This was sharp language for a Consul to hold to a Secretary of State; but it was as meekly borne as the other indignities which came from Barbary.
An occurrence in Algiers completes the picture of "Americans in the Mediterranean" in the year 1800. In October, the United States ship Washington, Captain Bainbridge, lay in that port, about to sail for home. The Dey sent for Consul O'Brien, and laid this alternative before him: either the Washington should take the Algerine Ambassador to Constantinople, or he, the Dey, would no longer hold to his friendship with the United States. O'Brien expostulated warmly, but in vain. He thought it his duty to submit. The Ambassador, his suite, amounting to two hundred persons, their luggage and stores, horses, sheep, and horned cattle, and their presents to the Sultan, of lions, tigers, and antelopes, were sent on board. The Algerine flag was hoisted at the main, saluted with seven guns, and the United States ship Washington weighed anchor for Constantinople.
Eaton's rage boiled over when he heard of this freak of the Dey. He wrote to O'Brien,"I frankly own, I would have lost the peace, and been myself impaled, rather than have yielded this concession. Will nothing rouse my country?"1
When the news reached America, Mr. Jefferson was President. He was not roused. He regretted the affair; but hoped that time, and a more correct estimate of interest, would produce justice in the Dey's mind; and he seemed to believe that the majesty of pure reason, more potent than the music of Orpheus,
"Dictas ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque leones,"
would soften piratical Turks. Mr. Madison's despatch to O'Brien on the subject is written in this spirit. "The sending to Constantinople the national ship-of-war, the George Washington, by force, under the Algerine flag, and for such a purpose, has deeply affected the sensibility, not only of the President, but of the people of the United States. Whatever temporary effects it may have had favorable to our interest, the indignity is of so serious a nature, that it is not impossible that it may be deemed necessary, on a fit occasion, to revive the question. Viewing it in this light, the President wishes that nothing may be said or done by you that may unnecessarily preclude the competent authority from animadverting on that transaction in any way that a vindication of the national honor may be thought to prescribe."
Times have changed since then, and our national spirit with them. The Secretary's Quaker-like protest offers a ludicrous contrast to the wolf-to-lamb swagger of our modern diplomacy. What faithful Democrat of 1801 would have believed that the day would come of the Kostza affair, of the African right-of-search quarrel, the Greytown bombardment, and the seizure of Miramon's steamers?
It is clear that our President and people were in no danger of being led into acts of undue violence by "deeply affected sensibility" or the "vindication of the national honor," when a violent blow aimed by the Pacha of Tripoli at their Mediterranean trade roused them to a show of self-defence. Early in May he declared war against the United States, although Consul Cathcart offered him ten thousand dollars to leave the American flag-staff up for a short time longer. Even then, if Mr. Jefferson could have consulted no one but himself, not a ship would have sailed from these shores. But the merchants were too powerful for him; they insisted upon protection in the Mediterranean. A squadron of three frigates and a sloop under Commodore Dale was fitted out and despatched to Gibraltar; and the nations of the earth were duly notified by our diplomatic agents of our intentions, that they might not be alarmed by this armada.
In June of this year a fire broke out in the palace at Tunis, and fifty thousand stand of arms were destroyed. The Bey sent for Eaton; he had apportioned his loss among his friends, and it fell to the United States to furnish ten thousand stand without delay.
"It is only the other day," said Eaton, "that you asked for eighty twenty-four pounders. At this rate, when are our payments to have an end?"
"Never," was the answer. "The claims we make are such as we receive from all friendly nations, every two or three years; and you, like other Christians, will be obliged to conform to it."
Eaton refused to state the claim to his Government. The Bey said, Very well, he would write himself; and threatened to turn Eaton out of the Regency.
At this juncture Commodore Dale arrived at Gibraltar. The Bey paid us the compliment of believing that he had not been sent so far for nothing, and allowed Eaton a few months' respite.
Now was the time to give the Turks their lesson; but Dale's hands were tied by his orders. Mr. Jefferson's heart was not in violent methods of dealing with his fellow-men in Barbary. He thought our objects might be accomplished by a display of force better and more cheaply than by active measures. A dislike of naval war and of public expenditure2 made his constitutional conscience, always tender, very sensitive on this question of a cruise against Tripoli. Fearful lest our young sailors should go too far, he instructed the Commodore not to overstep the strict line of defence. Hence, when Sterret, in the Enterprise, captured a Tripolitan schooner, after a brisk engagement, he disarmed and dismantled her, and left her, with the survivors of her crew on board, to make the best of their way home again. Laymen must have found it difficult, even in 1801, to discover the principle of this delicate distinction between killing and taking prisoners; but it was "according to orders." Commodore Dale returned home at the end of the year, having gathered few African laurels; Commodore Morris came out the next season with a larger fleet, and gathered none at all.
There is no better established rule, in commencing hostilities, public or private, than this: If you strike at all, strike with all your might. Half-measures not only irritate, they encourage. When the Bey of Tunis perceived that Dale did little and Morris less, he thought he had measured exactly the strength of the United States navy, and had no reason to feel afraid of it. His wants again became clamorous, and his tone menacing. The jewels arrived from England in the Constellation, but did not mollify him.
"Now," said he, "I must have a thirty-six-gun frigate, like the one you sent to the Dey of Algiers."
Eaton protested that there was no frigate in the treaty, and that we would fight rather than yield to such extortion.
The Prime Minister blew a cloud from his pipe. "We find it all puff; we see how you carry on the war with Tripoli."
"But are you not ashamed to make this demand, when you have just received these valuable jewels?"
"Not at all. We expected the full payment of peace stipulations in a year. You came out with nothing, and three years have elapsed since you settled the treaty. We have waited all this time, but you have made us no consideration for this forbearance. Nor have we as yet received any evidence of the veritable friendship of the Prince of America, notwithstanding the repeated intimations we have given him that such an expression of his sincerity would be agreeable to us. His Excellency, my master, is a man of great forbearance; but he knows what steps to take with nations who exhaust his patience with illusive expressions of friendship."
Eaton answered, angrily, that the Bey might write himself to the President, if he wanted a frigate. For his part, he would never transmit so outrageous a demand. "Then," retorted the Bey, "I will send you home, and the letter with you."
The letter was composed by the dragoman and forwarded to the United States, but Eaton was allowed to remain.
Disgusted with the shameful position of our affairs in the Mediterranean, Eaton requested Mr. Madison to recall him, unless more active operations against the enemy should be resolved upon. "I can no longer talk of resistance and coercion," he wrote, "without exciting a grimace of contempt and ridicule The operations of our squadron this season have done less than the last to aid my efforts. Government may as well send out Quaker meeting-houses to float about this sea as frigates with in command If further concessions are to be made here, I desire I may not be the medium through whom they shall be presented. Our presents show the Bey our wealth and our weakness and stimulate his avarice to new demands."