Homecoming
EATON DECIDED TO BRING four horses home from the Barbary Coast. Accommodating the thoroughbreds had limited his options in selecting a ship, so he was forced to miss Sardinia and again failed to collar Count Porcile about getting his money back. In Eaton’s hostile mind-set, perhaps he might have taken beautiful Anna hostage again and stowed her next to the horses.
The U.S. transport ship Franklin left Gibraltar on September 24, in company with two American merchant sloops, the Harmony and the Mary Maryland. Eaton, traveling with his four horses and a fourteen-year-old Egyptian serving boy, passed forty days in crossing the Atlantic. This did nothing to improve his mood.
As the Franklin entered Chesapeake Bay the first week of November of 1805, Eaton wrote a long letter to his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter, Sarah. (He was still too angry to communicate directly with his wife.) This letter captures the bleakness in his soul and his mounting irritation at finding himself underappreciated not only by the U.S. government but also by his own family.
I am yet at sea but a pilot boat just raises to our sight . . . —and will soon be alongside to receive this note—possibly I may enter the Chesapeake with him; most certainly I shall if I find any person on board who can answer me a thousand interesting questions. Where are all my relations and friends in Brimfield? Or have I none there? Not a syllable have I received from anyone of them since the date of the third day after my leaving this coast [in July 1804]—Am I forgotten by the children of my love? Where is Eliza [now age ten]? I once thought her like an angel, good—If she has ceased to love her Pa, still should fillial duty prevail on her once in a year to pay him the respect of one seeming friendly line—My amiable Charlotte [age eight], have not her fingers been taught the art of communicating with those she loves? I think she is old enough to write a letter to a friend who will make no unkind criticisms upon it—And my dear little too sensible Almira [age five]?
Sarah, you would have done kindly to have occasionally mentioned her in a letter. But no person has mentioned either of them to me since I left them. If my daughters knew how sincerely I love them, certainly they would be solicitous to let me know their welfare . . . —Not a day nor an hour has passed these last long eighteen months that they have not occupied my affections—and, on serious occasions, when the shafts of death flew thick about me; if a thought could act which was not altogether employed in the scene, it was a prayer to Heaven for their felicity—Is there no sympathy of soul that should sometimes make them think of p-a? Or has he imparted nothing of the natural sensibility of his own soul to his daughters? I have indeed thought it cruel that nobody should write me from home. M-a, you tell me, cannot write often as she has many family engagements. Can it be true, My Sarah, that the family engagements of your Mama are such as not to enable her to redeem one half hour annually to address the guardian of her children? Then must they be singularly pressing! Ought she not to believe that I take an interest in most of the family concerns and should always be happy to know how they succeed? But I still hope that you have not any engagements which you will permit so much to occupy your attention as not to allow you a winter’s evening after the receipt of this to write me everything which has happened since my departure which you may imagine will be interesting to me—And tell Eliza to send me also at least a sample of her improvement—Address me at Washington City.
The sailboat carrying the local pilot reached alongside the Franklin, and the man from the Virginia coast climbed aboard.
Within minutes, William Eaton discovered—to his immense surprise—that he was a national hero, and not just a minor celebrity but a front-page-of-every-newspaper-in-America military hero. For more than two months, unbeknownst to him, the nation had been applauding his exploits.
The news of the victory and treaty had reached the United States two months back, on August 28, first arriving in Salem, Massachusetts. The newspaper editor had written: “With heartfelt joy, I announce to you the fortunate and honorable TERMINATION OF THE WAR WITH TRIPOLI. A vessel (Belle-Isle, Captain Leach) is now entering our port from the Mediterranean and brings the important news that Genl Eaton gained a great victory, on the 10th June, over the Bashaw’s army, slaughtering a large part of his forces—he is wounded but it is hoped not badly. He dictated the terms of peace on the spot. Our prisoners are all to be released without ransom, of course no tribute in future.”
