No accounts reveal anything specific about the clipping of the five U.S. Navy sailors. Although the five men were nominally free and didn’t bunk with the prisoners, they were not allowed to leave Tripoli. They took paying jobs in town. John Wilson, in Moslem garb, would become one of the harshest overseers of the prisoners. His former shipmates despised him. “He . . . acted as a spy carrying to the Bashaw every frivolous and a thousand false tales,” wrote Ray. The first lie he told was that Captain Bainbridge was planning an escape; his next was that Bainbridge had dropped nineteen boxes of dollars and a huge sack of gold overboard just before surrendering. Bainbridge very much wanted Wilson hanged as a deserter.
Week by week the men, as they settled into their new lives as slaves, caught glimpses of Bashaw Yussef, and he was always seen in a regal pose. Pomp was de rigueur on the Barbary Coast. “His majesty was mounted on a milk white mare, sumptuously caparisoned and glittering with golden trappings,” wrote Ray about November 8 when Yussef came to the prison. “At his right hand rode a huge negro . . . he was followed and attended by his Mamelukes.” Slaves held colorful umbrellas over the heads of his children.
But behind the glittering facade, life was not quite as elegant and easy as the impressive-looking Bashaw tried to make it seem. Although Allah had dropped the Philadelphia into his lap, his treasury was almost empty, and he was threatened from within by a bloody rebellion in the southern province of Gharian and by another one led by his rival brother, Hamet, in the rich eastern provinces of Derne and Bengazi. His behavior was becoming more erratic under these strains.
The following incident, which occurred that month—recorded by Dutch consul Zuchet—reveals both the ruthlessness and the superstitiousness of the trans-Atlantic foe of Thomas Jefferson. Yussef had convinced the nation’s holiest marabout to negotiate a truce in Gharian, an inland city.
With the sacred promise of the divine marabout, the chief of the rebels was conducted before Yussef, garotted, tied at the neck by a piece of rope, a sign of his desire to repent. The Bashaw granted him immunity . . . but overwhelmed more by a desire for vengeance than respect for his own parole, he secretly ordered three loyal citizens of Gharian to murder the rebel chief. The marabout negotiator, informed of this assassination, knew immediately that no one other than the Bashaw would have dared attack a person whom the dervish had protected.
The dervish rushed to the Bashaw and predicted all kinds of calamities and he uttered the most extreme threats and swore never again to see him. . . . The next day, the three loyal citizens arrived to receive their reward for their mission. The Bashaw, always afraid of the holy man’s threats, thought that their deaths would somehow appease him and decided these three loyal followers should be hanged; his orders were immediately executed.
The Bashaw learned he had not at all assuaged the dervish; he grew convinced that he would lose his throne. Along with his family and his entourage, he traveled a half day’s march into the desert to find the dervish. Many black sheep were sacrificed to expiate his crimes. Two long hours elapsed before the Bashaw was allowed into the presence of the holy man. Finally he was permitted to see him in a room; the holy man was completely naked, his hair like snakes, making the leaps and gestures of a maniac. He delivered to him the following rude speech: “The Bashaw must respect promises made to an apostle of their Prophet, who alone is able to dethrone him and if he allows him to rule, it is because for the time he knows of no other person more fit to rule.” The Bashaw kissed the hand of the dervish and returned a bit more tranquil.
To prove his remorse, he said he wanted no more to do with the province of Gharian, and he abandoned all rights and revenues to the Dervish who from now on could dispose of it as he liked.
Thus, Yussef had on a whim executed four people. The giving away of the rebellious region was actually shrewd: The costs in blood and money exceeded the tax revenues. The Dutch diplomat concluded his report with another tidbit of information. The Bashaw now planned to focus on getting rid of his brother, Hamet, who had come to Derne and Bengazi to raise a civil war.
Yussef, with an army assembled and superior weapons, had every reason to believe that he would soon succeed in ousting Hamet. The one factor Yussef didn’t count on was the enthusiastic support that Hamet would receive from a defiant American from Brimfield, Massachusetts.
CHAPTER 4
Home: New England Roots
[I hope] the hour is not far distant when we may lie happy in the enjoyment of the fruits of our enterprises.