Shortly after this, a Tunisian vessel attempting to put to sea, was fired on by the Americans, and forced to return into port. This circumstance created great consternation in Tunis; business was suspended, the people became dissatisfied, and the Bey discovered that he must yield. He in consequence wrote a letter to Rodgers, disavowing his threats, declaring his willingness to remain at peace, and inviting Mr. Lear, with whom he had hitherto refused to communicate, to come on shore and treat with him on the subject of the existing difficulties. Mr. Lear complied with this invitation, and several conferences were held, in which the African Prince sustained his character for shrewdness, exhibiting however a degree of suavity and apparent frankness, which excited the admiration of the American Commissioner. Supported by the oaths and attestations of his worthy minister the Sapatapa, Hamouda gravely and solemnly denied having ever uttered threats of hostilities against the United States, or of violence towards their Consul, or of having made any unreasonable demands; insisting that all the difficulties had been occasioned by Mr. Davis, whom he indeed believed to be a good man, incapable of any wilful misrepresentation, but who had most strangely interpreted some of his expressions in a sense totally different from that intended, and forgotten others. He had indeed asked for a frigate from the United States; but that was a request such as one friend might make of another, and the refusal of which should give rise to no difference between them. The subject of blockades he could not understand; his vessels had been taken in time of peace, and he would send an Ambassador to the United States to demand their restitution, although he would prefer having that business settled on the spot; in the meantime, he was ready to give the strongest guaranties of his pacific intentions. Nothing more could be demanded. A new Consul was presented in place of Mr. Davis, who refused to return; and the frigate Congress having been sent to the United States, to convey the Ambassador Sidi Soliman Melle-Melle, the rest of the squadron quitted the Gulf of Tunis about the 1st of September.
The Tunisian Ambassador arrived with his retinue at Washington, where he excited great curiosity and attention.1 He soon made a formal demand, in his master's name, for the restoration of the vessels, or their value, which was complied with from a desire to conciliate the Bey; but this compliance encouraged the Ambassador to require a supply of naval stores, as the price of peace for the succeeding three years, which having been positively refused, he quitted the United States without retracting the demand. His master however was at that time engaged in a war with Algiers, and did not think proper to proceed farther in his exactions; and although attempts were afterwards made by him and his successor to force the Americans to pay tribute, they proved always unsuccessful, and no actual interruption of peace between the United States and Tunis has occurred since the termination of the difference above stated.
1 Melle-Melle is still remembered in Washington, where his dresses, his presents, his prayers, his Arabian horses, his refusing to eat from sunrise to sunset during a particular time of the year, (the Ramadan or Mahometan Lent,) and other of his Oriental customs and peculiarities, form the subjects of many anecdotes. Among his attendants was a passionate fellow named Hadji Mohammed, who having had a quarrel with a barber in the city, threatened to kill him. The barber complained to Mr. Madison, then Secretary of State, who sent Mr. B——, a highly respected gentleman of his Department, to call on Melle-Melle, and request him to curb the impetuosity of his follower. The Ambassador received Mr. B—— with the usual Oriental forms of politeness, and having heard the complaint, said a few words in Arabic to one of his attendants, who went out, and presently re-appeared with poor Hadji Mohammed, guarded by four men with drawn swords. This apparition somewhat astounded Mr. B——, who is the most mild and amiable of men; and he was still more shocked when Melle-Melle, in the most courteous manner expressing his desire to do all in his power to please the American government, offered to have the culprit's head taken off immediately, and sent to the Secretary of State, unless he or the President might prefer seeing it done themselves. Mr. B—— of course declined such a demonstration of the Ambassador's good feeling toward the United States, and hastened to assure him that no such mode of reparation was demanded; it being only necessary to enjoin upon his attendant to refrain from any acts of violence. This fact was related to the writer by Mr. B—— himself.
From Tunis the American squadron proceeded to Algiers, where Mr. Lear landed, and was received with great respect by the government. At this time it would doubtless have been easy to have relieved the United States from the annual tribute of naval stores and munitions to the value of twenty-one thousand dollars, which they were bound to pay to that Regency by the treaty of 1795; but the Algerines had not committed any notable infraction of the terms of that treaty, and there was no cause of quarrel. In 1807 the government of the United States, in anticipation of an immediate war with Great Britain, recalled its naval forces from the Mediterranean, which sea was not again visited by an American armed vessel until 1815. The peace with Tripoli and Tunis has, however, continued without any absolute interruption to this time; with Algiers it was broken in 1812, when the Dey, emboldened by the absence of the American ships of war, and instigated, as we shall show, by the British government, thought proper to commence hostilities against the United States, for which a signal retribution was exacted in 1815.
