Books: Barbary Gang Buster

THE FIRST AMERICANS IN NORTH AFRICA —Louis B. Wright & Julia H. MacLeod —Princeton University Press ($3).

“Can any man believe that this elevated brute… sitting on his rump on a cushion of embroidered velvet … has seven kings of Europe, two republics, and a continent tributary to him when his whole naval force is not equal to two line-of-battle ships?”

The elevated brute was the Dey of Algiers and the man who asked this stictly rhetorical quextion was William Eaton, first U.S. Consul to Tunis. Rarely in history has any man been so frustrated as that tempestuous, square-jawed young New Englander.

For centuriesthe fat greasy rulers of Algiers, Tunis, Morocco and Tripoli had maintained s gang rule over all Mediterranean shipping. Rather than provoke these fierce Barbary pirates the maritime nations of Europe patiently paid protection money in a steady tribute of jewels, gold, ships and gunpowder. When the youthful U.S., short of ships and cast loose from the protection of the British Navy, decided to join in this appeasment policy. President John Adams sent young William Eaton to supervise the job.

Consul Eaton, soon disgusted by the greed and eternal haggling of the Tripolitan Pasha, decided that appeasment did not pay. Instead he set up a howl for naval action. If he had his way, he stormed, the U.S. would fit out a fleet, sink every corsair on sight and “let the Pashas wreak their vengeance on the consuls— if they pleased, eat them.”

Liberally spicing their narrative with Eaton’s peppery comments. Historian Louis Wright and Librarian Julia MacLeod (both of Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.) have written a brisk account of the first puny U.S. efforts to carry a big stick in world affairs. During the six rollicking years that he carried that stick, Consul Eaton had enough trouble, and made enough comments on it, to build up quite a legend.

Seraglio in the Harbor. Contemptuous of the Consul’s two-bit nation, Tripoli’s Pasha cared little whether the U.S. fulfilled his increasing demands or not. Yankee merchantmen made good prizes, filling his coffers and slave pens as full as tribute would. Eventually, in a petulant burst of impatience, he declared war by chopping down the flagpole at the consulate.

The U.S. fleet that sailed in response to this outrage, at Eaton’s demand, did little to raise U.S. prestige. From what was left of a Navy economically scrapped by Adams, six small ships sailed against Barbary.

To while away the long sea hours, Commodore Richard Valentine Morris brought along his wife, baby, and Negro maid Sal; to keep his crew happy, he let them bring their wives too. This domestically blissful squadron cruised leisurely about the Mediterranean, then settled down to a blockade of Tripoli. During the siege a seaman’s wife on the flagship Chesapeake bore a child in the forecastle. When the Commodore’s wife began expecting, Morris lifted the blockade and sailed off to Malta so that she could be delivered in style.

“I would recommend to the Government of the United States,” wrote William Eaton, grinding his teeth, “to station a company of comedians and a seraglio before the enemy’s port.”

Pasha in the Desert. Morris soon sailed for home. Eaton quickly followed, to promote his own plan for the conquest of Tripoli. He proposed to place on the throne of Tripoli a pusillanimous and vacillating ex-Pasha, Hamet Karamanli, whose bloodthirsty younger brother Yusuf reigned supreme after having murdered one relative and frightened his rabbity senior away.

When Eaton returned to North Africa, he was flush with a $20,000 revolution-promotion fund. His first task was to find the rightful Pasha, who had fled in terror far up the Nile. After a two-month search he found his man. Somewhat reluctantly, Hamet signed a treaty of alliance with the U.S., made Eaton a general in his army, and agreed to march on Tripoli.

Early in March, 1805, General Eaton strode forth to follow the route made famous 138 years later by British Field Marshal Montgomery. His army was a motley crew consisting of Hamet, some 90 of his Arab followers, seven U.S. marines under Lieut. Presley O’Bannon, 40-odd cutthroat Greeks and Italians recruited in Alexandria, an Italian “chief of engineers” (who had been by turns a Capuchin monk, an Indian dervish and a soldier of fortune) and a caravan of 190 camels at $11 a camel.

Arabs in the Cistern. The $11, Eaton had understood, was to cover the whole journey, but the sheik in charge understood differently; on the second day the camel drivers went on strike. This was the first of many sit-downs ordered by the camel sheik, after each of which Eaton recorded laconically in his journal: “Pacified him with promises.”

On the 28th day Hamet’s fear of his brother got too much for him. He disappeared into the desert, but was soon brought back “cringing with apology.” By April 6, the invaders were within 120 miles of their objective city, Derna. Starved and thirsty on half rations, they found water in a cistern in which two presumably murdered Arabs were floating. But Hamet and his followers refused to move on without more food.

Governor in the Harem. The crusade soon got under way again, after a courier brought word of U.S. warships in the harbor of nearby Bomba, a scant 40 miles from Derna.

On April 27 the revolutionary army attacked Derna. While three warships gave support from the harbor, a central spearhead led by Eaton planted the U.S. flag on the city’s walls. Yusuf’s governor hid in a harem, and Hamet established himself in the royal palace. For one brief moment General Eaton tasted triumph: “The conquest of Tripoli was in sight and with it would come prestige for the U.S. throughout Barbary, the like of which no other nation enjoyed.”

The triumph was short-lived. Derna’s natives flatly declined to rally to Hamet, and Yusuf’s men bore down relentlessly from the hills. Just as the marines were preparing for a last-ditch stand, Eaton got word that his government had made peace with Yusuf, selling Hamet down the river.

Not until ten years later did Commodore Stephen Decatur bring the pirates to account. By that time disillusioned William Eaton had been dead four years.