A Typical Day in the Barbary Wars
18 MARCH 1804
A TYPICAL DAY IN THE BARBARY WARS
Official Navy records show that March 18th, 1804, was a typical day for the vessels blockading the Barbary state of Tripoli. This power had been holding American merchant crewmen and cargoes for ransom. The problem had been simmering for a decade, since our independence from England had removed American ships from the protection of the Royal Navy–a force the States of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis respected. Earlier treaties under which our government paid indemnities in exchange for the free passage of our ships, had been abrogated, not surprisingly, by the profit-hungry North Africans.
The business of this day might be usual in any Navy and included Midshipman Henry Wadsworth aboard USS CONSTITUTION, 44, posting a letter to his cousin in the States, Nancy Doane. In it he expressed that months of Mediterranean duty had engendered in him a dislike for the Bashaw of Tripoli, whose actions were the reason for this deployment. His fervent hope was for peace, perhaps to be achieved without having to bombard Tripoli! He praised USS ARGUS, 16, and the fine maneuvering of his shipmates in her crew, which had been noticed by Royal Navy sailors. He had recovered from an illness that complicated his participating in the harrowing adventure of a month earlier, in which LT Stephen Decatur had burned the captured American frigate PHILADELPHIA, 36, in Tripoli harbor. He concluded with a plea for a letter from her, via any ship bound for Europe.
CONSTITUTION then lay at Syracuse, Sicily, where skipper CAPT Edward Preble was occupied with the problem of obtaining gunboats for the blockade. His entreaties to the US Consul in Messina related his suspicions that to accomplish that task, a personal visit to Naples would be necessary. He was heartened with a letter from LT Charles Stewart, then commanding USS SYREN, 16, relating the capture the day before of the Tripolitan brig Transfer. A survey of her hull, rigging, cables, anchors, sails, boats, and cargo of military stores had proven her to be a legitimate prize.
Elsewhere, US Consul James Simpson in Tangier received a letter from Mulai Suleiman, Emperor of Morocco, with whom a treaty of amity had been ratified five months earlier. The letter thanked the United States for gun carriages received by the Emperor as partial fulfillment of the treaty obligations, describing the gift as, “fresh proof of your diligence and of the friendship of your Nation towards us, which we will at all times bear in mind.” The Emperor concluded with thanks to the “only God,” on “this 28th day if Dulkaada the Blessed, 1218,” (corresponding to 18 March 1804 on the American calendar).
Apparently little has changed in two centuries of Navy life!
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 24 MAR 26
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Cooney, David M. A Chronology of the U.S. Navy: 1775-1965. New York, NY: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965, p. 26.
“Letter to CAPT Edward Preble, U.S. Navy, from LT Charles Stewart, U.S. Navy.” IN: Naval Documents Related to the United States War with the Barbary Powers, Vol III, Naval Operations Including Diplomatic Background from September 1803 through March 1804. Washington, DC: GPO, 1941, p. 495-96.
“Letter to James Simpson, U.S. Consul, Tangier, Morocco, from the Emperor of Morocco.” Op. cit., p. 498.
“Letter to Nancy Doane from Midshipman Henry Wadsworth, dtd. 17 March, 1804.” Op. cit., p. 495.
“Letter to Secretary of the Navy from CAPT Edward Preble, U.S. Navy.” Op. cit., p. 496-97.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Transfer had formerly operated as a French and British privateer and carried 10 guns at the time of her capture. She was taken into the US Navy and placed in service under the name USS SCOURGE, 16.
ARGUS had been dispatched on a solo mission to Gibraltar to keep an eye on another Barbary State, Morocco, and her conduct thereon had earned the praise of British in Gibraltar. Though at various times Sicily had been an independent kingdom, at this time Sicily was under the rule of King Ferdinand IV and Queen Maria Carolina, the regents of the Kingdom of Naples. Bombardment of Tripoli (for the third time) did ultimately become necessary in August 1804, in yet another effort to compel the release of ransomed sailors.
