Perhaps they, too, were wearied by prolonged war with an elusive foe off
a treacherous coast.

How little prepared the Administration was to sustain a prolonged
expedition by land against Tripoli to put Hamet on his throne, appears
in the instructions which Commodore Barron carried to the Mediterranean.
If he could use Eaton and Hamet to make a diversion, well and good;
but he was at the same time to assist Colonel Tobias Lear, American
Consul-General at Algiers, in negotiating terms of peace, if the Pasha
showed a conciliatory spirit. The Secretary of State calculated that
the moment had arrived when peace could probably be secured "without any
price and pecuniary compensation whatever."

Such expectations proved quite unwarranted. The Pasha was ready for
peace, but he still had his price. Poor Bainbridge, writing from
captivity, assured Barron that the Pasha would never let his prisoners
go without a ransom. Nevertheless, Commodore Barron determined to meet
the overtures which the Pasha had made through the Danish consul at
Tripoli. On the 24th of May he put the frigate Essex at the disposal of
Lear, who crossed to Tripoli and opened direct negotiations.

The treaty which Lear concluded on June 4, 1805, was an inglorious
document. It purchased peace, it is true, and the release of some three
hundred sad and woe-begone American sailors. But because the Pasha held
three hundred prisoners, and the United States only a paltry hundred,
the Pasha was to receive sixty thousand dollars. Derne was to be
evacuated and no further aid was to be given to rebellious subjects.
The United States was to endeavor to persuade Hamet to withdraw from the
soil of Tripoli--no very difficult matter--while the Pasha on his part
was to restore Hamet's family to him--at some future time. Nothing was
said about tribute; but it was understood that according to ancient
custom each newly appointed consul should carry to the Pasha a present
not exceeding six thousand dollars.

The Tripolitan War did not end in a blaze of glory for the United
States. It had been waged in the spirit of "not a cent for tribute"; it
was concluded with a thinly veiled payment for peace; and, worst of all,
it did not prevent further trouble with the Barbary States. The war had
been prosecuted with vigor under Preble; it had languished under Barron;
and it ended just when the naval forces were adequate to the task. Yet,
from another point of view, Preble, Decatur, Som