripoli.

More aggravating than the $60,000 and the sloppily kept promises was Article XII, inserted into the treaty by Richard O‘Brien. It empowered Algiers to mediate any disputes between America and Tripoli, elevating Algiers to the status of Barbary power broker. This might have been palatable to Yusuf in 1797, but not by 1801. A constant reminder of this rebuke to Tripoli's national pride was the State Department's designation of the U.S. consul in Algiers, O'Brien, as “consul general,” supervising the
consuls in Tunis and Tripoli. None of this had escaped Yusuf's notice.

In letters to President Adams in April 1799 and May 1800, Yusuf demanded parity with Tunis and Algiers. He required deeds and not “empty words.” In October 1800, when his corsairs released the
Catherine,
he had given the United States one more chance to display respect for Tripoli and its expanded navy with a commensurately generous new treaty. Time had nearly run out on his ultimatum by the time Jefferson took the presidential oath in March 1801.

 

 

 

The Jefferson administration made no attempt to mollify Yusuf or avert war. Yusuf and his fellow Barbary rulers regarded their faithless treaties and mercenary jihads as normal and just, and Europe certainly was accustomed to abrupt war declarations, kidnapping, and terror. But America's blood was still up after the Quasi-War, both in Washington and in embassies and consulates throughout the western Mediterranean.

Even as the squadron was being fitted out in Norfolk for action in Barbary, Eaton was grimly warning that if the United States capitulated to the bashaw's demands, it could expect to pay double to Tunis, and Algiers would insist on more than either Tripoli or Tunis. War was preferable. “If the United States will have a free commerce in this sea they must defend it: There is no alternative. The restless spirit of the marauders cannot be restrained.”

Watching the situation darken from Madrid, Ambassador David Humphreys said a show of force would serve as a warning to the other Barbary States and raise America's reputation in Europe: “... it would strike with astonishment those who for a succession of Ages have submitted to the most humiliating
indignities wantonly inflicted upon them by a handful of Banditti....” It was time for the United States to show the Barbary States its talons. What was Tripoli to the fierce new republic that had so recently stood its ground against the European superpowers, England and France?

After the Jefferson Cabinet endorsed sending a squadron to Barbary, the president weighed whether to also obtain Congress's approval. His decision not to consult Congress established the president's authority to unilaterally send armed forces abroad. Jefferson's rationale was that Congress was in recess, and most members would not return to Washington, even if he called a special session. But the fact was that he believed he had authority to act alone: It was
his
prerogative to send warships to defend U.S. commerce. His advisers concurred, especially Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin and Navy Secretary Samuel Smith, who said it was the president's duty to defend the nation if an enemy declared war. The United States embarked on its first distant foreign war without Congress even being informed, much less consulted.

 

Cathcart, his wife, and his young daughter embarked for Leghorn, Italy, ten days after Yusuf's soldiers cut down the consulate flagpole. As Cathcart well knew from history, legend, and what his own good sense told him, a Barbary diplomat's freedom, even his life, became subject to the caprices of the bashaw, bey, or dey when their countries went to war. And he wished to avoid returning to the bagnio at all costs now that he had a family. With relief, he watched Tripoli slip below the horizon. But unforeseen troubles awaited the Cathcarts.

Off Sicily, Tunisian pirates stopped and looted their ship, taking the Cathcarts' wine, fowl, vegetables, and fruit, and the captain's
octant, chart, and only compass. The captain strenuously protested to the corsair chief, Reis Candioto, about the compass; they might wander lost for weeks without it. Candioto grudgingly gave him an old, battered French compass, and the resourceful Cathcart repaired it with paste and sealing wax so that they could navigate. When they finally reached Leghorn, the ship and all of its occupants were quarantined for twenty-five days because of the boarding.

 

While Cathcart and his family were enduring the extended quarantine, four U.S. warships were being readied for a long Mediterranean cruise: the 44-gun
President,
36-gun
Philadelphia,
and 32-gun
Essex,
all frigates; and the 12-gun schooner
Enterprise.
Not yet informed of Tripoli's war declaration, Navy Secretary Smith had issued broad orders to cover all contingencies. The squadron was to appear before the Barbary capitals to project American power, and to serve as “a squadron of observation”—if Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis all were at peace with the United States, which the squadron would not know until reaching Gibraltar. If any Barbary States were at war with America, “you will then distribute your force in such a manner, as your judgement shall direct, so as best to protect our commerce and chastise their insolence—by sinking, burning or destroying their ships and vessels wherever you shall find them.” Convoy, blockade, and engage. Smith recommended that warships display false colors to trick the enemy into thinking they were neutrals and letting down their guard. It will “give you a fair chance of punishing them.” The drumbeat of war resonated as well through Madison's instructions to Eaton, written May 20, five days after the Cabinet meeting: “It is hopeful that the contagion will not have spread either to Tunis or Algiers; but should
one or both of them have followed the perfidious example, their corsairs will be equally repelled and punished.”