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, Somers, 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 Talleyrand alone nursed this plan, it would have had little significance in history; but it was eagerly taken up by a group of Frenchmen who believed that France, having set her house in order and secured peace in Europe, should now strive for orderly commercial development. The road to prosperity, they believed, lay through the acquisition of colonial possessions. The recovery of the province of Louisiana was an integral part of their programme.