ALEXANDER FREE
"Well do I remember Alexander Forsyth," Reuben said, "and I'll swear that when I met him at Marseilles, where he was awaiting a passage home after his release from bloody Algiers, he was the nearest thing to a dead man that I have ever seen alive! He looked like a skeleton with a beating heart! Mark my word, he'll never go to sea again! What can you expect—after years of cruelty, starvation, sickness, chain-dragging!"
"You see," Reuben said in excuse for our statesmen, "our Congressmen had other important things to worry about: Indian uprisings, trouble at sea with England and France; a union to form between the bickering commonwealths, finances to raise for running the government, and what not? A few sailors imprisoned in an out-of-the-way part of the world were apt to be forgotten!"
The fresh captures by the pirates that brought about the settlement had, I was informed, happened in this manner:
When the Portuguese warships withdrew from guarding the Straits of Gibraltar, the Algerine cruisers entered the Atlantic in four ships and swooped down on unsuspecting American vessels. Eleven of our ships were captured by corsairs. Their crews were taken as slaves to Algiers, and, added to those already held in captivity, increased the number to one hundred and fifteen.
The Swedish consul warned Colonel Humphreys, our minister to Portugal, that Bassara, a Jew slave-broker at Algiers, through whom the United States was trying to procure the release of the captives, was out of favor with the Dey, and that to succeed the business should be transferred to the Jew Bacri. This was done, and an agreement soon followed.
Captain O'Brien was sent to Lisbon to get from Colonel Humphreys the money the United States promised to pay. Humphreys was forced to send O'Brien to London to borrow the funds, but, on account of the unsettled condition of European politics, O'Brien failed in his mission. The Dey, vexed at the delay, threatened to abandon the treaty. Upon this a frigate was offered by the American envoys as an inducement to hold to the treaty, while Bacri himself advanced the necessary gold. The prisoners were then released and sent in Bacri's ship Fortune to Marseilles, where the American consul, Stephen Cathalan, Jr., secured a passage home for them in the Swedish ship Jupiter.
What I had learned of the insolence of the Barbary rulers had come to me thus far only by hearsay. I was now to see an example of it with my own eyes.
While I was thus gathering the details of Alexander's tardy release, the George Washington was proceeding from Morocco to Algiers, Captain Bainbridge having been ordered by our government to deliver presents to the Algerine prince. Before leaving Morocco, Captain Bainbridge, who had heard the story of the assault upon us with amazement and anger, demanded of the Dey of Morocco that he surrender to him the Egyptian, Murad, for the action of our government.
Word came back that a search had been made for Murad but that no person such as we described could be found in the city. Punishment for those who had attacked us was also requested, but the oily monarch protested that his officers could find no citizens who had attempted such a raid. Baffled, we went on our way.
I looked over the rail towards the frowning castles of Algiers in huge disgust. Yet I was curious to see the town in which Alexander had been enslaved, and Captain Bainbridge, knowing of my relationship to one of the released Americans, provided a way that I might enter the palace as one of his attendants when he went with Consul O'Brien to pay his supposed respects to the Dey.
By listening to the English renegade who acted as interpreter between our officers and the ruler, I gathered that the Dey was in trouble with his overlord, the Sultan of Turkey, because he had made peace with France while Turkey, then allied with England, was making war on the French forces in Egypt.
To appease the wrath of the Sultan, the Dey had decided to send to that monarch at Constantinople an ambassador bearing valuable gifts. With amazing cheek, he now asked Consul O'Brien to lend him the frigate George Washington for the purpose of bearing the envoy and his train. Captain Bainbridge blushed. "It is impossible for an American naval officer to carry out such a mission," I heard him cry.
"Your ship is anchored under my batteries. My gunner will sink her if you refuse!" the Dey said with a scowl.
"That is no work for an American ship," Captain Bainbridge said.
"Aren't Americans my slaves? Don't they pay tribute to me?" the Dey demanded. "I now command you to carry my embassy!"
I felt like rushing forward and choking the creature, and I saw from Captain Bainbridge's look that it was all that he could do to restrain himself from drawing his sword and plunging it into the fat stomach of the beast.
Consul O'Brien came forth with soothing words. He advised Bainbridge to obey the ruler, and Bainbridge, because of the superior authority of the consul, was forced to consent.
"Shade of Washington!" he exclaimed, when he returned aboard ship, "behold thy sword hung on a slave to serve a pirate! I never thought to find a corner of this world where an American would stoop to baseness. History shall tell how the United States first volunteered a ship of war, equipped, as a carrier for a pirate. It is written. Nothing but blood can blot the impression out."
We heard that he wrote thus to the Navy Department:
"I hope I may never again be sent to Algiers with tribute, unless I be authorized to deliver it from the mouth of the cannon."