Jefferson's War Page 11
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.
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
... Too long, for the honor of nations, have those Barbarians been suffered to trample on the sacred faith of treaties, on the rights and laws of human nature!
—Thomas Jefferson, congratulatory letter to Lt. Andrew Sterett
Mediterranean 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 Ragu
sa 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.