This glorious bit of misinformation was reprinted down along the coast, until it reached Washington and appeared in the Jefferson-friendly National Intelligencer on September 4. Every day, more skewed updates popped up from various letters and verbal accounts from the likes of Captain Leach and others aboard the Belle-Isle, which had sailed from Naples on June 25. The Salem Register reported everyone in the small but ferocious American Army killed except Eaton. The Boston Gazette had the ex-Bashaw conquering Tripoli city, directed “by the intrepid spirit of our countryman, Gen. Eaton.” The New Hampshire Gazette, a newspaper in Tobias Lear’s home state, trumpeted Eaton’s success: “This event [the peace treaty] is said to have been accelerated by the success of an expedition projected and executed by William Eaton, Esq., late consul of the United States at Tunis . . . His genius is said to have stimulated the ex-Bashaw to raise a force to recover the throne of Tripoli; of which Mr. Eaton was appointed Generalissimo.”
In Philadelphia, Poulson’s Daily Advertiser breathlessly confessed: “The Public are anxious to learn some particulars of their countryman, who has recently acquired so much fame in Africa.”
News traveled haphazardly in those days. A private letter was as good a source as any. The National Intelligencer on September 6 quoted a letter received on September 1 in New York from Boston, which stated that Eaton had gained a great victory one hundred leagues from Tripoli, then marched on the main city and dethroned the Bashaw. “And Mr. Eaton then formed a treaty, the first article of which provides for the immediate release of the American captives.”
Journalists were so eager for details that it led one paper to rant about the fact that no government officials happened to be in Washington in early September to open the newly arrived Tripoli dispatches. “Our servants, Tom, Bob, Jim, Albert [Jefferson, Smith, Madison, Gallatin] and god knows who else are out of the way, we are not allowed to taste till they have fully feasted.”
Back on September 10, the USS President had reached Hampton Roads, delivering Captain Bainbridge and other freed officers. Would Bainbridge try to burst the Eaton bubble? Apparently not right away.
Although caviling began over various aspects of the treaty, one central fact of the coverage remained, and it ranked as fairly astounding. The Republican press (manipulated by Jefferson and his stalwarts) and the Federalist press (controlled by Jefferson’s enemies), newspapers that couldn’t agree on anything, both decided to elevate William Eaton as a bona fide flag-waving, enemy-crushing American military hero. Not since the public had enshrined Stephen Decatur for burning the Philadelphia in Tripoli harbor had anyone been raised this high.
The United States, less than thirty years from the Declaration of Independence, was clearly starved for heroes to replace the British ones, who had been spoon-fed to colonial schoolchildren for generations. Washington, general and statesman, was already a demigod. Many empty pedestals awaited statues in the American pantheon.
In Richmond, Virginia, in September, the leading citizens had hosted a dinner to honor Captain Bainbridge. After a fine meal, tradition held that guests would remain to deliver as many as two dozen decorous toasts, while downing more than a few glasses. (Drunken excess sometimes marred these events.) The toasts were arranged in order of importance, usually the “American people” ranked first, then the president, and so on. The seventh toast that night had gone to William Eaton: “Cambyses and Alexander traversed deserts to enslave nations; the American chief to liberate his brave countrymen.” (No record has survived of the look at that moment on the face of Bainbridge, who had relentlessly opposed Eaton’s mission.) Tobias Lear had received the fourteenth toast, just ahead of the Bashaw of Tripoli, who was encouraged “to profit by the lectures he has received on the laws of nations.”
Jefferson, Republicans, Federalists—everyone in September and October embraced this unembraceable (and not yet arrived) man named Eaton. So starved were the public for information about him that even anecdotes about his courtship of widow Eliza were published in the Republican-backed Richmond Enquirer. This one ran: After being asked to marry him, Eliza had demanded that Eaton quit the military, to which our hero had replied: “Madam, I love you much but I love glory more.” The hero machine was beginning to churn. The Albany Register called him “William Eaton IV or Modern Africanus.” Newspapers around this time in October printed Midshipman Pascal Paoli Peck’s highly dramatic letter of July 4, ensuring Eaton’s heroism.
