Monsieur Famin, who found himself turned out of office by the Commissioners, lost no opportunity of insinuating that American promises were insincere, and any expectations built upon them likely to prove delusive.
After some weeks spent in stormy negotiations, this modification of the articles was agreed upon. The duty might be three or three hundred per cent., if the Consuls wished it, but it should be reciprocal. The Bey refused to give up the powder: fifteen barrels of powder, he said, might get him a prize worth a hundred thousand dollars; but salutes were not to be fired, unless demanded by the Consul on the part of the United States. The Bey also persisted in his intention of pressing American vessels into his service; but he waived this claim in the case of national ships, and promised not to take merchantmen, if he could possibly do without them.
Convinced that no better terms could be obtained, Cathcart sailed for Tripoli, to encounter fresh troubles, leaving Eaton alone to bear the greediness and insolence of Tunis. The Bey and his staff were legitimate descendants of the two daughters of the horse-leech; their daily cry was, "Give! give!" The Bey told Eaton to get him a frigate like the one built for the Algerines.
"You will find I am as much to be feared as they. Your good faith I do not doubt," he added, with a sneer, "but your presents have been insignificant."
"But your Highness, only a short time since, received fifty thousand dollars from the United States."
"Yes, but fifty thousand dollars are nothing, and you have since altered the treaty; a new present is necessary; this is the custom."
"Certainly," chorused the staff; "and it is also customary to make presents to the Prime Minister and to the Secretary every time the articles are changed, and also upon the arrival of a new Consul."
To carry out this doctrine, the Admiral sent for a gold-headed cane, a gold watch, and twelve pieces of cloth. The Prime Minister wanted a double-barreled gun and a gold chain. The Aga of the Port said he would be satisfied with some thing in the jewelry-line, simple, but rich. Officials of low rank came in person to ask for coffee and sugar. Even his Highness condescended to levy small contributions. Hearing that Eaton had a Grecian mirror in his house, he requested that it might be sent to decorate the cabin of his yacht.
As month after month passed, and no tribute-ship arrived, the Bey's threats grew louder and more frequent. At last he gave orders to fit out his cruisers. Eaton sent letters of warning to the Consuls at Leghorn and Gibraltar, and prepared to strike his flag. At the last moment the Hero sailed into port, laden with naval stores such as never before had been seen in Tunis. The Bey was softened. "It is well," he said; "this looks a Lotte more like truth; but the guns, the powder, and the jewels are not on board."
A letter from Secretary Pickering instructed Eaton to try to divert the Bey's mind from the jewels; but if that were impossible, to order them in England, where they could be bought more cheaply; and to excuse the delay by saying "that the President felt a confidence, that, on further reflection upon all circumstances in relation to the United States, the Bey would relinquish this claim, and therefore did not give orders to provide the present." As the jewels had been repeatedly promised by the United States, this weak attempt to avoid giving them was quite consistent with the shabby national position we had taken In the Mediterranean. It met with the success it deserved. The Bey was much too shrewd a fellow, especially in the matter of presents, to be imposed upon by any such Yankee pretences. The jewels were ordered in London, and, as compensation for this new delay, the demand for a frigate was renewed. After nearly two years of anxiety, Eaton could write home that the prospects of peace were good.
His despatches had not passed the Straits when the Pacha of Tripoli sent for Consul Cathcart, and swore by "Allah and the head of his son," that, unless the President would give him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a new treaty, and an annual subsidy of twenty thousand, he would declare war against the United States.
These two years of petty humiliations had exasperated Eaton's bold and fiery temper. He found some relief in horse-whipping Monsieur Famin, who had been unceasing in his quiet annoyances, and in writing to the Government at home despatches of a most undiplomatic warmth and earnestness. From the first, he had advised the use of force. "If you would have a free commerce in those seas, you must defend it. It is useless to buy a peace. The more you give, the more the Turks will ask for. Tribute is considered an evidence of your weakness; and contempt stimulates cupidity. Qui se fait brebis, le loup le mange. What are you afraid of? The naval strength of the Regencies amounts to nothing. If, instead of sending a sloop with presents to Tunis, you will consign to me a transport with a thousand trusty marines, well officered, under convoy of a forty-four-gun frigate, I pledge myself to surprise Porto Farina and destroy the Bey's arsenal. As to Tripoli, two frigates and four gun-boats would bring the Pacha to terms. But if you yield to his new demands, you must make provision to pay Tunis double the amount, and Algiers in proportion. Then, consider how shameful is your position, if you submit. 'Tributary to the pitiful sand-bank of Tripoli?' says the world; and the answer is affirmative, without a blush. Habit reconciles mankind to everything, even humiliation, and custom veils disgrace. But what would the world say, if Rhode Island should arm two old merchantmen, put an Irish renegade into one and a Methodist preacher in another, and send them to demand a tribute of the Grand Seignior? The idea is ridiculous; but it is exactly as consistent as that Tripoli should say to the American nation,–'Give me tribute, or tremble under the chastisement of my navy!'"
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