Benefits of cooperation:
1. A land attack from the rear will cut off the Bashaw’s retreat and his supply lines.
2. Dread of retaliation from more land attacks will deter the enemy from hurting the American prisoners.
3. Oppressed residents of Tripoli, seeing themselves besieged, will open the gates to their liberator.
4. Perpetual peace with no ransom is already agreed to by Hamet.
5. Aiding Hamet is a relatively inexpensive experiment.
6. The United States, through Eaton in 1802, pledged aid to Hamet and must not break its word.
The corpulent commodore, weary in the heat on the listless ship, nodded as implacable Eaton continued to make his case. Disadvantages of not cooperating:
1. Batter down the town (with naval cannon), but Yussef can always retreat.
2. U.S. prisoners can be placed on the castle walls.
3. Even in naval victory, U.S. prisoners can be carried south to the mountains.
4. Even with a new peace treaty, no guarantee Yussef will honor it.
5. Expensive in both blood and money.
6. To abandon Hamet would harm the reputation of the United States.
Commodore Barron listened intently; he was unfailingly polite and seemed sympathetic. However, he did not show his hand; he did not explicitly promise any aid. Eaton, jotting in his notebook, tried to write positively of his prospects. A slip of the pen, however, probably exposed his truer feelings. He wrote after his meeting: “If this plan succeeds (which will certainly have the full coincidence of the Commodore) and treaty should follow . . .” He no doubt intended to write “have the full confidence of the Commodore.” But his quill slip would prove prophetic. About all he would gain was the “coincidence” of Barron.
Two days later, on Thursday at 3:30 P.M., while the commodore and the Constellation’s captain Hugh Campbell and Navy Agent Eaton were still dining on the President in the commodore’s cabin, the ship, then traveling at a dull three knots, suddenly lurched hard, as if it had struck a reef. Glasses and plates clattered to the floor. The ship then seemed to jolt upward about a foot in the air, then drop back down. Several times over the next forty seconds, this unnerving foot-high jump recurred. The officers raced to the ladders to climb on deck, ordered plumb lines heaved. The odd part was that the President stood about seventeen miles west of Cape De Gat, well out in the Mediterranean. No one saw rocks or shoals anywhere.
The Constellation, about a mile away, sent over a boat to inform its captain that it had hit a rock. About a league away was a Spanish merchantman. The U.S. ships approached it and asked how she sailed. She too said she had felt a “shock.” Comparing stories, they discovered that all three ships had felt the jolt at the same time, and the officers reasoned that it must have been an earthquake. At about 5 P.M., they felt a one-minute aftershock and then a milder one the next day. “The effect . . . on the ship’s people was also remarkable,” wrote Commodore Barron to a British diplomat at Malta. “The alarm, agitation and amazement appeared much greater than . . . had the ship been actually aground.” Sailors sensed more trouble ahead.
The squadron reached the vicinity of Sardinia on September 2, 1804. For William Eaton, this island provoked in him the memory of Anna Porcile, the Italian slave girl whom he had rescued in Tunis in 1799; more germanely, he thought of her father’s debt to him of $5,000. Chevalier Antonio Porcile had owed him the large sum of money for four years. Eaton could only stare longingly as they glided by; the squadron was late for its rendezvous with Preble. Summer was the best season to fight in Tripoli harbor—no dawdling for debts.
It is never easy to pin down a commodore; he is god upon the seas and indeed for a while answers to no one but God. Eaton, a very direct man, tried to pin Commodore Barron down on the issue of supplies and money. Barron, when he responded at all, tantalized Eaton with polite vagueness.
The fleet reached Malta on the evening of September 5, 1804. Malta, now under British rule, was a tiny outpost of sophisticated Europe, a strategically located oasis just far enough away from the Barbary Coast and Sicily. Gone were the days of the Catholic Knights of Malta, who, needing a mission after the Crusades, had terrorized Moslem ships and enslaved Moslems from 1530 up until 1798 when Napoleon had captured the island on his way to Egypt. The main port, La Valetta, combined the seaside charm of white sandstone houses with the cosmopolitan allure of theaters, restaurants, and gardens.
On September 6, 1804, Eaton wrote to the secretary of the navy, describing how he was confident he could succeed with Hamet, if given supplies. “The Commodore is not decided whether any construction of the President’s instructions extends to a discretion of procuring and furnishing [supplies].” Then Eaton added: “He will probably express himself on the subject after having fixed on his plan of operation.”