On Sunday, November 10, William Eaton, the hero, came ashore at Hampton, Virginia. Jefferson’s newspaper, National Inquirer, called him “a distinguished officer and patriot.”
Eaton was hardly off the boat when one hundred of the leading citizens of Virginia threw him a banquet on November 14 at the Eagle Tavern in Richmond. Etiquette and humility forbade any toasts to the guest of honor while he remained in the room. So when Eaton departed, one Alexander Stuart rose and said: “General Eaton—May each American when required, shew fortitude equal to his, in the cause of his country.”
The following day, the pro-Jefferson Richmond Enquirer published a worshipful piece about Eaton. (One can only imagine the feelings of Eaton, after years of bitterness, reading this kind of idolatry; his close friend Charles Prentiss once observed that Eaton never shied away from receiving “a bare-faced prodigality of praise.”)
GENERAL WILLIAM EATON. This brave and meritorious American has been among us. . . . He reached this city on Tuesday evening (Nov. 12th) on his way to the North. . . . His arrival was soon and rapidly spread; his countenance, the dimensions of his person, the wound in his wrist, the spirit of his conversation, became the topics of remark, and almost everyone was anxious to see or to tell of the appearance of Eaton. . . . The interest which he excited and that attention which he received from our most respected citizens are at least sufficient demonstrations that his countrymen are neither ignorant of his services, nor indifferent to his merits.
Let no man pretend to chaunt forth the ingratitude of republics! . . . If General Eaton is indeed contented with possessing the respect of his countrymen, his largest ambition must be satisfied. Though he has not received that enthusiastic respect which is due to the man who penned the declaration of American independence, or to him who gave it its last seal at the siege of York, he has at least received the gratitude which is due to the man of enterprise, who put to sleep the Turkish jealousy in Egypt, passed over the Lybian Desert, mastered the fortifications at Derne with an inconsiderable army, overthrew the troops of the Bashaw of Tripoli and contributed to give freedom to 300 American prisoners. Gen. Eaton has thus been received among us, and there can be no doubt that he will meet with the same reception throughout the union, without any distinction of principles or parties.
The appearance of Gen. Eaton is considerably in his favour. His person is of the middling order, but erect and dignified. His countenance is animated, good-humoured, expressive more of enterprising project than deep research. His eye is brilliant and full of fire. In conversation, his conceptions are quick, his style eloquent and laconic. Those who knew him in the army are surprised at the intellectual energy he now displays . . .
. . . Had Col. Lear waived the negotiation until the gallant Eaton had ransomed our prisoners with the sword, our triumph would have been much more glorious: but it would have been an indelible disgrace upon the annals of our nation, had the lives of so many men been sacrificed through a misguided oeconomy.
The debate over the treaty was just starting, but no one yet wanted it to interfere with the hero worship. Disgruntled, but at least not this minute, Eaton embraced his stardom.
Accompanied by a fourteen-year-old Egyptian and four Arabian horses, Eaton headed north from Richmond toward Washington by stagecoach. The carriage lurching over the rutted roads no doubt reminded him of his worst days at sea. At Fredericksburg, Virginia, on Sunday, November 17, the town’s elite waylaid Eaton and begged the military hero to remain a few days so they could organize a banquet in his honor. At 3 P.M. on Tuesday afternoon, the well-dressed citizens gathered at Farish’s Tavern. The first toast smacks of Eaton: “The United States—Tho’ peace is its policy, yet war is preferable to dishonorable tribute.”
On November 22, Eaton reached the sprawling odd enclave of Washington City. His timing was exquisite because this bureaucratic headquarters was just roaring back to life, with Congress about to resume session.
