CHAPTER 2

Secretary Jefferson

It rests with Congress to decide between war, tribute, and ransom, as the means of re-establishing our Mediterranean commerce.

—Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, December 30, 1790

When Thomas Jefferson stepped ashore in Norfolk, Virginia, in November 1789, he was shocked when the mayor and aldermen of the town greeted him with words of congratulation on his new appointment as George Washington’s secretary of state.

During Jefferson’s five years abroad, the political landscape in the United States had changed. The U.S. Constitution had been drafted and ratified, and General George Washington had taken office as the first president on April 30, 1789. Though Jefferson had still been in Europe, the president had chosen him to serve in the newly created post of secretary of state and Congress had confirmed the appointment during Jefferson’s crossing.

As he absorbed the news, Jefferson was both humbled and honored that George Washington had appointed him for the daunting task. Except for matters of finance and war, the secretary of state would administer the entire government. Jefferson asked for time to consider, but back at home that winter in central Virginia, he decided to accept the appointment. He remained at his mountaintop home, Monticello, to witness the February marriage of daughter Martha, now seventeen, then he traveled to New York, temporarily the nation’s capital, to join the government.

At their very first meeting, on March 22, 1790, the president and his new secretary of state discussed an issue that had been weighing on Jefferson for years—the plight of Richard O’Brien and his men.

Washington and Jefferson weren’t the only Americans worrying about their captive countrymen. On May 14, 1790, a petition was read on the floor of Congress. The captured men had sent a letter to Congress asking it to intervene on their behalf as their situation grew more desperate and the outlook even bleaker as the years passed.

Congress’s interest in the problem went beyond the enslaved men, because the continuing threat to ships had meant that American trade in the Mediterranean was dwindling—at a great cost to the otherwise healthy American economy. Congress and the president wasted no time, immediately referring the matter to the new secretary of state; with Washington’s mandate, Jefferson set about examining the issue in detail.

A bookish man by nature, Jefferson began by looking into the history of the Barbary pirates. He planned to spend months researching the pirates’ centuries-long practice of enslaving innocent sailors before making definitive suggestions for action. As he compiled an exhaustive report on the problem, he also corresponded with Richard O’Brien, who remained a prisoner of the Algerians.

Because O’Brien had the rank of sea captain, his experience in captivity was far better than that of most other prisoners, and he had been assigned relatively comfortable work at the British consulate, tilling soil, planting trees, and feeding the pigs before eventually rising to become a liaison to the dey. That privileged position allowed him to travel to Portugal, England, and Germany to beg for ransom gold from governments, private parties, and Christian aid groups. He was heavily guarded on such journeys, unable to make his escape; he also knew that if he did not return, things would be much worse for the men he left behind—men who were already subjected to hard labor and harsh treatment.

O’Brien did what he could to answer the questions Jefferson posed to him in his letters, and on December 30, 1790, President Washington laid before both houses of Congress the results of Jefferson’s meticulous research. There were two reports, titled “Prisoners at Algiers” and “Mediterranean Trade.”

Although his papers seemed to support the ransom strategy, Jefferson had his doubts. He maintained his long-standing skepticism about a purchased peace. For years, even before the capture of the Dauphin and the Maria and his subsequent disagreement with Adams, Jefferson had called for America to use the navy to solve the problem of the Barbary pirates. Seven years before, he had written of his objections to paying tribute. If negotiations broke down (as indeed they had, repeatedly, in the years since), what then?

If they refuse a [fair treaty], why not go to war with them? We ought to begin a naval power if we mean to carry on our own commerce. Can we begin it on a more honorable occasion, or with a weaker foe? I am of opinion [that] with half a dozen frigates [we could] totally destroy their commerce.¹

In his 1790 reports to Congress, the ever-thorough Jefferson presented detailed intelligence he had collected on the size of the naval force at Algiers and its tactics. He wasn’t impressed with the Algerians’ poorly equipped ships, pointing out that their battle strategies depended on boarding their target ships, rather than on their cannons.² He hinted that the Americans would need only a small navy to beat the pirates, but, perhaps caving to political pressure, he stopped short of calling for direct military action. “It rests with Congress to decide between war, tribute, and ransom,” he concluded, “as the means of re-establishing our Mediterranean commerce.”³

Some senators considered instituting a navy, but the nation’s empty treasury ended the conversation about warships even before it got started. Ransom seemed cheaper, but the process for funding it was excruciatingly slow; it wasn’t until more than a year later, in 1792, that the sum of $40,000 was authorized for a treaty with Algiers. Then distance and death increased the delay—the two men appointed to negotiate with Algiers both died of natural causes before talks could begin—so it wasn’t until 1794 that any negotiations started.

