CHAPTER 7

Skirmish at Sea

I have the honor to inform you, that on the 1 of August, I fell in with a Tripolitan ship of war, called the Tripoli. An action immediately commenced within pistol shot. . . .

—Lieutenant Andrew Sterett to Commodore Richard Dale, August 6, 1801

Even if they were not authorized for full-on war, the four American ships, Jefferson hoped, would win new respect for the United States of America. The armada’s guns were impressive, and its captains brave, but whether four ships would impress the pirates remained to be seen. Whether the Barbary states would peacefully back down before a modest show of force that was not clearly backed by resolve was an even more important question.

When the President and Enterprise rode the tide into Algiers harbor on July 9, a delighted Richard O’Brien greeted his fellow Americans. He then delivered a letter to the dey on Dale’s behalf—a letter designed to offer “the Profound respect which is due to your Excellency’s dignity and character.” The note also explained the mission in subtle but clear terms: these ships would “superintend the safety of [American] Commerce.”¹ It was lost on no one who saw U.S. Navy vessels that these guardians were armed with many guns, but Dale was careful to make no threats.

Two days later, the two ships weighed anchor and stood out for Tunis, where Commodore Dale would find, in the person of William Eaton, a kindred spirit.

The U.S. consul took great satisfaction in seeing Dale’s warships enter the harbor. Eaton soon wrote home, “Here commences a new Era in the annals of the United States and Barbary.”² The two men who met in those days—Consul Eaton and Commodore Dale—quickly agreed that America had to fight—it was the only way. The hostile Barbary nations needed to be confronted. Yet they were restrained by their orders.

Eaton’s sense of duty and commitment to his diplomatic mission had been nurtured by a growing belief in the need for American might, but his combative nature was the result of long experience. He had been angry at the dey’s tyranny since his arrival in the Mediterranean in early 1799, and his anger had not abated in the following two and a half years.

On arrival in Tunis, he had been summoned to visit the dey in his quarters. Entering the ruler’s meandering palace, he had walked through a confusing maze of towers, corridors, and courtyards. Eaton, accompanied that day by consuls O’Brien and Cathcart, as well as several American ship captains, had been led into a small, cavelike room, roughly twelve by eight feet, lit only by the broken light that penetrated the iron grates on the windows. With heads uncovered and feet bare, the men shuffled into the presence of “a huge, shaggy beast,” wrote Eaton, “sitting on his rump, upon a low bench, covered with a cushion of embroidered velvet, with his hind legs gathered up.”³

This was the dey himself, who languidly “reached out his fore paw as if to receive something to eat.”

Eaton had been at a loss until a servant barked, “Kiss the Dey’s hand!” O’Brien obliged, and the other men followed suit. The gesture seemed to appease the dey because, as Eaton described, “The animal seemed at that moment to be in a harmless mode: he grinned several times; but made very little noise.”

Later, an angry Eaton complained to his diary, “Can any man believe that this elevated brute has seven kings of Europe, two republics, and a continent, tributary to him, when his whole naval force is not equal to two lines of battle ships?”⁴

In his years of service since that first introduction, Eaton had found leisure time to observe his new home and tour the ruins at Carthage. He had come to care deeply for the landscape, a terrain utterly foreign to his native Connecticut. “The country on the sea coast of this kingdom is naturally luxuriant and beautiful beyond description,” he recorded. “Well might the Romans consider it a luxury to have a seat here.”⁵ He made careful notes about the manner of dress of the Tunisian citizens, noting that they wore “Short jackets, something like those of our seamen, without sleeves, embroidered with spangles of gold, wrought in a variety of figures on the edges and sides.” He admired the fine linens and the silk sashes, from which hung swords and long pistols.

The people reminded Eaton of Native Americans, though they seemed much more subdued by their harsh climate and harsh governance. “They are humbled by the double oppression of civil and religious tyranny,”⁶ he wrote to his wife back in the United States. To Pickering he remarked that the Tunisian citizens “want that wild magnanimity, that air of independence, which animate those free born sons of our forests.”⁷

Increased by the oppression of the Tunisians, Eaton’s righteous anger with the dey only grew the longer he served at his post. Even after several years in residence, he was still horrified that the Barbary countries could demand tribute not only from his president (whom the dey called “the Prince of America”) but from the rest of the world, too. That European nations would tolerate the pirates’ interference in international waters of the Mediterranean was infuriating. In Eaton’s mind, this submission to tyrannical force was a blemish on American honor, but his orders were still for peace.