Almost immediately upon arrival, Eaton, riding high, sent an aggressive letter to Secretary of State Madison requesting that his expense accounts from Tunis finally be settled. “I believe it will be no difficult task to show that I have consumed eight years of my life, and embarked all the property I possessed or have acquired in establishing the point that our relations with Barbary may be maintained without the humilitation of tribute.” He added that he also now would be asking compensation for the ransoming of the slave girl, Anna Porcile, because Count Porcile had sent him a letter stating that President Jefferson had forgiven the debt. He hoped for as little delay as possible. “My finances are low, and I am extremely desirous of returning to domestic life.”
Just as William Eaton entered the nation’s capital, so did William Plumer, a senator from New Hampshire. This was fortuitous for history, because Plumer’s diary recounts the shooting-star arc of Eaton’s reception, and provides an eyewitness account of Eaton and Jefferson as the two men jostled for the high ground over Tripoli.
From Plumer we learn that as soon as Eaton reached town, Jefferson invited the hero to dine at the President’s House. No details have survived of that meeting.
The leading citizens of Washington City voted to host a public dinner at Stelle’s Hotel on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 28, to canonize Eaton. Plumer had arrived the night before after a ten-day journey south from Epping, New Hampshire; he had covered the last 150 miles from Philadelphia in what he regarded as an impressive 34 hours of mail-stage riding.
The festive dinner at Stelle’s lasted more than five hours. Man after important man elbowed his way to shake the hand of General Eaton. He often fixed listeners with a deep stare of those blue eyes. His voice full of command, he plunged into telling military exploits. While the previous banquet had led off with the possibility of war for the sake of honor, this feast in the heart of Jeffersonland took a different tack. “The people of the United States: honest, intelligent and brave; too happy themselves to disturb the happiness of others.” Two bands—the Marine Band and Jefferson’s Italian ensemble—stood off to one side to follow each toast with an appropriate splash of music.
Though back in the United States only two weeks, Eaton was stunned by the increased divisiveness poisoning American politics. Each party tried to attach Eaton—an independent-minded Federalist—to their causes. That night Eaton was allowed what was called a “Volunteer Toast.” He boomed: “The FEDERAL UNION—Let political dissension and individual rancour be absorbed in that love of country which shall teach violence and rapacity that we are one!” (Few listeners at the time realized that Eaton actually meant those high-sounding words, and that he would not toe the line of either political party.)
The following day, Senator Plumer paid a call on President Jefferson. Arriving at 11 A.M., he spent an hour with him. “The President was in an undress—Blue coat, red vest, cloth coloured small cloths—white hose, ragged slippers with his toes out—clean linen—but hair disheveled.” Jefferson’s rebellion from British formality was reaching new extremes.
Plumer took advantage of the president being “social & very communicative” to pepper him with questions about Barbary Coast affairs, among other topics. Jefferson said that the United States should not pay tribute, and that while we were locked in a long-term tributary treaty with Algiers, Jefferson stated emphatically that the United States would not pay tribute to Tunis. He didn’t mention Tripoli.
A few days later, on Tuesday, December 3, Thomas Jefferson, at a dangerous period in the history of the young country, delivered his “state of the nation” remarks to Congress. Plumer called the message more “energetic & warlike than any [Jefferson] ever sent to Congress.”
The United States at that moment faced crises on two foreign fronts: Spain and England. After complaining about the borders set for the Louisiana Purchase, Spain had begun to harass American frontiersmen and Mississippi cargo boats. Many Federalists and even some Republicans lobbied for war to snatch away the Floridas and silence the lumbering giant. And, equally ominously, Great Britain—in a fierce fight with Napoleon—had started to stop American ships in the Atlantic, denying the rights of American vessels to carry goods under the flag of neutrality.
Jefferson in his speech did not call for war or for expanding the small U.S. Army. He did, however, suggest a new concept for the state militias that men aged 18 to 26 be parceled off to a separate force that would be more ready to fight than older family men. (This tidbit hardly thrilled the military men.)
Jefferson then delivered his first official words on Eaton and the Tripoli treaty. As with all of Jefferson’s speeches, his words were carefully chosen and precise and perhaps subtly misleading. He elevated Eaton, took little credit for himself, and omitted the $60,000 ransom payment.
