CHAPTER 5

A Flagpole Falls

Facts are now indubitable. The Bashaws corsaires are actually out and fitting out against Americans.

—William Eaton to the secretary of state, April 10, 1801

While Jefferson and his cabinet prepared a response to Barbary provocation, James Cathcart stood in a diplomatic no-man’s-land. For almost six months he had waited impatiently for a response from Washington to his October 1800 letter outlining the war threats from Tripolitan bashaw Yusuf Qaramanli. No instructions came. He didn’t even know who had won the presidential election. For all intents and purposes, Cathcart was alone.

Over the past few months, the bashaw had alternatively threatened and flattered the United States. He had told Cathcart he wanted peace with his people, but refused to discuss the existing treaty, still legally in effect. The bashaw simply wanted more and didn’t pretend otherwise, whatever he had agreed to in the past. He first demanded a gift of ships—the other regencies had gotten more in their treaties, he pointed out, in particular Algiers. Now he insisted upon further considerations, too. The bashaw demanded immense amounts of money, including a down payment of $225,000, far more than Cathcart could give or the U.S. Treasury could afford. He was entirely shameless in his demands, having had the audacity to demand an additional $10,000 in tribute when George Washington died. The bashaw, in short, was living up to the prediction made by Joel Barlow years before. The Tripolitan ruler was willing to set aside “every principle of honor at defiance more than any prince in Barbary.”¹ As far as the Americans could tell, he was the worst of a bad lot.

His fear rising, Cathcart had issued a circular letter to his fellow consuls on February 21, 1801. “I am convinced that the Bashaw of Tripoli,” he warned, “will commence Hostilitys against the U. States of America in less than Sixty Days.”²

He was not far off; his fears were confirmed on May 11, 1801, three months later.

At six o’clock that Monday evening, a regency emissary arrived at the American consulate in Tripoli. When the visitor was ushered in, Cathcart immediately recognized the man as one of Bashaw Yusuf’s most esteemed advisers. Cathcart greeted him with all the cordiality he could muster, which had never been much. He had done his best to remain patient with the bashaw’s games, but his patience with masked aggression was wearing thin.

This time, the bashaw’s emissary didn’t even pretend to come in peace. He delivered his message. “The Bashaw has sent me to inform you that he has declared war against the United States and will take down your flagstaff on Thursday the 14th.”³

The bashaw had made many threats in the past, but Cathcart understood this one was real. Tripolitan ships, in a gesture of contempt, had already raised the American colors in the place where they flew the flags of nations at war with the regency. This time there was nothing Cathcart could do to defuse the situation.

His instincts told him he must leave; he knew that the bashaw would allow him to vacate the city. But Cathcart had grown accustomed to this overgrown village that rose from the sea, its long wharf extending far into the harbor. The walled city, with the minarets of its mosques reaching high above the tightly packed stone houses, had become his home. Even the labyrinths of the bashaw’s palace, situated at the highest point of the city, had become dear to him in some strange way.

Though he would always remain an outsider, Carthcart understood this world. He had sat cross-legged to share a dinner with the bashaw. He knew the odors of the main squares of the city, thick with the scent of rich coffee and tobacco smoke. He recognized the sounds of camels in harness, turning the shafts of the city’s flour mill. The sight of slaves fanning their masters, driving away the flies, was familiar if unwelcome. Like it or not, the city had become part of him, and now, as he had feared, it was spitting him out.

Holding both his temper and his sorrow in check, Cathcart replied politely to the bashaw’s emissary, knowing that an angry reply would only jeopardize his wife and young daughter, as well as his diplomatic staff. Without instructions from the government at home, he was authorized to do nothing else. And even if he could know the new president’s mind, military backup would never reach him in time. Accordingly, Cathcart acknowledged receipt of the declaration of war and said he would charter a ship and depart the city as soon as possible. In the meantime, he would remain at the consulate and witness the first official act of war.

Three days later, the bashaw made good on his threat. On May 14, 1801, he dispatched his men to the American consulate; the party of soldiers arrived at one o’clock that Thursday afternoon.

