| 3 Captains at | $6,000 | $18,000 |
| 2 Mates at | $4,000 | 8,000 |
| 2 Passengers at | $4,000 | 8,000 |
| 14 Seamen at | $1,400 | 19,600 |
| Total | | $53,600 |
| For custom, eleven per cent | | 5,896 |
| Grands Total | | $59,496 |
Later a single cruise lost us ten vessels to these half-civilized
people.
Following European precedent, Washington had made, in 1795, a
ransom-treaty with this nest of pirates, to carry out which cost us a
fat million. The captives had meantime increased to one hundred and
fifteen, though the crews of the Maria and the Dauphin had wasted away
to ten men. Nearly a million more went to the other North-African
freebooters. The policy of ransoming was, indeed, cheaper than force.
Count d'Estaing used to say that bombarding a pirate town was like
breaking windows with guineas. The old Dey of Algiers, learning the
expense of Du Quesne's expedition to batter his capital, declared that
he himself would have burnt it for half the sum.
Yet it makes one's blood hot to-day to read how our fathers paid tribute
to those thieves. The Dey had, in so many words, called us his slaves,
and had actually terrorized Captain Bainbridge, of the man-of-war George
Washington, into carrying despatches for him to Constantinople, flying
the Algerine pirate flag conspicuously at the fore. After
anchoring--this was some requital--Bainbridge was permitted to hoist the
Stars and Stripes, the first time that noble emblem ever kissed the
breeze of the Golden Horn.
[1803]
Jefferson loathed such submission, and vowed that it should cease.
Commodore Dale was ordered to the Mediterranean with a squadron to
protect our ships there from further outrage. One of his vessels, the
Experiment, soon captured a Tripoli cruiser of fourteen guns, the
earliest stroke of any civilized power for many years by way of showing
a bold front to these pestilent corsairs.
This was on August 6, 1801. In 1803 Preble was placed in command of the
Mediterranean fleet, with some lighter ships to go farther up those
shallow harbors. Bainbridge had the misfortune while in pursuit of a
Tripoli frigate to run his ship, the Philadelphia, on a rock, and to be
taken prisoner with all his crew. The sailors were made slaves.
Lieutenant Decatur penetrated the Tripoli harbor under cover of night,
and burned the Philadelphia to the water's edge. Tripoli was bombarded,
and many of its vessels taken or sunk. Commodore Barron, who had
succeeded Preble, co-operated with a land attack which some of the
Pasha's disaffected subjects, led by the American General Eaton, made
upon Tripoli. The city was captured, April 27th, and the pirate prince
forced to a treaty. Even now, however, we paid $60,000 in ransom money.
Lieutenant Decatur on the Turkish Vessel during the Bombardment of Tripoli.
CHAPTER X.
THE WAR OF 1812
[1807]
Although paying, so long as Jay's treaty was in force, for certain
invasions of our commerce, Great Britain had never adopted a just
attitude toward neutral trade. She persisted in loosely defining
contraband and blockade, and in denouncing as unlawful all commerce
which was opened to us as neutrals merely by war or carried on by us
between France and French colonies through our own ports.
The far more flagrant abuse of impressment, the forcible seizure of
American citizens for service in the British navy, became intolerably
prevalent during Jefferson's administration. Not content with reclaiming
deserters or asserting the eternity of British citizenship, Great
Britain, through her naval authorities, was compelling thousands of men
of unquestioned American birth to help fight her battles. Castlereagh
himself admitted that there had been sixteen hundred bona fide cases of
this sort by January 1, 1811. And in her mode of asserting and
exercising even her just claims she ignored international law, as well
as the dignity and sovereignty of the United States. The odious right of
search she most shamefully abused. The narrow seas about England were
assumed to be British waters, and acts performed in American harbors
admissible only on the open ocean. When pressed by us for apology or
redress, the British Government showed no serious willingness to treat,
but a brazen resolve to utilize our weak and too trustful policy of
peace.