O’Brien and his men, enslaved for nine years, still waited for freedom.

When Jefferson became secretary of state, his nation had no navy. The last of the ships in the Continental Navy, made legendary by John Paul Jones, had been sold off after the Revolution. There had been no money to maintain them, and no threat close enough to home to justify raising funds.

The dismantling of the navy had suited President Washington perfectly. Over and over again he said he favored a policy of strict neutrality in international affairs, a position he made explicit in his “Neutrality Proclamation” of 1793. Recalling the terrible toll of the Revolution on the nation’s people and resources, Washington wished to fight no more wars. He desired neither a standing army nor a navy.

That Washington and Jefferson did not see eye-to-eye on many issues was one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington. Jefferson took issue with what he perceived to be Washington’s poor judgment of character, as he mentioned in an ill-advised letter that ended up being published widely. Based on his earlier years in Europe, Jefferson also believed sound judgment of the Barbary situation called for military action. He would submit to his president but push where he could.

His influence seems to have worked. A matter of months after Jefferson joined the cabinet, the political tide turned. In October 1793, the secretary of state received a desperate letter from the U.S. consul in Lisbon. A new attack fleet of Algerian ships roamed the Atlantic near Gibraltar. The flotilla consisted of eight ships, including four frigates and a twenty-gun brig. Their objective? “To cruise against the American flag.”⁴ The growing wealth of the United States had caught the pirates’ attention. No longer would they attack just the American vessels unlucky enough to cross their paths, but they were now actively seeking out American ships. “I have not slept since Receipt of the news of this hellish plot,” the consul wrote Jefferson. “Another corsair in the Atlantic—God preserve us—.”⁵

Soon a new dispatch from Gibraltar reported that ten American vessels had been captured in late October. Not only had the Algerians taken more ships, but they had also added 110 captives to their slave pens. The pirate problem could be ignored no longer, nor simply be debated. Action was required.

In Congress, a House committee was appointed to study the sort of ships needed. It soon reported back, and House debate, beginning on February 16, 1794, lasted a month. Jefferson’s own Republican party, led by his dear friend and confidant Congressman James Madison, took a stance different from Jefferson’s, believing that a navy would unnecessarily expand the federal government. The Federalists, using Jefferson’s old argument, reasoned that the cost of establishing a navy would be less than the cost of not having one. Maritime insurance rates continued to skyrocket, and the cost of imported goods grew by the day. A navy, they argued, had become economically necessary.

Despite the bitter division between parties and regions—New England delegations tended to want a navy to protect their merchants while Southerners generally opposed such federal expansion—the House reached a compromise, agreeing to halt ship construction if peace was achieved. Both houses of Congress passed the Act to Provide a Naval Armament by narrow margins. Signed into law by President Washington on March 27, 1794, the act authorized the purchase or construction of six frigates, four rated for forty-four guns, two for thirty-six guns. The immense sum of $688,888 was appropriated.

Thus it had been decided: the United States would have a navy. George Washington ordered the shipbuilding contracts spread out between northern and southern ports, and construction began. Three years would pass before the first frigate was launched, and during that time, the chess match that was Barbary diplomacy would see the rules of the game shift again and again. With every failed negotiation, it would become increasingly clear that only one solution remained: those frigates would have to cross the ocean and try a different kind of diplomacy, one that came from the mouths of their canons.

As 1793 ended, Jefferson resigned, retiring to Monticello to consider his future. In the year after his departure, the United States managed to reach a peace agreement with the dey of Algiers—a deal that meant that, against Jefferson’s advice, Americans would pay for peace. Though there was no longer any immediate need for more naval ships, President Washington did persuade Congress that stopping the shipbuilding would be unwise.

Washington’s instincts proved sound. Because the Americans were perennially slow in making their transatlantic payments of tribute, the dey threatened war and refused to release the prisoners. The Americans were relieved that they had kept the shipbuilding going, and the USS United States, USS Constellation, and USS Constitution launched in 1797.

By 1797, Joel Barlow was on duty as ambassador to the volatile leader of Algiers. The president had dispatched him the previous year to “take charge of the interests of the United States of America within the Regency of Algiers.”⁶ His goal was to maintain the peace—and gain the release of O’Brien and his men.