Cathcart was ready to make one last offer to keep the peace, to avoid what had begun to seem inevitable. He approached the seraskier, the leader of the squad and the bashaw’s minister of war, and asked that the promise of a tribute of $10,000 be conveyed to the bashaw. A messenger departed for the castle, but returned minutes later. The bashaw had rejected the offer.

Cathcart knew any further attempts at diplomacy would be futile, and stopping the bashaw’s men by force was impossible. Helpless, he stood watching on that bright, hot Thursday as the Tripolitans began hacking at the flagpole.

The bashaw’s men shouted encouragement to one another as they swung their axes but to their dismay, felling the pole was harder than it looked. Chips flew, but the flagpole refused to fall. As if to mock the men, the flag fluttered with each stroke of the ax, its staff staunchly in place. A gesture meant to humble the Americans was rapidly becoming a humiliation for the Tripolitans.

The bashaw had ordered that, if the men had trouble dropping the pole, they should pull on the halyard, the line anchored at the top of the pole used to hoist the flag. He thought they might be able to break the pole in half by doing so. To the dismay of the men, that strategy failed, too, and once again, the resilient flagpole refused to fall. The men who had arrived to dishonor the flag were proving singularly inept.

More than an hour passed before the Tripolitans finally caused the pole to splinter just enough to lean against the consulate house. The American diplomats looked on, darkly amused by the whole episode. Cathcart wryly recorded the events in a dispatch to Secretary of State James Madison.

“At a quarter past two they effected the grand atchievement and our Flagstaff was chop’d down six feet from the ground & left reclining on the Terrace. . . . Thus ends the first act of this Tragedy.”⁴

Ten days would pass before Cathcart, his wife, and his daughter sailed out of Tripoli harbor aboard a polacca, a small three-masted ship he hired in the harbor. He entrusted the consulate affairs he left behind to the good hands of the Danish consul general, Nicholas Nissen. Cathcart specifically instructed that any American sailors brought captive to Tripoli be provided for with money for subsistence and needed medical care. Nissen agreed to do whatever was in his power to meet those needs should another American ship be captured.⁵

The fleeing family landed at Malta three days later. There Cathcart gave letters for the American government to a ship that would convey them homeward. He still had no idea who was president or what the political climate was in the United States. He could only imagine what the response would be when the documents reached America.

Once state business was taken care of, the Cathcarts’ vessel made sail again, headed for the Italian city of Leghorn. But now-former consul Cathcart’s tribulations were not yet at an end. Off the coast of Sicily he had another unwelcome encounter with a Barbary force, this one a small Tunisian ship manned by pirates. They proved respectful of Cathcart’s credentials, although he had his “trunks tumbled” and the boarders helped themselves to his wine and foodstuffs. Mrs. Cathcart and her daughter had been terrified at the appearance of a man in their cabin wielding a saber, but the Tunisian employed the weapon, Cathcart reported, “not with any intention to hurt any person but merely to cut twine & other ligatures which were round the articles he plunder’d.”⁶

The pirates having helped themselves to the ship’s compass, Cathcart and the captain were forced to resort to paste and ceiling wax to repair “an old french Compas whose needle fortunately retain’d its magentism.” It proved adequate for charting their course, and the Cathcarts managed to make Leghorn nine days after departing Tripoli. On arrival, however, one last insult was delivered: they faced a twenty-five-day quarantine to ensure they had not contracted smallpox or any other diseases in their encounter with the Tunisians.

Once they were ashore in Italy, the news finally reached Cathcart of Jefferson’s election. He sent his congratulations, via a letter to Madison, who along with Jefferson would remain unaware for many more weeks that Tripoli had declared war. Jefferson would learn of Tripoli’s attack too late to assist Cathcart, who was already traveling home. But thanks to Jefferson’s foresight, American ships had already been ordered to head for the Barbary Coast. They were not authorized to attack the Barbary ships, but they would be able to defend American interests against further embarrassment and blockade Barbary ports, squeezing Tripoli’s economy the same way the pirates had been squeezing America’s. Both nations knew that a breaking point had been reached, but neither side knew that the other had taken action.