Malta: Diseased Liver and Cold Feet
FOUR DAYS EARLIER, on May 16, the damaged USS Hornet, after battling headwinds and heavy gales, arrived in Malta, carrying the victory dispatches of Eaton and Hull. Commodore Samuel Barron, still quite ill, was staying at a country house outside of the main port of La Valetta. A boat was rowed out to the quarantined Hornet and a messenger took the letters, which, in turn, were rushed by horseback to Barron.
The commodore immediately ordered his secretary, Robert Denison, to scrawl out copies and have them galloped over to Tobias Lear.
The news of victory at Derne—along with Eaton’s analysis of the situation—seemed to snap Barron out of his lethargy and bring him to several momentous conclusions. He decided on the spot that it was time to cut off aid to Hamet. He decided it was time to begin negotiations in earnest for peace with Yussef, time to do anything to accelerate the freeing of the hostages, and time for him to step down as commodore of the fleet. From his sickbed, he made these key calculations, even though less than a week later he would admit: “I have never disguised from myself that my powers of attention have been weakened by the effects of my long and distressful Indisposition.”
Barron first outlined his newfound clarity in a letter on May 18 to Tobias Lear. He framed the decisions as hinging on several factors. He complained that the U.S. Navy lacked gunboats and bomb ships needed to attack Tripoli City, and mentioned how both Venice and Naples had refused to loan him any. He also groused that three of his frigates weren’t up to braving another winter’s weather off Tripoli. The Virginia native also considered the moment opportune for peace because he found very little upside in pursuing any cooperation with Hamet. He parroted Eaton in pointing out to Lear the prince’s “want of energy and military talents, his total deprivation of means and resources.” Barron also noted that even though we had placed Hamet in command of the second largest province in Tripoli, one that had once been loyal to him, he was nonetheless unable to proceed on his own. Hamet is “no longer a fit subject for our support.” Barron was sounding a death knell for Jefferson’s ambivalent secret mission; all that remained in doubt was how many would die if U.S. aid was abruptly withdrawn.
But Barron refused to consider Eaton’s accomplishment a total waste. “Whatever may be the final result of this Cooperation, I cannot reject the belief that it has had a powerful effect upon the reigning Bashaw, and it may be fairly presumed that the gallant conduct of our friends in the affair at Derne, and the capture of that place will have its influence and dispose him to moderate his pretensions and to think seriously of Peace.”
Barron concluded that it was now indeed the right time for Tobias Lear to go negotiate a favorable peace and ransom. He couldn’t help but mention a sentimental motive. “I know the value of such a man as Captain Bainbridge and of his Officers . . . no reasonable & honorable occasion should be neglected which affords the prospect of releasing them from the bondage of a bigoted and unfeeling Tyrant.” The USS Essex frigate would stand ready to carry Lear to Tripoli.
Peace was apparently at hand.
Lear, well trained from his long stint as Washington’s personal secretary, noted that he received Barron’s letter at 9 P.M., May 18. By noon the following day, he had drafted his reply.
Lear interpreted his diplomatic instructions to mean that Barron, as commander of the navy forces, was entitled to choose the fittest moment to negotiate, and Lear answered that he would indeed comply with Barron’s wishes. (Lear would later be accused of manipulating the ill commodore; if anything, it appears that Barron’s decision catapulted Malta-garden-party Lear into action.) Lear stated he would be ready to leave “in a few days.”
The consul general, however, could not end his brief letter without taking a swipe at Eaton’s mission. “Altho’ I cannot, Sir, agree with your Opinion that any impression favourable to us has been made on the mind of the Bashaw from our co-operation with his brother thus far, excepting what may arise from the undaunted Bravery and perseverance of the few of our Countrymen at Derne, which will be to him a further proof of what we can do alone against him.” This awkward-sounding sentence has the ring of a man about to say something really nasty, then swerving off into niceties.
Lear compacted his mission: “Yet as I am of opinion, that, as he [Yussef] has discovered a disposition to Open a negociation, we should embrace it, in order to see if such terms can be made as are admissible on our part, and to relieve our unfortunate Countrymen out of his power, whose fate ought not to depend on small punctilios.”
A “punctilio”—originally a teeny line on the face of a clock—is a trifle. Apparently, Lear considered the U.S. cooperation with Hamet as a trifle.
Having received this endorsement from Lear, Barron now drafted letters to Hull and Eaton. He blamed his health and haste for the brevity to Hull. He did not offer a syllable of congratulations for Derne. He raced to the point. “The letter I have written to Mr. Eaton by this conveyance [the USS Hornet] . . . will no doubt determine him and the Officers to leave the Coast as a measure rendered necessary by existing circumstances, and especially by the intention of the Consul General to open a negociation with Joussef, reigning Bashaw of Tripoli.” Barron then ordered that Hull, “as soon as the requisite arrangements are made,” make sail to return with all navy ships to Syracuse.
Barron directed the navy agent in Malta to supply food to be carried to Derne, but he specified that it be “for the use of the crews of the United States vessels and the Christians under the command of Mr. Eaton.” (Eaton would find this religious distinction, denying food to Hamet and his men, offensive.)
Barron thoughtfully included private supplies for Eaton and the officers: 72 bottles of Porter, a quarter cask of Marsala, coffee, brown sugar, and tea. He didn’t specify his intention, but maybe he thought that the luxuries would dull their pain at abandonment.
Barron’s letter to Eaton was several pages long and did include grudging praise for the capture of Derne, saying that Eaton’s conduct “would not discredit the character which our countrymen have established among the Nations of Barbary.” (“Not discredit” . . . Eaton no doubt had been expecting more of a parade.)