If anyone was equipped for the difficult diplomacy needed in Algiers, Barlow was. A Yale graduate who had served in the Revolution, worked as a newspaperman, and been imprisoned during the French Revolution, he had emerged after the Reign of Terror as an honorary citizen of France. Barlow seemed like the man to deal with whatever came his way. He had the brains, the courage, and the courtly manner to be an expert diplomat—but it wasn’t clear that that would be enough to rescue the American slaves.

When Barlow arrived as American consul to Algiers, he was confronted with the dey’s refusal to release the prisoners until the United States fulfilled its monetary promises. Barlow gave his word that payment was forthcoming but, in the meantime, plied the Algerian ruler with diamond rings, brocade robes, carpets, jeweled snuffboxes, and other goods he had brought with him from France, treasures worth more than $27,000. Some mix of personality, placating gifts, and promises of money persuaded the dey, who—at last—released the prisoners. Their ranks had been reduced by harsh prison conditions and illness, but Barlow guided eighty-five survivors aboard the ship Fortune, and watched them depart for friendlier shores.

After O’Brien and the other captives went free, Barlow and his fellow American consuls in the region remained behind to finish a series of impossibly complicated negotiations. Committed to purchasing a treaty, he put up with diplomatic chicanery, delays, broken promises, and shaky deals. Bowing to the Algerians’ humiliating demands, the American government would agree to hand over money and goods worth close to a million dollars, a cost equal to one eighth of the federal government’s annual expenditures.

Because the United States didn’t have the cash on hand to pay the dey, the money had to be borrowed. Richard O’Brien, who had chosen to remain behind after his shipmates were free in order to assist the American government, was by then a well-known and well-connected presence in Algiers from his years of working at the British consulate. Traveling to several cities in Europe, including London, hoping to obtain gold and silver from London bankers he finally succeeded in securing loans in Portugal and Italy, but, before the money reached Algiers, O’Brien’s bad luck resurfaced. The ship he traveled on, the brig Sophia, was taken by Tripolitan pirates.

Because the ship had an Algerian passport, Bashaw Yusuf Qaramanli, ruler of Tripoli, promptly ordered its release. But O’Brien’s capture gave Barlow an idea: he commissioned O’Brien to act as his intermediary and to negotiate with the militant bashaw.

Ruthless and cunning, Bashaw Yusuf had murdered one brother for the throne and exiled another brother, Hamet, the rightful bashaw, holding Hamet’s family hostage to guarantee that he would not return to fight for his birthright. Whether the Americans would be able to successfully negotiate with such a man was unclear, but Barlow deemed it worth an attempt and the Treaty of Peace and Friendship Between the United States and Tripoli was signed in November 1796. It included the usual provisions, one for payment of tribute, another for the delivery of maritime and military stores, in return for free passage of American ships and mutual cooperation.

The treaty was ratified by the United States Congress in June 1797 and Barlow returned to France, having spent only two years in North Africa, but leaving two new treaties in place. Two more—with the remaining Barbary states, Morocco and Tunis—would shortly be signed. Between the treaties and the freeing of the long-imprisoned sailors, Barlow’s brief tenure had been a success.

Jefferson seemed to have been wrong about the necessity of force. For the moment, the United States of America and the Barbary Coast states enjoyed a purchased peace—but the Americans’ new warships waited in the wings, just in case.

After Barlow’s departure, a team of highly qualified men was commissioned to represent the United States in the Barbary region. At its head was Richard O’Brien, named in December 1797 to succeed Barlow as consul general to all the Barbary states.

In December 1798, another former captive, James Leander Cathcart, joined O’Brien in North Africa, assuming the post of American consul to Tripoli. Cathcart had been aboard the Maria when it was captured in 1785 and had also endured a decade of captivity alongside O’Brien. No stranger to harsh conditions, having spent time on a British prison ship during the Revolution prior to his Algerian enslavement, Cathcart had known how to promote himself when he found himself a prisoner once again. During his years in Algiers, he had risen slowly in the estimation of his captors, becoming a clerk and overseer before his appointment as secretary to the dey in 1792. From that post he had been able to hobnob with men of considerable power, including the Swedish consul, who eventually loaned him $5,000 to gain his freedom. But he wasn’t a man who wore the hardships of his Algerian years easily.

