It was finally dawning on Eaton that Commodore Barron was not fully aboard on the Hamet project, and that, even if sympathetic, the commodore might choose a narrow interpretation of his orders and refuse to hand over any money. So, at its simplest, Eaton needed money, a solid sum to buy field artillery, muskets, pistols, and food, to pay mercenaries, and to rent camels. And Eaton’s best shot, really his only shot, at that moment was the $5,000 owed him by Anna’s father, the painfully courteous and constantly penniless chevalier of Sant-Antioco.
Eaton needed to pursue his money quest, but that was easier said than done. He couldn’t lift a telephone or tap a telegraph key; even worse, the British medical authorities in Malta refused to let the Americans go ashore, since the U.S. frigates, in transit, had stopped a Tunisian vessel, a possible carrier of disease. They were placed in quarantine for at least seven days. (The very word quarantine derives from the Latin/Italian quaranta or forty as in “forty days” to make sure the ship isn’t carrying some still-aborning disease.) However, letters could be exchanged and harbor boats could row nearby for some full-throated conversations.
One such boat that visited the President carried Richard O’Brien, the former consul to Algiers. When captain of the Dauphin, he had been captured by Algerian corsairs in 1785 and was kept a prisoner for ten years before being ransomed. He had courageously returned as consul, but his diplomatic style was far more pragmatic (i.e., pay something) than Eaton’s fierce patriotism (pay nothing). In a comic-opera quirk, O’Brien’s love life had accidentally undermined U.S. diplomacy in the region and led, albeit indirectly, to Tripoli declaring war on the United States. James L. Cathcart—the U.S. consul to Tripoli, a testy, arrogant man—had hired a young Englishwoman to be a traveling companion for his fifteen-year-old pregnant wife. A fellow traveler described the companion as “of good appearance . . . about 20 years old.” Cathcart referred to her as his wife’s “humble friend” and allowed her to dine at their table. The young woman, Betsy Robinson, had fled a vicious stepmother in England to come to Philadelphia to search for her only brother. Said brother, however, was gone to China, so she had taken a job. Now, after thirty-six days of sharing cabin space with the husband and wife on the trip to Tripoli, the young woman, Miss Robinson, decided that Cathcart was no gentleman, and she resolved to leave the ship at the next port, which happened to be Algiers. There, the American consul, O’Brien, knowing none of this intrigue, invited them all to dinner. In the drawing room, O’Brien asked Cathcart to escort the young lady to the table. Cathcart, furious at Betsy, declined and called her “his maid.” An eyewitness reported: “The confusion, mortification and indeed distress” caused Betsy to burst out crying. The next day, she informed Cathcart that she would not proceed with them to Tripoli. “A storm arose . . . of thunder and smut,” recalled this eyewitness. Cathcart called her “choice names.” She said that his words proved indeed that he was not a gentleman. He called her more choice names.
When all was calm, Consul O’Brien, a forty-seven-year-old bachelor, agreed to allow her to stay in Algiers to catch a ship back to America. Cathcart, enraged, swore he would send a report to the Department of State, stating that “O’Brien had seduced his maid from him.”
On March 25, 1799, about six weeks after meeting her, Richard O’Brien married Betsy Robinson. “The Lord give you many days and nights of happiness,” Eaton had written, congratulating him. O’Brien’s good fortune further angered Cathcart against O’Brien, who was then consul general for the Barbary Coast and Cathcart’s superior. O’Brien soon refused to respond to any of Cathcart’s letters. All mail between the two men had to be filtered through Eaton in Tunis, a very time-consuming detour sometimes involving desert foot messengers; ultimately, Cathcart, an abrasive diplomat, took no guidance from O’Brien and little from Eaton. With little diplomatic coordination, Cathcart botched relations with the Bashaw and war with Tripoli ensued.
(For O’Brien, two daughters ensued as well, followed by a son in February 1804.)
On September 6, 1804, O’Brien sat in the boat, yelling up to Eaton. The naval agent, whose first three children were girls, joked to merchant captain O’Brien about their wives always giving birth “to a transport, not a frigate.” Now he congratulated O’Brien on the recent arrival of a frigate, i.e., a fighting vessel, a son.
These two veterans of the Barbary Coast discussed many topics for an hour. O’Brien had resigned his post as consul general, and he described to Eaton his replacement, Tobias Lear, a forty-two-year-old former personal secretary to George Washington. Both men had met Lear, and neither Eaton nor O’Brien especially liked the man and his affected courtly manners. Lear had made a bad first impression on O’Brien by telling him the unlikely story that he had once turned down the position of secretary of state under Jefferson.