Barron immediately zeroed in on Eaton’s descriptions of Hamet that Eaton had written in that blunt impolitic postscript of May 1. For a man in a sickbed, dictating to a secretary with serious inflammation of the eyes, Barron’s letter is surprisingly thorough and well reasoned. He stated: “If the Ex-Bashaw, after being put in possession of Derne, his former Government & the District where his Interest is said to be the most powerful, has not in himself energy & talent, & is so destitute of means & resources, as not to be able to move on with successful progress, seconded by our Naval force acting on the coast, he must be held as unworthy of further Support, and the Co-operation as a measure too expensive and burthensome.” The erstwhile commodore pointed out that he had used every penny of the discretionary money set aside by Washington ($20,000) and he didn’t have unlimited funds.
Barron did not expressly order Eaton to abandon the coast immediately. Nonetheless, he clearly believed he had shaped the situation so that Eaton would find departure as the only reasonable choice. Barron informed him that the U.S. Navy would no longer supply any food, ammunition, or money to Hamet and that “Colonel Lear” was heading to Tripoli to begin peace negotiations. Since Barron wanted Eaton and the navy to have a smooth departure off the coast, he did send $2,000 to allow Eaton to clean up any “little engagements” and he did concede that the navy gunners could aid Hamet while the ships remained in the vicinity. Barron’s leeway was designed to avoid a massacre; his overriding message, however, was clear: Leave Derne.
“The interests of Sidi Hamet will not be overlooked,” Barron added, stating that Lear would “endeavor at stipulating some Conditions for the unfortunate Exile, provided this can be done without giving up points that are essential, & without any considerable sacrifice of National advantage on our part.” Caveat climbed upon caveat.
The half-blind secretary carried the letters to the ailing commodore for his signature. They were sealed and rushed to Lieutenant Evans of the Hornet, who immediately made sail toward Derne. The winds would determine when these doom-the-mission orders would arrive.
Tobias Lear now had to prepare to leave the sheltered nest of Malta. His life as suave diplomat with beautiful bride would be briefly interrupted. His calendar succinctly reveals his lifestyle and his priorities.
Tuesday May 21, 1805—Employ’d as yesterday & in making visits to my acquaintances &c. Rode out with Mrs. Lear to St. Julian to see Dr. & Mrs. Stoddert.
Wednesday—May 22, 1805—I recd. a letter from Commodore Barron informing me that he had resigned the command of the U.S. Navy to Capt. Jn. Rodgers, now off Tripoli, and that the frigate ESSEX wd. be ready to sail immediately for that place. I answered I wd. be ready to embark onboard her tomorrow.
In the afternoon I rode with Mrs. Lear to St. Antonio, and from thence, we went with Sir Alexr & Lady Ball to St. Julian and drank tea . . .
Thursday May 23d 1805—Preparing to embark on board the ESSEX, Capt. [James] Barron dined with us and promised to get his ship out of the harbour early in the morng. and then come on shore for me.
Friday May 24, 1805—I waited until 12 O’clk expecting Capt. B. on shore. At one, he sent the gig on shore for me. I embark’d abt 2 P.M. where I found Mr. Pulisse our consul in Malta, who is going to Tripoli with me. . . .
The choice of Joseph Pulis to accompany Lear was an unfortunate one. Captain Preble, before departing the previous year, was convinced that Pulis, a former consul to Malta for Tripoli, was acting as something of a double agent. Preble had found bags of mail intended for the American prisoners hidden in Pulis’s office, marked for return to the United States. “He has no respectability attached to his character—cannot speak a word of English, and is by no means a proper representative,” Preble had written to the secretary of the navy. Eaton in early 1805 complained that Pulis was the only one in Malta in whom he had confided part of his Hamet plans and that he later learned that his words had reached Tripoli almost immediately via a ship from Malta.
The hardest part of Tobias Lear’s preparation for departure was clearly the prospect of leaving his young Fanny. The silver lining for historians is that he would write a prompter and more detailed account of the upcoming negotiations to Fanny than he ever would convey to Secretary of State Madison or to Jefferson.
The Essex, carrying Lear and Pulis, sailed out of La Valetta harbor of Malta on May 25, bound for Tripoli. Both Lear and Barron had high hopes for a speedy end to the four-year-old war.
***
The following day, about thirty hours after Lear’s departure, the deeply laden Ceres arrived in Malta from Baltimore, carrying an enormous quantity of military supplies and, more important, updated navy orders that crystallized the aggressive plans for the attack on Tripoli. Navy Secretary Smith described the impending delivery by another navy cargo ship of 300 barrels of gunpowder and a huge supply of cannonballs, from 32-pounders to 24s, 18s, 12s, and 6s. (Even the dimmest officer knew this was not all intended for salutes and target practice.) Secretary Smith also mentioned that ten gunboats, each bearing a 32-pound short-barreled gun at each end, should be arriving soon with crews of fifteen, as would the John Adams, with 500 new recruits aboard.
The navy secretary was describing an enormous buildup in firepower that would facilitate an attack on Tripoli. The men in Washington clearly wanted to attack first, negotiate later.
Barron, recognizing the gravitas of this new information, realized he must quickly tell the new commodore. He had no U.S. Navy ships in La Valetta harbor, so he commissioned a speronara, an express sailboat, to head immediately for Tripoli. But first, his half-blind secretary, the brother of Captain Rodgers’s fiancée, had to copy the orders in case the boat capsized. Since Barron was no longer in command, and since he couldn’t know how far negotiations had proceeded in a couple of days, his accompanying note to Rodgers mentioned “the importance of the Intelligence” but left any decisions up to Rodgers. While the documents were being copied, the winds shifted and began a relentless blow into La Valetta harbor.