CHAPTER 8

Patience Wears Thin

I know that nothing will stop the eternal increase of demand from these pirates but the presence of an armed force.

—President Thomas Jefferson to Secretary of State James Madison, August 28, 1801

Boosted by the success of Sterett’s military action, Jefferson wanted congressional approval to finally admit there was a war on. He had no desire to conquer the Barbary states, but he wanted the newly convened Congress to approve the use of force so that the navy could launch an effective blockade—a blockade that could attack and capture ships as needed. With the USS President bound for home and the Philadelphia passing the winter in the harbor at Syracuse, in Sicily, a new and different array of frigates and commanders would need to be deployed, and Jefferson wanted the authority to fight the pirates properly.

Just a week after Jefferson’s message, an ally in Congress introduced a resolution stating “that it is expedient that the President be authorized by law . . . to protect the commerce of the United States against the Barbary powers.”¹ After a brief debate, the House voted in favor and passed the bill on. As January came to a close, Jefferson waited—and hoped—for Senate action.

That waiting for the Senate would turn into two years of waiting for another victory. During those twenty-four months, the Americans would experience little but frustration as blockades failed, a ship ran aground, and a commodore proved incompetent. But the time would not be completely wasted; while America seemed to slumber and the pirates continued to thrive, Jefferson was planning his next move.

Jefferson could not know it at the time, but even as he pushed for the House to act, Richard Dale’s blockade off the North African coast was producing little but frustration. Dale was forced to abandon Tripoli on September 3. Though his ships had replenished their supply of water thanks to Sterett, the lack of fresh food on board had taken a toll, as more than 150 members of his crew were down with a “kind of Enfluenza.”²

On his return to Gibraltar, Dale was greeted by the news that Murat Rais and his crew had escaped Gibraltar, though they’d left their ships behind. Tired of remaining in the harbor, Rais’s men had threatened a mutiny until their admiral found a way for them to escape their unofficial captivity. Blending in with the crews of ships friendly to the Barbary powers, the men had sneaked past the Americans and been ferried to Morocco. From there, they were making their way home overland to Tripoli.

With his men safely away from Gibraltar, Rais himself had chosen another route. Blending into the British population in Gibraltar, the man born Peter Lisle talked his way to freedom, and, in September, James Cathcart reported that Rais had been recognized walking the deck of a ship loaded with wine intended for the British government.³ By the time Dale got word that the high admiral of Tripoli had slipped from his grasp, Murat Rais had long since returned to Tripoli, his bout of shadowboxing with the Americans over. He would fight another day, under better terms.

For Commodore Richard Dale, the news was just one of several disappointments. Not only had Murat Rais escaped his grasp but, in the waning days of October, sickness overcame Dale. “Not feeling easy in my mind,” he admitted, he had been confined to his cot.⁴ Even more frustrating were his orders to return home. Congress’s designated one-year enlistment period meant his crew’s term of service expired in a few months. On his sickbed, Dale regretted leaving without humbling the Barbary powers, his only consolation Lieutenant Sterett’s success, but he had little choice but to ready his ship to return home.

With the ship’s water supply replenished and repairs to the rigging completed, Dale gave orders from his cabin to weigh anchor and take advantage of a fresh westward breeze. The harbor pilot guided the big frigate into Gibraltar harbor’s narrow channel but, as the wind in her sails brought her speed to an easy six knots, the President suddenly lurched. Her forward momentum slammed to a halt as if the ship had struck a brick wall.

Down in his cabin, Dale reported he felt a “shock so great as almost, to Heave me of[f] my feet.”⁵

The big frigate had run aground. She rolled heavily, but as Dale hurried to the quarterdeck, the sturdy ship quickly recovered herself. Dale worried that the President might have structural damage and immediately ordered an inspection. The news was surprisingly good: the well-made ship had withstood the impact of striking the sea bottom, and her hull was intact. The officers decided to proceed. They would trust their vessel and continue on their journey.

But almost immediately the ship’s sturdiness would again be tested when, after leaving the protected harbor, the USS President sailed into a violent gale. On the first day of the storm, buffeted by high winds and seas, the ship made little headway. Then, on the second day, the hold began to fill with water. After changing course to head for the French coast and emerging from the three-day storm, the ship finally made port at Toulon. There, an inspection of the ship’s hull found the forward portion of the keel entirely gone, and its extension, the stem, badly damaged. The USSPresident could go nowhere until repairs were completed.

“How long it will take to Heave down & be in readiness again to sail . . . it is out of my power to say,” Dale wrote to William Bainbridge from France in mid-December.⁶ But he did know that a season of disappointment off the Barbary Coast was to be followed by a winter of repairs. The USS President would not reach home until April 14, 1802.

While Dale chafed under his enforced rest, Jefferson also appeared to be waiting passively for Congress to act. In reality, he was hatching a clandestine plan. This one was not for the pages of the National Intelligencer or the ears of Congress. This plan would not just persuade Barbary states to stop harassing Americans; it would instead change the rulers of those states. So far it was little more than an idea, but that idea had begun to grow.

