CHAPTER 10

White Christmas in Tripoli

THE AMERICAN PRISONERS, hungry and overworked, were expecting an extraordinary treat for Christmas: a dinner of meat and vegetables, two loaves of bread per man, all to be washed down by a quart of wine each. The men hadn’t tasted a morsel of meat in two months, and a grain shortage had pinched their diet further. “The American sailors, it is a pity to see them,” wrote Dutch consul Zuchet. “They sometimes go two to three days without even the miserable barley bread that the Regency gives them and no one thinks to exempt them from the hard work they are forced to endure.”

But for Christmas, the unpredictable Bashaw had agreed to let them take the day off, even though it fell on a Wednesday. After more than a year in captivity, the prisoners welcomed the feast with an intensity difficult to imagine. Then Christmas morning, a routine inspection revealed dozens of ropes and other supplies missing from the Bashaw’s naval stores. The guards entered the American prison and announced: No food at all would be brought until someone confessed to the crime. Christmas—like the rest of their lives—was on hold.

Ever since Preble’s bombardments in late summer, conditions had worsened for the American prisoners. Since their own captain had delivered scant aid, they had smuggled a poignant letter out of Tripoli in early November to the commodore, asking for help. “They send us to work rain or shine like horses in the cart, some carrying large large stones, some plastering and repairing the fort and castle, others transporting guns that came out of the frigate . . . seven or eight savages to every 20 or 30 Men with large sticks to beat us along and very often no bread nor oil for 2, 3 & 4 days.”

The anonymous letter writer—no doubt funneling hollered suggestions—especially noted that the five U.S. servicemen who had renounced Christianity were “worse to us than the Turks.” He added: “I hope when we get released we will have the pleasure of stretching their Necks a little longer.”

By mid-November, the food shortages had grown so brutal that many of the men, despite winter’s onset, sold their clothes to Jewish rag merchants to get a few coins to purchase nourishment.

On December 7, Dr. Cowdery, the physician to the ruling family, overheard the Bashaw ordering his taskmasters to abuse the American prisoners to spur complaints and speed up a hefty ransom from Jefferson.

After suffering through three consecutive days of beatings and no food, the prisoners went on a hunger strike, that is, a strike against hunger. On the morning of December 10, the guards unlocked the prison and, banging their sticks, shouted the usual: “Tota Fora” (“Everybody Out” in Lingua Franca). None of the 275 Americans moved. The guards grabbed the men who slept on the floor and began thrashing them with sticks. The men refused to work without food. The guards threatened to bring soldiers to shoot them. “The wardens whipped them until they were tired,” wrote Dr. Cowdery, “and then went to inform the Bashaw.” A compromise was reached. Work till noon, then be fed a loaf of black bread with a half gill of oil.

The Bashaw’s own soldiers were also mulling rebellion, angry that they hadn’t received their Ramadan bonus of extra rations and money. Cornered by adversity, the Bashaw grew more defiant. He told the Dutch consul that the Americans could bring twenty frigates and that he wouldn’t surrender, and he vowed he’d convert to Judaism before accepting $1,000 a man as ransom.

The starving American prisoners decided that it was time to take their fate into their own hands. Four officers, who had been allowed to live with the crewmen, devised a plan for taking over the castle. The idea was that at the moment the prison gates were opened at dawn, the 275 American slaves would overwhelm their guards, rush to capture the castle armory, and hold the Bashaw and his family as hostages. They’d then free the other American officers and point the castle cannons toward the city. Marine Private Ray called the plan “preposterous” without naval support. He said that they’d soon run out of food and be forced to surrender. In any case, before they could try it, someone ratted them out, probably one of the turn-Turks.

The Bashaw was, of course, furious when he discovered American designs on his castle. His irritation mounted even higher when he learned—probably from a spy in Malta—that some Americans were in Egypt trying to find his older brother to bring him to launch a civil war. Ever cunning, the Bashaw ordered his middle son to marry Hamet’s twelve-year-old daughter, who was still a hostage. The marriage was celebrated on December 21, 1804, and humiliated Hamet in the eyes of the people of Tripoli. Now she would show her loyalty to her husband’s family and battle lines in a civil war would be blurred.

When Captain Bainbridge somehow learned of Eaton’s plans to vault Hamet onto the throne, he, too, sprang into action. He wrote several long letters in lime juice to Consul General Tobias Lear, expressing his outrage. Flames brought the invisible words to life. “I can’t conceive that the least benefit could derive to the U.S. from pecuniary or other aid given to the poor effeminate fugitive brother of the Bashaw of Tripoli.”

Bainbridge, from his prison keep, reported that the people of Tripoli despised Hamet. “He was placed by his Brother in Command at Derne, the most favorable province for his attempting a Counter Revolution. The present Bashaw suspecting that he was not conducting himself properly, drove him from that situation, only by an Order without sending troops against him. What can be expected from such a pusillanimous being?”

Just before Christmas the desperate prisoners had convinced Captain Bainbridge to garnish their future wages to pay Danish consul Nissen to cater a Christmas feast. Nissen, a genuinely generous soul, had rushed his orders to the butchers and the bakers. His own wine cellar held the cask. All had appeared so promising . . . but now on Christmas morning, with the Bashaw still irate over the theft, the 275 American prisoner-slaves, along with about 50 Neapolitans, moped in their jail. The feast was nixed. The slaves wistfully daydreamed of home and family and of ample meals. The ill-clad men in the warehouselike prison sprawled on their cots, which had been ingeniously slung one on top of another, five levels high. Then a surprising thing happened. The Bashaw’s investigator found the stolen ropes and supplies in a Tunisian’s warehouse. The merchant admitted buying the cordage from Selim, the Bashaw’s son-in-law.

Though late, Christmas dinner was served to the Americans; the cask of wine arrived. William Ray certainly enjoyed every mouthful. Camel or lamb, it tasted good.

By nightfall, the prisoners, with a gut full of wine, were singing songs. The crewmen were perched upon their bunks—lamps glowing. Ray wrote down the lyrics of one song that he had adapted from the rousing tune of “Madam, You Know My Trade Is War.”

The men, many bearded and unwashed, exhausted and enslaved, sang with all their hearts. Ray was moved. The song was called “Adieu, Blest Liberty.”

In helpless servitude, forlorn,

From country, friends and freedom torn,

Alike we dread each night and morn,

For nought but grief we see;

When burdens press—the lash we bear,

And all around is black despair,

We breathe the silent, fervent prayer,

O come, blest Liberty!

And when invading cannons roar,

And life and blood from hundreds pour,

And mangled bodies float ashore,

And ruins strew the sea;

The thoughts of death or freedom near

Create alternate hope and fear!

Oh! when will that blest day appear,

That brings sweet Liberty?

Just after dawn on December 26, the American sailors trudged to work as usual; their hopes and dreams rested on the U.S. Navy fleet arriving in springtime, or on a negotiator coming with sacks full of money. They had no idea about the machinations of Jefferson’s secret agent.