One instance of this shall suffice. Commodore Barron, in command of the
United States war vessel Chesapeake, was attacked by the Leopard, a
British two-decker of fifty guns, outside the mouth of Chesapeake Bay,
to recover three sailors, falsely alleged to be British-born, on board.
Their surrender being refused, the Leopard opened fire. The Chesapeake
received twenty-one shots in her hull, and lost three of her crew killed
and eighteen wounded. She had been shamefully unprepared for action, and
was hence forced to strike, but Humphreys, the Leopard's commander,
contemptuously declined to take her a prize. There was no excuse
whatever for this wanton and criminal insult to our flag, yet the only
reparation ever made was formal, tardy, and lame.
James Madison.
From a painting by Gilbert Stuart--property of T. Jefferson Coolidge.
Bad was changed to worse with the progress of the new and more desperate
war between Great Britain and Napoleon. The Emperor shut the
North-German ports to Britain; Britain declared Prussian and all West
European harbors in a state of blockade. The Emperor's Berlin decree,
November, 1806, paper-blockaded the British Isles; his Milan decree,
December, 1807, declared forfeited all vessels, wherever found,
proceeding to or from any British port, or having submitted to British
search or tribute. In fine, Britain would treat as illicit all commerce
with the continent, France all with Britain. But while Napoleon, in
fact, though not avowedly, more and more receded from his position,
England maintained hers with iron tenacity.
[1810]
Sincere as was our Government's desire to maintain strict neutrality in
the European conflict, it naturally found difficulty in making England
so believe. Their opponents at home ceaselessly charged Jefferson,
Madison, and all the Republicans with partiality to France, so that
Canning and Castlereagh were misled; and they were confirmed in their
suspicion by Napoleon's crafty assumption that our embargo or
non-intercourse policy was meant to act, as it confessedly did,
favorably to France. Napoleon's confiscation of our vessels, at one time
sweeping, he advertised as a friendly proceeding in aid of our embargo.
Yet all this did not, as Castlereagh captiously pretended, prove our
neutrality to be other than strict and honest. At this time it certainly
was both. So villainously had Napoleon treated us that all Americans now
hated him as heartily as did any people in England.
[1812]
The non-intercourse mode of hostility, a boomerang at best, had played
itself out before Jefferson's retirement; and since George's ministry
showed no signs whatever of a changed temper, guiltily ill-prepared as
we were, no honorable or safe course lay before us but to fight Great
Britain. Clay, Calhoun, Quincy Adams, and Monroe--the last the soul of
the war--deserved the credit of seeing this first and clearest, and of
the most sturdy and consistent action accordingly. Their spirit proved
infectious, and the Republicans swiftly became a war party.
Most of the "war-hawks," as they were derisively styled, were from the
South and the southern Middle States. Fearing that, if it were a naval
war, glory would redound to New England and New York, which were hotbeds
of the peace party, they wished this to be a land war, and shrieked, "On
to Canada." They made a great mistake. The land operations were for the
most part indescribably disgraceful. Except the exploits of General
Brown and Colonel Winfield Scott, subsequently the head of the national
armies, not an action on the New York border but ingloriously failed.
The national Capitol was captured and burnt, a deed not more disgraceful
to England in the commission than to us in the permission. Of the
officers in command of armies, only Harrison and Jackson earned laurels.
Harrison had learned warfare as Governor of Indiana, where, on November
7, 1811, he had fought the battle of Tippecanoe, discomfiting Tecumseh's
braves and permanently quieting Indian hostilities throughout that
territory. In the new war against England, after Hull's pusillanimous
surrender of Detroit, the West loudly and at length with success
demanded "Tippecanoe" as commander for the army about to advance into
Canada. Their estimate of Harrison proved just. Overcoming many
difficulties and aided by Perry's flotilla on Lake Erie, he pursued
Proctor, his retreating British antagonist, up the River Thames to a
point beyond Sandwich. Here the British made a stand, but a gallant
charge of Harrison's Kentucky cavalry irreparably broke their lines. The
Indians, led by old Tecumseh in person, made a better fight, but in
vain. The victory was complete, and Upper Canada lay at our mercy.
