The American Consul: A History of the United States Consular Service 1776â1924. Revised Second Edition. Charles Stuart Kennedy
became apparent that this was only a paper blockade, for Dale’s ships were in Gibraltar. Not only was Eaton bluffing the Tunisians with a blockade that did not exist, he was hatching a plot with Cathcart to unseat the pasha of Tripoli. The pasha’s brother Hamet could claim the rulership if his brother Yusuf were deposed.22 The prospect of using Hamet to get rid of Yusuf was first raised by Eaton and Cathcart in the spring of 1802. Nothing came of the idea at that time, but the seed had been planted back in the new Capitol in Washington.
The Tripolitan war was to drag on until 1805. The American consuls in Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis were busy trying to keep their respective rulers friendly, not an easy task since the sporadic activity of the United States Navy was interfering with their trade with Tripoli. For example, in 1802 the Emperor of Morocco asked the American Consul James Simpson to allow him to send grain to Tripoli since the Moroccans had a surplus and a profit was to be made. Simpson tried to get the naval commander to permit this breach of the less-than-complete blockade. The commodore’s reply was that a blockade was a blockade.23 The Emperor responded with a declaration of war, but withdrew the declaration after receiving presents from the United States. Later, when the blockade was temporarily abandoned, the Emperor was able to ship grain to Tripoli.
The American consuls in the Barbary States and the Mediterranean ports of Spain, France, and Italy came up against an American trait that plagues consuls to this day. Freeborn Americans do not take kindly to officials of their government telling them what to do, even if it is for their own good. The consuls desperately wanted to keep American merchant ships out of the reach of the corsairs from Tripoli and warned them away. Americans held captive in the pasha’s prison would strengthen the pasha’s hand, prolong the war, and make negotiations that much more difficult and expensive. The masters of American ships resented the advice of their consuls and continued to be captured by Tripoli.
There were changes in the consular ranks on the Barbary Coast. In 1802 O’Brien left Algiers, and James Cathcart, more or less at loose ends when he had to leave Tripoli, was named as his replacement. The dey of Algiers would not accept Cathcart, claiming that his character was not suitable, which may have meant that the dey did not want someone as familiar with the Algerian scene as the former chief Christian clerk. When Eaton, who was always difficult, was ordered out of Tunis by the dey because of a dispute over money, he designated George Davis, a doctor off a U.S. naval vessel, to be acting consul. Later the Secretary of State sent Tobias Lear to relieve O’Brien, who remained along with Cathcart as an advisor to the navy.
Lear was experienced, having served as consul at Santo Domingo, replacing Edward Stevens. Prior to his first appointment as consul, Lear had been George Washington’s private secretary for the last seven years of the leader’s life (1792–99). He had the distinction of marrying two of Martha Washington’s nieces (the first niece died prior to his marriage to the second).24
Lear arrived in Algiers at a critical time. Disaster had struck the American cause. In October 1803 the thirty-six-gun frigate Philadelphia ran aground under the guns of the pasha of Tripoli while chasing a Tripolitan ship. The captain was compelled to surrender. The pasha had three hundred American naval officers and seamen as his prisoners and a frigate at his disposal. Later, in a daring exploit, young Lieutenant Stephen Decatur and a small crew of seamen were able to slip past the pasha’s guards and set fire to the Philadelphia, destroying it. But the pasha still had his American captives, an advantage that weighed heavily in later negotiations.
The American fleet made several efforts to bombard the pasha into a peace treaty, but with little success, although the blockade became more effective as the number of American naval ships in the Mediterranean increased. While these actions were taking place, the former consul to Tunis, William Eaton, had turned to the United States (after the dey had expelled him) to push his and Cathcart’s plan for a land campaign against Tripoli, using the pasha’s brother Hamet as the lever. Hamet, however, proved an ineffectual tool on which to base any political scheme or military campaign, for he was indecisive, willing one day to compromise with his brother, ready the next to unseat him.