I congratulate you on the liberation of our fellow citizens who were stranded on the coast of Tripoli & made prisoners of war. In a government bottomed on the will of all, the life & liberty of every individual citizen becomes interesting to all. In the treaty therefore which has concluded our warfare with that state an article for the ransom of our citizens has been agreed to. An operation by land, by a small band of our countrymen & others for the occasion in conjunction with the troops of the ex-basha of that country, gallantly conducted by our late consul Eaton and their successful enterprise on the city of Derne, which contributed doubtless to the impression which produced peace: and the conclusion of this prevented opportunities of which the officers and men of our squadron destined for Tripoli would have availed themselves, to emulate the acts of valour exhibited by their brethren in the attack of the last year.
Jefferson had clearly weighed how to characterize Eaton. He chose a former title, “late consul,” rather than identify his post as “our naval agent.” A handwritten draft of his speech shows that Jefferson crossed out the word important before the city of Derne. Eaton’s efforts, to Jefferson’s mind, “contributed to the impression which produced peace.” In an age that favored platitude and hyperbolic praise, Jefferson was holding back. One can only speculate that the president worried about elevating Eaton too high.
The Federalist press was beginning to complain about Tobias Lear, the mistreatment of Hamet, and, by implication, the administration’s overall handling of the peace at Tripoli. Word was also spreading that Eaton, when not downing congratulatory toasts, was the source of those complaints. So Jefferson directed the secretary of the navy to ask Eaton point-blank to clarify the U.S. commitment to Hamet.
Eaton stood yet again at a strategic crossroad in his life. He could back the president by downplaying his disappointment over the treaty and the handling of Hamet. By doing so, he would be ensured a long status as a national hero, and might be short-listed for an appointment as a U.S. Army general. He also still owed the government the huge sum of $40,000 for his unsettled expenses in Tunis and could expect favorable treatment. Or he could stand honest to what he perceived as the administration’s failings.
On December 4, Eaton spent the evening at Captain Coyle’s boardinghouse as the guest of William Plumer and a handful of congressmen and senators. “His company was gratifying,” wrote Plumer. “The accounts he gave of Egypt & his travel over the deserts with an armed force & the attack & capture of Derne were interesting. He is a man of information & great enterprize.” Plumer, a very critical and sober-minded man, was impressed.
The following day, Eaton wrote his reply to Jefferson’s question, in a letter to the secretary of the navy. He wrote that he had reviewed all the written correspondence between Commodore Barron and himself, reread his Convention with Hamet, and pored over Hamet’s subsequent letters from Syracuse.
He concluded: “It is impossible for me to undertake to say that the bashaw has not been deceived.” Eaton was as stubborn as ever. His death wish took no vacations. “Nor can I by any shape in which the subject can be viewed reconcile the manner of his being abandoned with those principles of national Justice and honor which has hitherto marked our character.”
This very harsh letter almost marks a declaration of war against Jefferson. Eaton refused to be drawn into Jeffersonian niceties over language. He wrote that he always considered “co-operation” nearly synonymous with “alliance.” He assumed that the engagement to cooperate excluded using Hamet as an “instrument” . . . especially since the president and the secretary of the navy always said we would “chastise the enemy.”
Then Eaton added an anecdote that clearly revealed both his passion and his recklessness. “On entering the ground of war with Hamet Bashaw, Mr. O’Bannon and myself united in a resolution to perish with him before the walls of Tripoli or to triumph with him within those walls.”
With those words, with that letter, Eaton had transformed the president into an enemy. To Jefferson’s precise way of thinking, this sort of oath far exceeded Eaton’s commission. It is quite clear that this military bravado infuriated Jefferson. The president would bide his time before striking back, but he would pick a shrewd moment to respond and even shrewder words.