Cathcart crossed the Atlantic in the company of the new American consul to Tunis, William Eaton, whose prematurely white hair and cleft chin gave him the appearance of a Roman general carved out of marble. A driven man of many talents, Eaton had been chosen by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering because he thought him well suited to tackle the challenges of Tunisian diplomacy.

Eaton’s life had been marked by a stubborn determination. He had studied classical languages as a boy before, at age sixteen, running away to fight the British in the Revolution. After serving with a Connecticut regiment, he enrolled at Dartmouth College in 1785, but his scholarship was interrupted by winters spent teaching in country schools in order to earn his tuition money. At the end of one such break, he gathered his books, a change of clothes, and his tuition money into a small bundle he slung over his shoulder. He then set off on foot from the rural Connecticut town where he had been teaching, heading for Hanover, New Hampshire, nearly 150 miles north.

The summer of 1787 was unusually hot, and what Eaton had hoped would be a pleasant, if lengthy, journey on rustic trails through scenic countryside became a daunting slog along dusty roads overlooking fields choked by drought. Barely halfway to his destination, he found himself out of money, hungry, and still short of the New Hampshire border. But demonstrating the resourcefulness and adaptability he would display over and over in his life, he hit upon a solution. The only possessions he carried with him of any value were the pins and needles in his sewing kit. By selling the pins one at a time, he scraped together just enough to continue on the last miles to Hanover.

After graduation, Eaton returned to the army, gaining a captain’s commission in 1792. Throughout his service—he would remain in the U.S. Army for five years—Captain Eaton would wrestle with his fiery temper and a tendency to take grievances personally. He narrowly avoided a duel with a fellow officer who accused him of disobeying an order. Only the intercession of other officers prevented an exchange of deadly fire, persuading the men to accept that both were culpable. “[After] Capt. B. conceded, and offered me his hand,” Eaton noted in his journal, “[I] accepted it.”⁷ Honor—both personal and national—was a matter worth fighting for.

Eaton’s reputation was for toughness; a skilled marksman, he could ride a horse all day and survive on his own wits when he had to. He spent time stationed at Fort Recovery, where he gained the respect of the legendary General Anthony Wayne. Known as “Mad Anthony” for his distinguished and fiercely committed service in General Washington’s army, Wayne observed that “Eaton is firm in constitution as in resolution;—industrious, indefatigable, determined and persevering. . . . When in danger, he is in his element; and never shows to so good advantage, as when leading a charge.”⁸ A few years later, while stationed in swamps along the Georgia border with Spanish Florida, Eaton befriended the native tribes he had been sent to Georgia to fight. “I have frequently invited both Indians and traders to my quarters and entertained them,” he wrote to an army official.⁹ His unorthodox approach to frontier diplomacy aroused suspicions and irritated merchants in the region while his blunt appraisals of the campaign did not always sit well with his superiors. But Secretary of State Pickering liked what he saw. He valued Eaton’s keen eye for reporting details, prompt correspondence, and gift for learning languages.

In January 1799, the new consuls made their first stop in North Africa at Algiers, where O’Brien was serving as consul to the dey, in addition to his duty as consul general. O’Brien greeted them warmly. With Cathcart’s intimate knowledge of the region and Eaton’s negotiating experience, O’Brien was optimistic that the new treaties could be preserved.

Eager to welcome them, O’Brien showed Cathcart and Eaton the city of Algiers. The densely packed streetscapes rose from a fortress at sea level into the hills that overlooked the Mediterranean, a place of bright sun but cooling sea breezes. After introducing his colleagues to the new dey of Algiers, hoping that the troubles would blow over, O’Brien wished them well as they sailed for their new postings.

O’Brien and Eaton initiated a lively correspondence from their cities some five hundred miles apart, discussing matters of diplomatic delicacy. O’Brien warned the new consul that the American Department of State took months to respond and had very little understanding of Barbary culture; instead, O’Brien urged Eaton to ignore irrelevant American instructions and instead to trust his instincts. Unfortunately, he would soon discover that America’s purchased peace was more fragile than he’d realized. Despite having signed treaties with the United States of America, not all of the Barbary rulers would remain satisfied with the new status quo.

Jefferson’s grave doubts about purchasing peace on the Barbary Coast were about to resurface. The United States’ first war as a sovereign nation loomed. George Washington’s decision to continue building warships even while paying for peace would prove wise when it became clear that the Barbary powers could not be trusted to keep their word.