Jefferson and his Colleagues [16]
Tripoli to put Hamet on his throne, appears in the instructions which Commodore Barron carried to the Mediterranean. If he could use Eaton and Hamet to make a diversion, well and good; but he was at the same time to assist Colonel Tobias Lear, American Consul-General at Algiers, in negotiating terms of peace, if the Pasha showed a conciliatory spirit. The Secretary of State calculated that the moment had arrived when peace could probably be secured "without any price and pecuniary compensation whatever." Such expectations proved quite unwarranted. The Pasha was ready for peace, but he still had his price. Poor Bainbridge, writing from captivity, assured Barron that the Pasha would never let his prisoners go without a ransom. Nevertheless, Commodore Barron determined to meet the overtures which the Pasha had made through the Danish consul at Tripoli. On the 24th of May he put the frigate Essex at the disposal of Lear, who crossed to Tripoli and opened direct negotiations. The treaty which Lear concluded on June 4, 1805, was an inglorious document. It purchased peace, it is true, and the release of some three hundred sad and woe-begone American sailors. But because the Pasha held three hundred prisoners, and the United States only a paltry hundred, the Pasha was to receive sixty thousand dollars. Derne was to be evacuated and no further aid was to be given to rebellious subjects. The United States was to endeavor to persuade Hamet to withdraw from the soil of Tripoli--no very difficult matter--while the Pasha on his part was to restore Hamet's family to him--at some future time. Nothing was said about tribute; but it was understood that according to ancient custom each newly appointed consul should carry to the Pasha a present not exceeding six thousand dollars. The Tripolitan War did not end in a blaze of glory for the United States. It had been waged in the spirit of "not a cent for tribute"; it was concluded with a thinly veiled payment for peace; and, worst of all, it did not prevent further trouble with the Barbary States. The war had been prosecuted with vigor under Preble; it had languished under Barron; and it ended just when the naval forces were adequate to the task. Yet, from another point of view, Preble, Decatur, Somers, and their comrades had not fought in vain. They had created imperishable traditions for the American navy; they had established a morale in the service; and they had trained a group of young officers who were to give a good account of themselves when their foes should be not shifty Tripolitans but sturdy Britons.
CHAPTER IV. THE SHADOW OF THE FIRST CONSUL Bainbridge in forlorn captivity at Tripoli, Preble and Barron keeping anxious watch off the stormy coast of Africa, Eaton marching through the windswept desert, are picturesque figures that arrest the attention of the historian; but they seemed like shadowy actors in a remote drama to the American at home, absorbed in the humdrum activities of trade and commerce. Through all these dreary years of intermittent war, other matters engrossed the President and Congress and caught the attention of the public. Not the rapacious Pasha of Tripoli but the First Consul of France held the center of the stage. At the same time that news arrived of the encounter of the Enterprise with the Corsairs came also the confirmation of rumors current all winter in Europe. Bonaparte had secured from Spain the retrocession of the province of Louisiana. From every point of view, as the President remarked, the transfer of this vast province to a new master was "an inauspicious circumstance." The shadow of the Corsican, already a menace to the peace of Europe, fell across the seas. A strange chain of circumstances linked Bonaparte with the New World. When he became master of France by the coup d'etat of the 18th Brumaire (November 9, 1799), he fell heir to many policies which the republic had inherited from the old regime. Frenchmen had never ceased to lament the loss of colonial possessions in North America. From time to time the hope of reviving the colonial empire
CHAPTER IV. THE SHADOW OF THE FIRST CONSUL Bainbridge in forlorn captivity at Tripoli, Preble and Barron keeping anxious watch off the stormy coast of Africa, Eaton marching through the windswept desert, are picturesque figures that arrest the attention of the historian; but they seemed like shadowy actors in a remote drama to the American at home, absorbed in the humdrum activities of trade and commerce. Through all these dreary years of intermittent war, other matters engrossed the President and Congress and caught the attention of the public. Not the rapacious Pasha of Tripoli but the First Consul of France held the center of the stage. At the same time that news arrived of the encounter of the Enterprise with the Corsairs came also the confirmation of rumors current all winter in Europe. Bonaparte had secured from Spain the retrocession of the province of Louisiana. From every point of view, as the President remarked, the transfer of this vast province to a new master was "an inauspicious circumstance." The shadow of the Corsican, already a menace to the peace of Europe, fell across the seas. A strange chain of circumstances linked Bonaparte with the New World. When he became master of France by the coup d'etat of the 18th Brumaire (November 9, 1799), he fell heir to many policies which the republic had inherited from the old regime. Frenchmen had never ceased to lament the loss of colonial possessions in North America. From time to time the hope of reviving the colonial empire