Predictably, the Tunisians responded to Dale’s greetings with many demands. A few months before, the dey of Algiers had written to the president asking for forty twenty-four-pound guns and forty other pieces. He also wanted ten thousand rifles. Dale could do little but add his promises that the “regalia due to him” was on its way. Fortunately, his words soon proved true with the arrival in Tunis of the Grand Turk with its escort, the USS Essex, the following day.

Along with Eaton, Dale found his patience growing ever thinner. Dale needed more ships—and the authorization to use them in battle—if he was going to get anywhere. Frustrated by Murat Rais and the leaders of both Algiers and Tunis, Dale wrote to the secretary of the navy on July 19. “I think they must be a damned sett,” he railed, “the whole tribe, Algerines Tunisians and Tripolians. [T]here is nothing that will keep there avaricious minds in any degree of order, and prevent, them from committing depredations on our commerce whenever thay May think Proper.” Now that he had firsthand knowledge of the situation, he offered his advice for the future: “Keep constantly four or six Frigates in the Mediterranean, without that, there is never any security for our commerce.”⁸

With little return for his diplomacy thus far, Dale headed to Tripoli, where he would encounter the most difficult leader of all. Dale hoped to resolve matters with the Tripolitans. If he could not, this time he would be authorized to use force to contain the enemy, giving them incentive to make peace.

The USS President and USS Enterprise reached Tripoli harbor on July 24, 1801. From beyond the coastal reefs and shoals, the American ships patrolled, seeking to control access to the channels leading to Tripoli’s inner harbor.

Though he could not freely walk its streets, Commodore Dale knew that this port city of some thirty thousand citizens was suffering. Tripoli was already partially blockaded by ships from Sweden’s Royal Navy, as the belligerent bashaw was at odds with that nation, too. If the bashaw was not hungry, most of his people were without grains and other basic foodstuffs. Dale hoped that his additional blockade, should it become necessary, would hasten the humbling of the bashaw.

On Saturday, July 25, Dale ordered a letter delivered to the town. The letter was long, couched in the best diplomatic terms that Dale could muster. He began by expressing his disappointment at the bashaw’s declaration of war against the United States,⁹ then followed with fair warning: “I am sorry to Inform Your Excellency—that your Conduct towards the President of the United States, In declaring war against him, has put me under the necessity of Commencing hostilities against your Excellency’s Vessels and subjects, where ever I may fall in with them.”

But Dale closed his note on a conciliatory word: if the bashaw had any wish to withdraw his declaration of war and make peace, he might send a delegation by boat to the President, where Dale would be eager to receive them.

Sunday passed with no response.

On Monday, a boat approached the President asking that a messenger carrying the bashaw’s response be taken on board. Eager for an answer, Dale granted the request, and the Americans helped the messenger aboard.

The response was given: the bashaw declared, quite simply, that he had not declared war without provocation. No further explanation was offered.

Dale composed another letter, attempting to move the conversation, dispatching it the following day, Tuesday, July 28.

This time silence spoke for the bashaw.

If he had not been certain before, Dale knew the time for diplomatic dodges and niceties had passed, but he wanted to make sure military engagements happened on his own terms. The bashaw’s navy was small and diminished by nearly a third, since the Meshuda and its sister ship were trapped by the Philadelphia. The American navy would be able to take on the Barbary forces in the open sea, but attempting to bombard the harbor was a different matter. Because Commodore Dale and his captains lacked charts of the unfamiliar harbor, the many reefs and rocks posed a grave danger. Dale decided the wisest course was to blockade the harbor and hope for a chance to engage with enemy ships that ventured in or out.

No ships emerged from the harbor in the wearying weeks that followed. With the unforgiving July sun, the water rations aboard the President and Enterprise soon ran low. Replenishing supplies meant a trip to the nearest safe harbor, at Malta, several days’ sail away. Dale didn’t want to lose one of his ships for the week or more needed for the journey, but he had no choice. On July 30, Dale sent the Enterprise off, its orders “to take in as much water as you can possibley bring back.”¹⁰ Now on its own, the President would maintain its watch off the shoals of Tripoli.

Meanwhile, back at Gibraltar, Murat Rais was trapped. Along with almost four hundred of his best men, many of whom were the sons of the first families of Tripoli, he could do little more than listen to the lapping of the waves. He knew that the Philadelphia could have only one purpose in staying behind while the rest of the American fleet sailed off. If he made sail, his two ships and their small guns would be overmatched by the long guns of the American ship, and he was not going to give the Americans that satisfaction.