The occurrences of the war between Tunis and Algiers would be devoid of interest, however faithfully related. Algiers had long maintained a degree of arrogant influence over Tunis, which was very galling to the sovereigns of the latter country. This was effected partly by superiority in military and naval forces, partly by the aid of the Ottoman Porte, which very naturally sided with Algiers against a state scarcely acknowledging its dependance on the Sultan, but principally by bribes to the high officers of the Tunisian government. To free his kingdom from this nightmare had been the incessant endeavor of Hamouda, and was the object of the war; its results were favorable to the Tunisians, both at sea and on land; peace was made in September, 1808, and the influence of Algiers appears never since to have been felt in the councils of Tunis.
From 1807 to 1815, the Mediterranean was navigated by few vessels except those of Great Britain, which were forbidden fruit to the Barbary cruisers; almost their only prey being the miserable inhabitants of Sicily, Sardinia, and even of the Greek Islands, although the latter were subject to the Sultan. One circumstance here shows that the government of Great Britain still cherished the system of encouraging piracy in the Mediterranean, as a means of excluding other nations from its commerce. Sicily remained during the whole of the period above mentioned, absolutely in possession of the British, the authority of the king being nearly nominal. Yet, although its vessels were daily attacked, and its inhabitants carried off from the coasts to slavery in Africa, a truce negotiated with Algiers in 1810, and an occasional remonstrance to the other two powers, which was never attended to, were the only measures adopted to remedy the evil, by those who styled themselves the protectors of the island. To the honor of the Americans, it can be said with truth, that in their Consuls the unhappy captives found friends, and that through the active intercession of these agents, many of them were restored to their homes.
The Pasha of Tripoli, as soon as he was relieved from the presence of the American forces, began with great industry to restore tranquillity in his dominions, and to repair his finances which had been exhausted by the war. As he was almost shut out from the sea, he resolved to establish and extend his authority on land. The fixed population of this regency is small, and almost entirely confined to the few fertile spots on the coast; the interior being principally desert or mountainous, is inhabited by Arabs, who wander with their flocks from pasture to pasture, or are engaged in the transportation of merchandize, or live by plundering their more industrious neighbors. The allegiance of these wanderers is always doubtful; the revenue derived from taxing them is small, and is never obtained without considerable difficulty. Whenever the Pasha is known to be in trouble at home, they become refractory, refuse to pay their tribute, and attack the caravans or towns on the coast; seldom indeed does a year pass in which the sovereign of Tripoli is not engaged in war with some of their tribes. Of these tribes, one called the Waled Suleiman had long been formidable for its numbers and its rebellious disposition; under a daring and sagacious chief the Sheik Safanissa, it had set at defiance the power of the Pasha, and had frequently pushed its inroads to the gates of the capital. Safanissa at length died; although his descendants were brave and trained to war, and his tribe continued to be powerful and influential, yet the magic of his presence was wanting, to maintain that supremacy which it had so long boasted. Yusuf saw this, and determined if possible to exterminate these insolent foes. He began by gaining over to his side another powerful tribe called the Waled Magarra, the hereditary rivals and enemies of the Suleimans; and when he had sufficiently secured their fidelity, he struck a blow which proved perfectly successful, and by which he gained another object long considered important by the sovereigns of Tripoli.
