ers, and their comrades
had not fought in vain. They had created imperishable traditions for the
American navy; they had established a morale in the service; and they
had trained a group of young officers who were to give a good account of
themselves when their foes should be not shifty Tripolitans but sturdy
Britons.

CHAPTER IV. THE SHADOW OF THE FIRST CONSUL

Bainbridge in forlorn captivity at Tripoli, Preble and Barron keeping
anxious watch off the stormy coast of Africa, Eaton marching through the
windswept desert, are picturesque figures that arrest the attention of
the historian; but they seemed like shadowy actors in a remote drama to
the American at home, absorbed in the humdrum activities of trade and
commerce. Through all these dreary years of intermittent war, other
matters engrossed the President and Congress and caught the attention of
the public. Not the rapacious Pasha of Tripoli but the First Consul of
France held the center of the stage. At the same time that news arrived
of the encounter of the Enterprise with the Corsairs came also the
confirmation of rumors current all winter in Europe. Bonaparte had
secured from Spain the retrocession of the province of Louisiana. From
every point of view, as the President remarked, the transfer of this
vast province to a new master was "an inauspicious circumstance." The
shadow of the Corsican, already a menace to the peace of Europe, fell
across the seas.

A strange chain of circumstances linked Bonaparte with the New World.
When he became master of France by the coup d'etat of the 18th Brumaire
(November 9, 1799), he fell heir to many policies which the republic had
inherited from the old regime. Frenchmen had never ceased to lament the
loss of colonial possessions in North America. From time to time the
hope of reviving the colonial empire sprang up in the hearts of the
rulers of France. It was this hope that had inspired Genet's mission to
the United States and more than one intrigue among the pioneers of
the Mississippi Valley, during Washington's second Administration. The
connecting link between the old regime and the new was the statesman
Talleyrand. He had gone into exile in America when the French Revolution
entered upon its last frantic phase and had brought back to France the
plan and purpose which gave consistency to his diplomacy in the office
of Minister of Foreign Affairs, first under the Directory, then under
the First Consul. Had Talleyran