The lemon juice was again used as ink. In his letter to one of the consuls, the captain suggested that the United States should send a party out to find Hamet and persuade him to lead a movement to regain his throne, using in the campaign marines and sailors of the American navy.
It was this scheme, proposed to him while he was in Tunis, that Captain Eaton advanced when he visited the Navy Department. He returned to the fleet with permission to join forces with Hamet.
My employer's enterprise seemed at first thought to be doomed to failure. Most naval men disapproved and Captain Murray, then in command of the Gibraltar squadron, opposed it strenuously. Captain Eaton's title of "Naval Agent" was also resented by Murray and other officers. The captain met their attacks with his usual vigor.
"The government," he burst out, "may as well send out Quaker meeting-houses to float about this sea as frigates with Murrays in command. The friendly salutes he may receive and return at Gibraltar produce nothing at Tripoli. Have we but one Truxton and one Sterret in the United States?" Later, he included Preble and Decatur in his list of worthy officers.
Our first task, then, was to find Hamet, whom Joseph had displaced as ruler of Tripoli.
In the finding of Hamet we were greatly assisted by a German engineer named Leitensdorfer, who had been a colonel in a Tyrol battalion. At this period he was at Cairo, employed as a military engineer by the Turks. News came to him that Captain Eaton desired a secret agent to deliver a message to Hamet. He deserted the Turks and sought Captain Eaton, who employed him.
With one attendant and two dromedaries, he entered the desert in search of the Arab tribe that had given shelter to Hamet. The only sleep he secured was what he could snatch on the back of his beast; he fed his animals small balls composed of meal and eggs. Reaching the camp in safety, he was cordially received, and refreshed with coffee. Hamet agreed to the American proposals, and one night with one hundred and fifty followers, he rode away from the Mameluke camp as if on an ordinary ride, but instead he rode to our camp with Leitensdorfer.
It had been decided that our route of march should be over the Libyan desert, along the sea-coast, to the town of Derne. The Viceroy at Alexandria, bribed by the French consul, forbade us to enter the city or to embark from the harbor. We were not troubled by this order, however, because Hamet said that if he went by ship along the coast while the Arabs were left to cross the desert, they would soon lose heart and turn back.
Our object in attacking the Tripolitan cities of Derne and Bengazi was to cut off the enemy's food supplies; to open a channel for intercourse with the inland tribes; and to use these cities as recruiting places for our attack on Tripoli.