U.S. consul William Eaton had ventured to write to Secretary of State James Madison, hoping that a strategy that went beyond frigates might meet with sympathetic ears. Learning from Cathcart about the bashaw’s bloody path to power, Eaton had a wild proposal. In a dispatch home, Eaton proposed to Madison that the Americans ally themselves with the bashaw’s exiled brother.⁷

Bashaw Yusuf of Tripoli had declared war on the United States, but he really had no legal right to lead the country. Hamet Qaramanli, his brother, was the rightful heir to the throne that Yusuf had stolen when he’d murdered his oldest brother. Hamet, banished by his brother, now lived in exile, pining for his wife and four children, whom his brother kept as hostages in Tripoli.

Eaton had met Hamet briefly when Hamet had stopped in Tunis after his banishment. The two men had shared a meal of lamb and vegetables and discussed the best way to deal with the dangerous new bashaw.⁸ In the plan they concocted, the American consul had seen a chance both to right Hamet’s personal injustices and to solve America’s problems once and for all.

Captain Eaton—for this venture he planned to abandon his consul’s garb and don his military uniform—wrote to Madison that he wanted “to attack the usurper by land, while our operations are going on by sea.” It would be a military mission, with the goal of revolution in Tripoli, the overthrow of Yusuf, and nothing less than the restoration of Hamet to the throne.

If the idea seemed outlandish at first, Madison and Jefferson realized they had to take Eaton seriously. Eaton had gained intimate knowledge of the Barbary Coast. In his years in Tunis, his skill with languages had enabled him to master several Arabic dialects. He was now well acquainted with the people and their place, and reports had it that he was known to adopt Arab garb, sometimes wearing their robes, and even a scimitar.

Eaton knew the traditions of North Africa as well as any foreigner could. When he reported that “the subjects in general of the reigning Bashaw are very discontented, and ripe for revolt,” he spoke from firsthand knowledge. He offered assurances that the United States would not be the only government supporting such an effort—“the Bey of Tunis, though prudence will keep him behind the curtain, I have strong reason to believe, will cheerfully promote the scheme.”⁹

For years Consul Eaton had been making a persuasive case for ships in the Mediterranean. He had called for force, and he had been right. Jefferson knew he had to listen to this new idea, but there was no denying that it was a brash departure from all earlier strategies, so he was determined to act prudently and wait for the right moment.

As 1801 ended, Jefferson and Madison conducted business as usual in the nation’s capital, publicly looking to get the use of force for a blockade formally authorized. The other plan, the secret plan, was still just an idea, a future option. But far away, on a Mediterranean shore, William Eaton and Hamet, the rightful bashaw, carried on their conversation.

On February 6, 1802, President Jefferson got his wish when the Senate approved the use of force. Brandishing his pen, he signed into law “An Act for the protection of the Commerce and Seamen of the United States, against Tripolitan Corsairs.”

Though it was less than a war declaration, the legislation spoke without ambiguity. Hereafter, as set forth in the act, “it shall be lawful fully to equip, officer, man, and employ such of the armed vessels of the United States as may be judged requisite by the President of the United States, for protecting effectually the commerce and seamen thereof on the Atlantic ocean, the Mediterranean and adjoining seas.” Jefferson could now send as many ships as he needed to North Africa, and they could do whatever it took to keep American ships safe. No longer would Jefferson have to worry that he overstepped his authority in ordering the U.S. Navy to the Mediterranean. Mr. Jefferson’s navy could now pursue the Tripolitan pirates as he saw fit.

Although President Jefferson had been shaping a strategy for years, he depended on the opinion of his consuls at the front more than on his own judgment. More than one of his men in the Maghreb had asked for added military might, but Richard O’Brien, writing to Madison in mid-1801, put the case plainly: “I am convinced that Tripoli should have . . . [cannon] Balls without delay. We want sir 3—or 6—or more of our frigates in this sea.”¹⁰

Now that Jefferson was free to act, he honored O’Brien’s request, ordering an increase in the size of the American naval force in early 1802. The ship designated as the fleet’s flagship was the USS Chesapeake. The frigate would join the USS Philadelphia, which, along with the USSEssex, remained in the Mediterranean convoying merchant ships. Two other frigates would sail from Norfolk that spring, the USS Constellation and the USS Adams. On returning from the Mediterranean, the master of the sloop Enterprise, Lieutenant Sterett, was to turn his ship around again and recross the Atlantic to rejoin the five frigates.

With the new fleet assembling, Jefferson finally had the firepower and the authorization to defend American interests. Intimidating the pirates would be easier than getting involved in their government, and if all went well, there would be no need to secretly plan a coup. Jefferson anticipated a quick and tidy ending to the years of conflict, but he had made one key mistake: he’d appointed the wrong man to lead the new force.