TOBIAS LEAR HAD BEEN dead wrong. The news of the victory in Derne by Eaton and Hamet had deeply disturbed the powers and populace at Tripoli. The Dutch diplomat Zuchet recorded in his diary for Thursday, May 23:
Tripoli: Fear
TOBIAS LEAR HAD BEEN dead wrong. The news of the victory in Derne by Eaton and Hamet had deeply disturbed the powers and populace at Tripoli. The Dutch diplomat Zuchet recorded in his diary for Thursday, May 23:
Yesterday there arrived here from Derne, after 18 days passage by camel, dispatches that brought the devastating news to the Bashaw that his brother, Sidi Ahmed, with around 1,000 men, Infantry and Cavalry and 300 Americans commanded by “Colonel Aiton,” former U.S. consul at Tunis, have captured a city in the province of Derne, and that a tribe of Arabs have joined them.
This news has produced alarm in this Regency and in the whole country, although the Bashaw deludes himself that his enemies will be soon destroyed by his troop of 5,000 soldiers, which is only a little ways from Derne. Many of the inhabitants of the city who, trying to avoid the bombardment, rented at great expense villas in the countryside were ordered to return to the city. The Bashaw lavished money and clothes on the Arab tribes camped around the city walls to keep them loyal.
This news compounded the fears already caused by an earlier report from Malta that the U.S. Navy was ready to bring 60 ships to attack Tripoli (a fivefold inflation over the truth).
William Wormley, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marines, was a prisoner in Tripoli. He later recalled: “It was apparent to the most indifferent observer that on the arrival of the second courier announcing the defeat of the reigning bashaw’s army by General Eaton and Hamet Bashaw that the greatest terror and consternation reigned throughout the whole town.”
Tension mounted in Tripoli. The day of May 23 was unseasonably hot. A work crew of twenty-four American sailor-slaves was sent with a cart to gather wood. Their route took them on a march through the desert. The hot winds picked up, and the sand whirled. “They stopped through fatigue, and asked their driver, who was a Turk, for liberty to drink at a well which was near there,” recorded Dr. Cowdery in his diary. “The Turk replied that they were Romo kelbs (Christian dogs) and said they should have no water. He gave them all a severe beating with a club . . . and made them go on with the cart, which the poor fellows had to drag, loaded with timber, through the burning sand. They returned towards night, almost perished.” William Ray, the diminutive and learned marine, later read Cowdery’s account and vouched for it, only adding: “This is true but no more than what occurred almost every day.”
On May 24, the day that Lear boarded the Essex in Malta, Yussef sent a boat loaded with gunpowder, musket balls, and money to his troops near Derne. This expense so straitened him that he could barely keep the palace running. His steward bought food on credit, and Yussef ordered his bodyguards and his servants to eat but one meal per day. Wealthy citizens were forced to volunteer to feed the city troops. Yussef locked up Hamet’s eldest son in a room near his own in the castle as a lifesaving hostage.
Dr. Cowdery recorded in his diary: “The Bashaw was so much agitated at the news of the approach of his brother that he this day declared that if it were in his power to make peace and give up the American prisoners, he would gladly do it without the consideration of money.”