THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. VI.--DECEMBER, 1860.--NO. XXXVIII.
Speak of the relations between the United States and the BarbaryRegencies at the beginning of the century, and most of our countrymenwill understand the War with Tripoli. Ask them about that Yankee crusadeagainst the Infidel, and you will find their knowledge of it limited toPreble's attack. On this bright spot in the story the American mind isfixed, regardless of the dish we were made to eat for five-and-twentyyears. There is also current a vague notion, which sometimes takes theshape of an assertion, that we were the first nation who refused to paytribute to the Moorish pirates, and thus, established a now principle inthe maritime law of the Mediterranean. This, also, is a patrioticdelusion. The money question between the President and the Pacha wassimply one of amount. Our chief was willing to pay anything in reason;but Tripolitan prices were too high, and could not be submitted to.
The burning of the Philadelphia and the bombardment of Tripoli are muchtoo fine a subject for rhetorical pyrotechnics to have escaped lecturersand orators of the Fourth-of-July school. We have all heard, time andagain, how Preble, Decatur, Trippe, and Somers cannonaded, sabred, andblew up these pirates. We have seen, in perorations glowing with pinkfire, the Genius of America, in full naval uniform, sword in hand,standing upon a quarter-deck, his foot upon the neck of a turbaned Turk,while over all waves the flag of Freedom.
The Moorish sketch is probably different. In it, Brother Jonathan mustappear with his liberty-cap in one hand and a bag of dollars in theother, bowing humbly before a well-whiskered Mussulman, whose shawl isstuck full of poniards and pistols. The smooth-faced unbeliever begsthat his little ships may be permitted to sail up and down this coastunmolested, and promises to give these and other dollars, if hisHighness, the Pacha, will only command his men to keep the peace on thehigh-seas. This picture is not so generally exhibited here; but it isquite as correct as the other, and as true to the period.
The year after Preble's recall, another New-England man, William Eaton,led an army of nine Americans from Egypt to Derne, the easternmostprovince of Tripoli,--a march of five hundred miles over the Desert. Hetook the capital town by storm, and would have conquered the wholeRegency, if he had been supplied with men and money from our fleet."Certainly," says Pascal Paoli Peek, a non-commissioned officer ofmarines, one of the nine, "certainly it was one of the mostextraordinary expeditions ever set on foot." Whoever reads the storywill be of the same opinion as this marine with the wonderful name.Never was the war carried into Africa with a force so small and withcompleter success. Yet Eaton has not had the luck of fame. He was nearlyforgotten, in spite of a well-written Life by President Felton, inSparks's Collection, until a short time since; when he was placed beforethe public in a somewhat melodramatic attitude, by an article in a NewYork pictorial monthly. It is not easy to explain this neglect. We knowthat our Temple of Fame is a small building as yet, and that it has agreat many inhabitants,--so many, indeed, that worthy heroes may easilybe overlooked by visitors who do not consult the catalogue. But a manwho has added a brilliant page to the Gesta Dei per Novanglos deservesa conspic