CHAPTER 4

Jefferson Takes Charge

I will wait Six months for an Answer to my letter to the President . . . if it does not arrive in that period . . . I will declare war in form against the United States.

—Yusuf Qaramanli, bashaw of Tripoli, October 1800

While William Bainbridge and the George Washington suffered humiliation abroad, Americans at home were in turmoil over the election of the nation’s third president. After a bitter contest that threatened the unity of the new nation, Thomas Jefferson had beaten his friend John Adams and was inaugurated on March 4, 1801. Deeply disappointed and angry at his former companion, Adams did not attend the inauguration.

An estranged friend and a divided nation were not Jefferson’s only problems. He would now have to face the problem of the Barbary powers head-on. For more than a dozen years, the nation’s policy under both Presidents Washington and Adams had been to avoid resorting to military force. But Jefferson would soon learn that time had run out.

Unaware that the ticking time bomb of the Barbary Coast was about to go off, Jefferson settled gradually into his new home. After his walk to the Capitol for his inauguration, the third president let two full weeks pass before he moved from his rented rooms into the president’s quarters.

Occupying only a few rooms on the main floor, Jefferson began to plan the social life of the place. Unlike Washington and Adams, who hosted weekly presidential receptions as if at a royal court, Jefferson preferred smaller dinners where the business of the government might get done in intimate conversations. But those would come later. First he needed to gain a fuller understanding of the state in which Adams had left various matters.

President Jefferson ordered that all correspondence be submitted to him for review. As he looked over the papers Adams had left behind, his concern about the state of America’s safety grew. Jefferson had known the Barbary situation was bad, but he hadn’t realized how bad it truly was. Now, as he reviewed the existing treaties with Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis. The last had been ratified in January 1800 and promised payment of $20,000 in annual tribute, as well as the bizarre payment of one barrel of gunpowder every time an American vessel received a cannon salute. After fifteen years of observation, Jefferson knew as well as anyone that this demand was not in good faith. Instead, it was a warning that the whole region was nothing less than a powder keg.

On March 13, a stack of fresh dispatches from the Mediterranean had arrived for Jefferson’s review. One in particular, from James Cathcart, had about it the whiff of a burning fuse. Writing before the George Washington had been commandeered, Cathcart reported that the bashaw of Tripoli had increased a demand in his annual tribute, despite the provision in the treaty stating that no “periodical tribute or farther payment is ever to be made by either party.”¹ That, Cathcart reported, was of no matter whatever to the regent.

As Jefferson read on, Cathcart’s long and detailed letter grew more ominous. The bashaw’s rising rhetoric had turned to explicit threats. “Let your government give me a sum of money & I will be content—but I will be paid one way or the other.” The bashaw set a six-month deadline, after which, if his demands were not met? “I will declare war . . . against the United States.” Those six months were nearly up.

Jefferson also found a letter from Tunis consul William Eaton. Sensing that the fragile peace would not last, Eaton had begged Adams’s administration to make a show of strength. He proposed sending three of America’s most impressive fighting ships into Tripoli. There he would invite the bashaw to dinner and impress him with the Americans’ strength. After the meal, he would point at the cannon and say, “See there our executive power Commissioned to Keep Guarentee of Peace.”² If the plan worked, Eaton explained, the bashaw might be too intimidated to declare war.

Unfortunately, one of Adams’s last acts in office had been to sign into law a bill shrinking the American navy. Jefferson must have sympathized with Eaton, whose plan resembled Jefferson’s own from years earlier, but there were few ships to send. Jefferson did not have enough military power to take America properly to war.

A few weeks later, he learned that his time to weigh options had run out. The USS George Washington docked at Philadelphia on April 19. After completing their humiliating journey to Constantinople, William Bainbridge and his crew had endured a punishing winter passage home. The stormy Atlantic journey took two and a half months, twice the usual transit time. Still, the long trip and cold winds had done nothing to lessen Bainbridge’s red-hot fury and, back on dry land, he set off immediately to the nation’s capital to give the president a full report.

The city of Washington was full of whispered criticism of Bainbridge, as some hinted that he’d capitulated too easily to the dey’s demands. But the captain found a sympathetic ear in President Jefferson. Fully aware of the region’s problems, Jefferson was predisposed to believe that Bainbridge’s situation had been impossible. Once he’d heard the details from Bainbridge directly, the president saw to it that Bainbridge was commended for “the able and judicious manner in which he had discharged his duty under such peculiarly embarrassing circumstances.”³ He contemplated a further reward to the dedicated captain—perhaps he might return to the Barbary Coast, this time in a vessel more intimidating than a converted merchant ship.

First, though, Jefferson needed to convene his cabinet. He wanted to secure their approval of a plan that was taking shape in his mind—a plan that would fall somewhere between submitting to the Barbary indignities and launching a full-scale war.

• • •

Jefferson had hoped to gather his cabinet in Washington by the end of April, but it was mid-May before they assembled. Washington’s main newspaper, the National Intelligencer and Daily Advertiser, had proclaimed just four days earlier that the nation was at peace, but Jefferson and his advisers knew better. The situation on the Barbary Coast demanded action, even though everyone at the table also understood that the United States was among the least qualified of nation states to take on pirates with its small navy, which was shrinking further even as they took their seats.

Jefferson put the question boldly, asking his advisers at this, his first cabinet meeting: “Shall the squadron now at Norfolk be ordered to cruise in the Mediterranean?”⁴

The gentlemen of the cabinet immediately recognized the question had broad significance: they were being asked to consider whether the president’s authority extended to take military action without first gaining permission from Congress.

With the question before the cabinet, Jefferson, as he often did, noted on a sheet of paper the opinions of each official.

Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin expressed the opinion that “the Executive can not put us in a state of war.” But, he added, in the event of war, whether declared by Congress or initiated by another country, “the command and direction of the public force then belongs to the Executive.”

Attorney General Levi Lincoln was still more measured: “Our men of war may repel an attack,” he said, “but after the repulse, may not proceed to destroy the enemy’s vessels.”

Secretary of War Henry Dearborn took a more bullish view. “The expedition should go forward openly to protect our commerce against the threatened hostilities of Tripoli,” he offered. Secretary of State Madison concurred.

After further discussion, the cabinet was unanimous: the squadron would be dispatched to the Mediterranean but as peacemakers rather than agents of war.⁵ Jefferson and his cabinet hoped against hope that the Barbary powers would be reasonable, would recognize that the United States took seriously the seizure of its goods and citizens, and would back down from the conflict.

Richard Dale, one of the original U.S. Navy captains appointed by George Washington, was named to command the squadron. He would carry with him a letter from President Jefferson, addressed to the leader of Tripoli; in its text, Jefferson offered multiple assurances of “constant friendship.”

Jefferson chose his words carefully, avoiding inflammatory terms such as warship. He advised the bashaw that “we have found it expedient to detach a squadron of observation into the Mediterranean.” To the careful reader, however, the words were rich with implications: the Americans did not appreciate the Barbary Coast’s treatment of their ships, but they were not yet ready to go to war. With any luck, simply letting the Muslim leaders know they were being watched would be enough to dissuade them.

“We hope [our ships’] appearance will give umbrage to no Power,” Jefferson’s letter continued, “for, while we mean to rest the safety of our commerce on the resources of our own strength & bravery in every sea, we have yet given to this squadron in strict command to conduct themselves toward all friendly Powers with most perfect respect and good order.”

President Jefferson could only hope that his words of peace, accompanied by a modest show of power, would quiet the visions of war that danced in the mind of the bashaw of Tripoli.