In the Desert south of this regency, is a large tract of habitable country called Fezzan. The greater part of its surface is indeed a sterile waste of sand, but there are many small spots containing clay enough to render them capable of producing dates and some other articles for the support of men and beasts. The labor of cultivation is however very great, as it seldom or never rains, and there being neither springs nor rivers, the water necessary for moistening the earth can only be procured from wells. Almost the only articles of export are dates and salt, which latter is procured in great quantities from the borders of stagnant pools, and carried to the coast of the Mediterranean, and to the negro countries south of the desert. It is inhabited principally by a black race, differing in feature however from the negroes; there are also many Arabs and some Moors, making in all perhaps seventy thousand of the poorest and most miserable of the human species. The sovereignty had long been hereditary in a family originally from Morocco, which acknowledged its dependance on Tripoli; but the Sultan of Fezzan, like the Arabs, seldom paid his tribute when he could avoid it; and the expense of collecting, had indeed of late years, amounted to more than the sum obtained. Such a territory and such inhabitants would scarcely seem to offer any inducements to conquest; but the position of Fezzan renders it important to Tripoli, as through it passes the principal route from the coast to the interior of the continent; and Yusuf was well assured that the Sultan obtained a large revenue by exactions from his subjects, and from the numerous caravans which traversed his dominions. He was therefore anxious to have his share, and was the more enraged at the insolence of this Prince in withholding it, as he was supported and encouraged in so doing by an alliance with the Waled Suleiman. At length in 1811, Yusuf seized a moment when the Suleimans were absent on a foray in the Egyptian territory, and sent an army of Tripolines and Magarra Arabs to Fezzan, under one of his most attached and experienced generals, named Mahomet el Mukni, who was well acquainted with the country, from having visited it several times to receive the tribute. These troops rapidly passed the Gharian mountains, which separate Tripoli from Fezzan, and appeared unexpectedly before Morzouk, the capital of the latter kingdom; this town, built of mud, and defended only by a wall and castle of the same material, was easily taken, the Sultan and his family, with many of the principal inhabitants, were put to death, the rest submitted to the invaders, and the whole country was soon in their possession. The neighboring Arabs overawed by this success, flocked to Mukni's standard, and having received a reinforcement of Tripoline troops, he marched to intercept the Waled Suleimans on their return from Egypt; they were met, defeated, and almost exterminated. Abdi Zaleel, one of the grandsons of Safanissa, was made prisoner, and retained for some time by the Pasha as a hostage for the fidelity of the few whose lives were spared. As a reward for the generalship displayed by Mukni, Yusuf appointed him Governor of Fezzan, with the title of Sultan while in that territory; he was required however, to transmit a large amount of tribute, and also to make an annual inroad into the negro countries lying south of the Desert, for the purpose of bringing away slaves, who were afterwards sent to Tripoli, and thence to the markets of Smyrna and Constantinople.
By these means the power of the Pasha was much strengthened, and his revenues increased; but his sons grew up to manhood, and he began to receive from them the same ungrateful treatment which he had displayed towards his own father. His eldest, Mohammed, who as heir to the crown, bore the title of Bey, and commanded the troops, is universally represented as one of the most complete monsters which even Africa has produced. He first excited the jealousy of his father in 1816, by the purchase of a large number of muskets, which were probably intended for the purpose of arming his followers and dethroning the Pasha; for this he was ordered to go to Bengazi, and there take the command of some troops destined to act against a tribe of refractory Arabs. In this expedition he was entirely successful; that is to say, he exterminated the rebellious tribes, laid waste the country which they had infested, and sent a number of heads, of both friends and enemies, to adorn the gates of his father's castle. On his return to Tripoli, he probably considered these eminent services as entitling him to the immediate possession of the throne, and with that view he made an attempt on Yusuf's life; it failed, and he was again sent to the Eastern Provinces, to act against another tribe who had refused to pay tribute. Mohammed however, immediately on his arrival, joined the rebels, and plundered the country which he was ordered to defend. Yusuf was therefore obliged to send an army against him under his second son Ahmed, who dispersed his brother's forces and drove him into Egypt. The instances of treachery and cruelty practised on each side during this war, are too shocking to be related. The principal inhabitants of whole towns were murdered; hostages were beheaded at the moment stipulated for their return; promises of pardon confirmed by appeals to the common faith of both parties were shamelessly broken, and those who trusted to them sacrificed in cold blood. The result of the whole was the promotion of Ahmed to the situation of Bey, and the establishment of the rebellious Mohammed as Governor of Derne.
Notwithstanding these proofs of Yusuf's perfidy and ferocity, he became popular with Europeans; and those who were introduced to him, generally came away favorably impressed with regard to his character, and were inclined to attribute his excesses more to his situation than to his disposition. He spoke Italian fluently, and seemed to be well acquainted with what was going on in the world: his court was splendid; his apartments furnished with elegance and taste; he drank the best champaigne which France produced, and his manners are said to have been such as to entitle him to be considered a gentleman any where. The celebrated Portuguese, Badia Castilho, whose travels and adventures under the name of Ali Bey, are so well known, seems to have been charmed by the frankness and amenity of the Pasha of Tripoli. Captain Beechy, who was sent by the British Admiralty in 1822, to survey the shores of the great Syrtis, speaks with gratitude of the readiness with which facilities were afforded him for the prosecution of the work. Lyon, Denham and Clapperton, although they all experienced many vexations in their journey through the Tripoline dominions, yet seemed to ascribe them rather to the malignity and knavery of the officers of the government, than to any ill intentions on the part of the chief. To those who were not his subjects, the "good old-gentlemanly vice" of avarice seems to have been his principal failing. His own habits were expensive, and his sons, by their prodigality, kept his coffers always empty.