The Pirate Coast(46)

At 6 A.M., on Wednesday, November 14, Captain Hull maneuvered the Argus out of Syracuse harbor. Eaton had agreed to take two men along on his mission: Richard Farquhar, the scheming entrepreneur with vague ties to Hamet, and Salvatore Busatile, consul in Sicily for Hamet Bashaw. Farquhar had been sending on average a letter a month to a U.S. official or even to the president himself, offering to help in aiding Hamet. His last letter of October 15, this one to Commodore Barron, reported that a famine in Derne and Bengazi made those two locales ripe for insurrection. He offered to arrange for boats or supplies or men. On board ship, he told William Eaton that his spies had told him that a vessel bound with grain for Tunis was actually smuggling arms and ammunition to Tripoli. The other passenger, Busatile, had written a letter to Commodore Barron on November 1 stating that Hamet had a large army ready to cooperate with the United States, that the United States could keep all prize ships captured, and that he would pledge eternal peace with the United States and would repay any money advanced to him. More immediately, the consul relayed that Hamet requested $10,000 to enable him to capture Derne and Bengazi. (Barron never replied; around this time, Midshipman William Allen in a letter home wondered whether Barron would live or not.)

At midnight on November 15, the Argus traveled south and arrived in Malta. British quarantine officers refused to let the men of Argus ashore, and the following day, Eaton sent Preble’s note, via shore boat, to Sir Alexander Ball. The secretary receiving the note was apparently none other than Coleridge, who had returned to Malta to take a low-level post in Ball’s administration. Later that same day, Eaton received Ball’s prompt reply, which included letters of introduction to Samuel Briggs, British consul at Alexandria, and to Major E. Missett, the British “resident” (agent) at Cairo.

The letters from Ball were quite strongly worded. “I request that you will assist him and do everything in your power to accelerate his business. Every attention paid him will be considered an obligation conferred on . . . your very faithful and obedient servant Alex. Jn.o Ball.” Ball also sent a package and some letters for Eaton to deliver to these civil servants in Egypt.

So while Eaton had not a single piece of paper from his own government authorizing him or even introducing him undercover, he carried two very potent British letters. These two documents—and the welcome they engendered—would facilitate and without a doubt save Eaton’s mission on several occasions.

Eaton had one last matter to attend to before the Argus departed from Malta. “It was my intention to have taken along with us Hamet Bashaw’s Consul,” he wrote to Barron, “but on a closer inspection, I don’t like him. There is too much wood about his head and beef about his ankles either to advance or retreat handsomely.”

One last American visitor was rowed alongside the Argus. Tobias Lear had received a letter from Commodore Barron informing him that Eaton was going forth on his mission. Barron had downplayed the level of his commitment, telling Lear that the mission was mainly for fact-finding and providing transportation for Hamet to take Derne and Bengazi. By way of lukewarm endorsement, Barron concluded in a note: “It may have a good effect on his brother, it cannot, I think, have an ill one.” Barron promised to inform Lear before taking any “ultimate measures.”

Saturday evening, Tobias Lear neared the Argus. The two men spoke. Whatever Eaton said did not change Lear’s opinions. “I am not at all sanguine in the expectation of ultimate good,” he quickly wrote to Barron.

The Argus weighed anchor and headed east, smack into a gale off Crete. They had to reef the sails and wait it out. Perhaps it was appropriate that Eaton sailed in the Argus; was he not like the mythic Jason who sought the Golden Fleece? Eaton’s quest—though without dragons—often seemed equally daunting. Eaton, aboard the pitching vessel, concentrated hard to copy letters into his notebooks. He now had a ship, a sympathetic navy captain with a small amount of supplies and cash available, and two British letters of introduction. All he needed to do was to find Hamet.





CHAPTER 9





Hunting Hamet in Egypt





ON NOVEMBER 25 around noon, an American sailor aloft aboard the Argus spotted far off a faint vertical line, a kind of reddish finger extending skyward. He was pretty certain that he was looking at “Pompey’s Pillar,” the first Egyptian landmark visible from sea. He called down to the officers on deck. William Eaton, hearing the words, was eager to get onshore.



Captain Hull, however, approached this coastline near Alexandria very gingerly. The nearby silty outpourings of the Nile create hard-to-read inbound currents and shifting shoals. Perhaps no other supremely successful trading mecca, certainly not one that once brokered goods from Africa, Asia, and Europe, was ever saddled with such a rotten approach. The famed Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Pharos, which has received centuries of favorable press for its mechanical ingenuity and architecture, served a supremely utilitarian function: It helped guide ships in on this dangerous low-lying coast.