Eaton was a man of determination who had worked his way up in the small American army, performing some difficult missions that earned him the attention of Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, who appointed him consul in Tunis. In the United States, Eaton won the approval of President Jefferson to pursue his plan to use Hamet, but if Samuel Barron, the naval commander in the Mediterranean, thought it practical.
Barron, caught by some of Eaton’s enthusiasm, helped him launch one of the strangest campaigns ever sponsored by the United States. Eaton, now a “naval agent,” landed in Egypt with a squad of U.S. marines, money, and weapons to help recruit an army, which was made up of about 300 Arabs, 38 Greeks, and a few men of other nationalities, giving him a force of around 400. Hamet was reluctantly persuaded to join. The bellicose Eaton then attacked Tripoli from the rear, driving this motley army across 500 miles of almost impassable desert. At one point there was an attempted mutiny; Eaton personally beheaded the ringleaders, which inspired his men to continue the march. His campaign reached a climax when he took the Tripolitan town of Derne from the rear while a squadron of American ships bombarded it from the sea. 25
As a military march this was a magnificent achievement and earned immortality in the phrase “to the shores of Tripoli” in the well-known “Marines’ Hymn”. As a military campaign it was a more modest accomplishment; Eaton and his little army were soon besieged in Derne and were dependent on American naval support to keep from being overwhelmed.
While “General” Eaton was conducting his cross-desert campaign, Commodore Barron and Consul General Lear were examining more coldblooded options for peace. To them it became apparent that Hamet was a person too weak to support with any expectation that he could last as a ruler; he would be useless as the keystone for building a foundation of peace. The 300 captives off the Philadelphia were in jeopardy with Yusuf threatening to kill them, which probably was a bluff, but it was unwise to risk so many American lives. For his part, the pasha was ready to come to some sort of an agreement; he found that the Americans were taking his declaration of war far more seriously than had the Europeans. Even worse, the war was dragging on with that madman Eaton attacking from across the desert.
Lear and the Pasha Yusuf, after some negotiations using the Spanish consul in Tripoli as intermediary, reached an agreement in June 1805. The treaty called for the exchange of all prisoners, a payment to Yusuf of $60,000 because he had more Americans than the United States Navy had Tripolitans, and a restoration of peace between the two countries. Included in the treaty was the withdrawal of Eaton’s force from Derne.26 Eaton was angry when he heard of the treaty and the $60,000 to be paid. He felt that with the proper backing he could have taken Tripoli and installed Hamet as the ruler. It is doubtful whether Eaton could have broken the siege of Derne with his unreliable force, marched to Tripoli, and taken it from Yusuf. In his negotiations Lear had made a bad mistake in allowing Yusuf to keep Hamet’s family under his control for at least four more years.27 This clause in the treaty was originally kept secret for good reason, since it virtually abandoned Hamet after he had been dragooned into joining Eaton’s campaign against Yusuf. The peace with Tripoli held, despite the unhappiness of Eaton and others in the United States over the money paid, the chance for further military glory lost, and the desertion of Hamet. George Davis, who had been acting consul in Tunis before he was transferred to Tripoli in 1807, was able to get Harriet’s family released. When Eaton returned to the United States, he denounced the treaty but soon suffered eclipse as American attention turned from the coast of North Africa to problems with Great Britain.28
American relations with the Barbary States after the end of the war with Tripoli in 1805 continued to be troubled. The bey of Tunis threatened war over the seizure of a Tunisian ship trying to run the blockade of Tripoli in the waning days of the war. Lear and the now quite large American squadron in North African waters in an impressive show of strength sailed to Tunis and were able to settle matters peacefully.
After the peace with Tripoli, the United States began to keep its small fleet closer to home because of increasing difficulties caused by Great Britain’s interference with American shipping and the impressments of American seamen. In 1812, as relations between America and Britain moved toward conflict, the dey of Algiers expelled Consul General Lear, claiming that the United States