Jefferson was then preoccupied with foreign affair issues. The disputes with England and Spain were not esoteric matters of principle; British ships impeded American nautical commerce, then the lifeblood of New England; Spanish hostility hampered American pioneering expansion. Jefferson, an isolationist who dreaded entanglements, was being dragged into European conflicts.
The Senate began to debate whether to ratify the Tripoli treaty. The House began considering whether to honor William Eaton with a commemorative sword; some Federalists pushed for a gold medal as well. A great many speeches tried to evaluate Eaton’s unusual achievement. Can a man without high military rank win such an award? Was he a private citizen when he acted? Nothing happened at this time in Washington City without the blessing of the powerful president. The debate over Eaton’s reward grew heated and was shunted off to a committee, never to re-emerge intact.
Since Eaton’s defiant letter of December 5 to the administration remained unpublished, Eaton was still the toast of Jefferson’s town. Senator Plumer, who detested crowds, sought out Eaton on the morning of December 14 and found him eating breakfast alone in his hotel room. The pair spent a few hours together, and Eaton unburdened himself of all his complaints. He unloaded double barrels of bile; he had the naïveté to believe that he could criticize Tobias Lear and Samuel Barron without being seen as attacking Jefferson. Eaton told Plumer that he actually thought highly of the U.S. government but attributed the Tripoli failure to the “mean pusillanimous selfish conduct of Lear.”
This would become Eaton’s rant, a diatribe that he would launch into in taprooms, in stagecoaches, in council chambers. While he would refine it, Plumer witnessed it in early form: Lear was “a man of little mind—jealous—cowardly and, what was worse, false.” No ransom needed to have been paid. Hamet is “a sober man—of talents, courage & enterprize.” Lear withheld supplies from the mission, but Eaton and other officers bought them on credit. If we had marched on Tripoli, we would have taught all the Barbary regencies to fear and venerate the United States. Hamet, by slinking off, is ruined among the Arabs. It is “confidently asserted” that Lear secretly agreed that Yussef need not bother to return Hamet’s family.
Eaton could not let go of the lost opportunities; he couldn’t bask; he wanted, in effect, to finish his mission.
Politics rumbled along on Capitol Hill, with the usual horse-trading. Congress debated a bill that would forbid the importation of slaves after 1808; Lewis and Clark continued to send letters home from America’s new backyard.
Around Christmas, Eaton decided to head home to Brimfield. Being so popular, Eaton’s plans preceded him. The citizens of Philadelphia sent him a letter that he received en route inviting him to a banquet in his honor on January 3. Eaton climbed aboard the stage, operated by the United States Mail from Baltimore to Philadelphia. This federal outfit, which plied the round-trip daily, consisted of 14 drivers, 65 horses, and 11 carriages. Taking a mail stage meant not stopping at night.
On December 30, America’s most popular military hero, a man with no official title, found himself comfortably ensconced in a fine room in a Philadelphia hotel. Eaton, at ease, wrote a joking letter to Preble about his upcoming banquet circuit. “I am arrested here and put under keepers for trial next Thursday [January 3]—arrangements are making, I am informed, at Elizabethstown [N.J. ferry stop], New York, New Haven, Hartford and Springfield to stop me on the road.”
On that same day when Eaton wrote Preble, the U.S. Senate in an openly antagonistic manner passed a resolution requesting that President Jefferson lay before it all documents relating to Tripoli and the treaty, especially regarding Lear, Hamet, and Eaton. This was no pro forma request.
Thomas Jefferson took time out that same day to continue investigating the Tripoli discord. On a scrap of paper, he wrote himself a little note about the State Department’s instructions regarding Hamet. “The cooperation of the exile was to cost no more than 20,000 dollars at the utmost, but it was referred to as little important.” The whittling down of Eaton was beginning. Jefferson wanted to be well armed with facts.
The man whose mission was deemed “little important” was being feted all along the northeast coast. Eaton’s name was even being mentioned for Congress, or as an army general in case of war. Some speculated he might replace Tobias Lear as consul general in Barbary.
Thomas Jefferson—losing control of Congress—had other plans for him.