As summer broiled on, Murat Rais and his men faced siegelike conditions. The quarantine had been lifted, and Rais’s men could come and go onshore, but they could not obtain provisions. The British merchants on the peninsula, though many had little affection for Americans (those rebellious former colonists), seemed to revel in this opportunity to refuse the Barbary pirates. With food and water running out, the crew of the smaller Tripolitan ship threatened to mutiny. Murat Rais knew he had to act.

The men in the tops of the American frigate Philadelphia might watch from afar, monitoring his ships, ready to intercept them if he set sail. But from such a distance, Rais’s men could scarcely be tracked in the bustling harbor. With no guards hovering over them, it was not as if they were prisoners. Could they not flee? That was a question worth pondering. He began to concoct a plan for escape.

While her fellow ships blockaded Gibraltar and Tripoli, the USS Enterprise made sail for Malta to procure much-needed water. But Lieutenant Andrew Sterett’s simple errand was about to be interrupted.

On August 1, the second day out, less than an hour into the morning watch, a lookout spied a ship at the horizon. Suspecting it was part of Bashaw Yusuf’s navy, Sterett ordered his men to prepare for battle. Though his orders specified he was “not to chase out of your way particularly,” young Lieutenant Sterett was itching for action and ordered his men to sail toward the ship.

Although only twenty-three, Sterett had already proved himself in battle. Two years earlier, as a lieutenant aboard the USS Constellation, his role in two victories over French frigates had won him promotion to first lieutenant. The son of a Revolutionary War captain, he took his duty with deadly seriousness: when a member of a Constellation gun crew had abandoned his post in the heat of battle, Sterrett had pursued the seaman and run him through with his sword. Sterrett never doubted he was doing his duty. “You must not think this strange,” he explained, “for we would put a man to death for even looking pale on this ship.”¹¹ Cowardice aboard a U.S. Navy vessel was a capital crime.

Sterett was no coward, but he also knew when craftiness should accompany courage.

On this day, the Enterprise flew a British flag, as Dale’s orders permitted the “use of any colours as a deception.” Because Tripoli and Great Britain were at peace, the enemy ship’s captain made no move to flee as a ship that appeared to be British approached.

The ships slowed, coming alongside each other at shouting distance. Sterett hailed the captain, asking the object of his cruise.

Thinking he had no quarrel with this ship, the master of the Tripoli, Mahomet Rous, spoke the truth. He had come out “to cruise after Americans.” Before Sterett could reply, the Tripolitan captain complained that he had yet to find any Americans to fight.¹² He should have been more careful about what he wished for.

Acting instantly, Sterett ordered the British flag lowered as Dale had ordered him to engage in combat only while flying the American flag. As his colors went up the pole, Sterett in full voice issued the order to fire. The crackle of muskets filled the air.

The Tripolitans, who had at least some of their guns primed, returned scattered fire. The first shots of the war rang out over the water.

Within moments, the American guns produced a deafening roar. Along with the flying cannon balls, streaks of lightning seemed to emerge from the iron cannon muzzles. The crashing sound of solid shot striking the Tripoli followed a heartbeat later. At such close range, few shots missed their mark.

Aboard the Tripolitan ship, masts splintered, crashing to the deck. The rigging sagged, and ropes whipped back and forth as the ship rocked; holes appeared in the ship’s hull above the waterline.

The first volley over, the American gunners raced to reload: swabbing, ramming, firing again. The well-drilled men hit most of their targets.

Less adept with their guns, the pirates managed to return fire only sporadically. Unaccustomed to relying entirely upon artillery, Admiral Mahomet Rous ordered his men to maneuver their vessel alongside the Enterprise. They would board this American adversary and swarm over her sides, knives and pistols in hand. They would fight as they preferred, hand-to-hand, man-to-man. That was the pirate way.

But the small Marine Corps detachment aboard the Enterprise was ready. At the order of Marine Lieutenant Enoch Lane, their deadly musket fire repulsed the approaching pirates, dropping many to the decks before they even had a chance to swing their swords.

The Tripoli moved off and, seeming to surrender, the Tripolitans lowered their flag. Seeing this signal of capitulation, the men of the Enterprise naively assembled on deck and let loose the traditional three cheers as a mark of victory. Within moments, the cheers were drowned out by the sound of gunfire. The pirates, disregarding the rules of war, had hoisted their flag again and were firing on the exposed Americans, who ran to their stations.

The battle quickly resumed and the hellish American fire brought the Tripolitans to surrender a second time—and then a third—only to see the enemy’s flag twice lower and rise again.

Finally, seething at this treachery, Sterett ordered his gunners to fire until they were sure the Tripoli would sink beneath the waves. The cry of “Sink the Villains!” echoed aboard the Enterprise. In the long minutes that followed, the pirates’ fire grew progressively weaker, but the sustained American cannonade did not cease until Admiral Mahomet Rous called for mercy. The wounded Rous, standing at his ship’s gunwale, bowed deeply in genuine supplication and surrender. This time he threw his flag into the sea.

The silence that ensued was broken not by gunfire, but only by the moans of the wounded.

• • •

Rous could not be rowed to the Enterprise to offer his sword to Sterett, the traditional act conceding victory; the Tripoli’s harbor boat was no longer seaworthy, shattered by the cannon fire. Lieutenant Sterett, after receiving assurances as to their safety, dispatched a group of his officers and seamen in the Enterprise’s boat. When the Americans boarded the enemy’s vessel, they saw a scene of terrible carnage. Thirty men had been killed, another thirty wounded. Bodies lay in pools of blood, as rivulets of red poured through the ship’s hatches.

An amazed Sterett found that, in comparison with the slaughter aboard the Tripoli, the Americans had sustained no casualties, with no one either killed or injured. He ordered his surgeon to minister to the enemy wounded, as the Tripolitan surgeon was among the dead.

Admiral Rous’s ship was in perilous condition. Her sails and rigging had been cut to pieces; one of her three masts teetered precariously before crashing over the side. Solid shot had torn eighteen holes in the hull of the Tripoli above the waterline.

Under other circumstances, the Tripoli would have been regarded as fairly won and Lieutenant Sterett would have put a prize crew of his own men aboard to sail her to port as the spoils of victory. But Sterett, a stickler for procedure, honored his orders not to take captives.

Instead of commandeering the ship, Sterett’s men set about incapacitating it. Cannon, powder, cannonballs, swords, and small arms went into the sea, along with the ship’s cables and anchors. After chopping down the ship’s remaining masts, the victors raised a spar to which was fixed a tattered sail—just enough to move the boat along. Leaving the defeated Tripoli to limp home, the Enterprise continued on her way to Malta.

A few days later, on August 6, the crew of the frigate President spotted Sterett’s battle-scarred victims approaching Tripoli harbor. Maintaining the blockade, Dale stopped the ship and questioned its crew. Anxious to get home, the captain of the Tripoli insisted that they were Tunisians headed to Malta who had been attacked by a French ship. Thinking the tale plausible, Commodore Dale lent the captain a compass “& Suffer’d him to proceed on” into Tripoli harbor.¹³ The enemy ship had escaped, but only after embarrassing losses.

The bashaw was as humiliated as the Americans were proud. “So strong was the sensations of shame and indignation excited [at Tripoli],” reported the National Intelligencer on November 18, 1801, that Bashaw Yusuf “ordered the wounded captain to be mounted on a Jack Ass, and paraded thro’ the streets as an object of public scorn.”¹⁴ Wearing a necklace of sheep entrails, the admiral was bastinadoed—beaten with five hundred strokes of a switch delivered to the soles of his feet.

The news of Lieutenant Sterett’s actions met with the opposite reaction in the halls of the newly completed U.S. Capitol building. With the slow transmission of news across the Atlantic, Americans did not learn what happened off Malta until two months later. But on November 11, 1801, the editors of the National Intelligencer declaimed proudly the stunning victory of the USS Enterprise. Thrilled by the American triumph, Congress voted to commission a commemorative sword for Sterett and awarded his officers and crewmen an extra month’s pay.

To Jefferson, the dramatic vanquishing of the Tripoli in the hard-fought three-hour sea battle sounded like political leverage. On December 8, he proudly cited the bravery of Lieutenant Sterett and the men aboard the USS Enterprise in his annual presidential message. “After a heavy slaughter of [enemy] men,” Jefferson told Congress, the U.S. Navy ship had prevailed “without the loss of a single one on our part.”¹⁵

The encouragement brought by Sterett’s victory came none too soon. America had been dealing with the Barbary pirates for years with few results. Appeasement had not worked—poor Cathcart had suffered the results of that tactic. Richard Dale’s diplomacy tour had been ineffective—his blockade was letting ships through. The only effective action so far had been the use of focused military power in the face of a threat.

Jefferson was no warmonger. He had attempted to keep the peace despite his instincts. But now he felt justified in calling for America to go to war. It was about time. The Barbary states were already at war with America, and they seemed to understand only one kind of diplomacy—the kind that was accompanied by a cannon.