Thomas Jefferson Papers

Robert Smith to Thomas Jefferson, 19 September 1805

From Robert Smith

Balt. Sep. 19. 1805

Sir,

Having this instant received the dispatches from the Medn by the frigate the president I hasten to forward them to you. I have not retained them long enough to give them a Careful reading. Many of the Officers late prisoners at Tripoli have called upon me. They all say positively that if Lear had persisted in not giving a Ransom for them, peace would not have been made at all and that the Bashaw had made up his mind to massacre them while our forces were laying waste his town. He admitted he was unable to cope with such a force but that he might as well die under the ruins of his town as to be murdered by his own people which would of course be the Case should he deliver up the prisoners without ransom—He again & again was heard to say that having killed his father and a brother he could not have any scruples in killing a few infidels—In great Haste

Respecty

Rt Smith

RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 26 Sep. and “Tripoline papers” and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures not identified.

Many of the Officers: on 10 Sep., William Bainbridge wrote to Smith from Hampton Roads informing him that 101 members of the Philadelphia’s crew, including 17 officers, had returned to the United States on board the President. Bainbridge also mentioned that he enclosed his court of inquiry overseen by John Rodgers, and requested that it be made publically available. The court’s report was in turn enclosed in a letter of Rodgers to Smith, 6 July (NDBW description begins Dudley W. Knox, ed., Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers, Washington, D.C., 1939-44, 6 vols. and Register of Officer Personnel and Ships’ Data, 1801-1807, Washington, D.C., 1945 description ends , 3:189-94; 6:165, 275-6).

Although Yusuf Qaramanli had waged war against his father, Ali Qaramanli, there is no evidence that Yusuf killed Ali, who was reportedly quite sick in 1795, the year Yusuf assumed the rule of Tripoli. However, in July 1790 Yusuf orchestrated the assassination of his oldest brother, Hassan Qaramanli, at their mother’s apartment (Kola Folayan, Tripoli during the Reign of Yusuf Pasha Qaramanli [Ile-Ife, Nigeria, 1979], 9, 15-16; Seaton Dearden, ed., Letters Written during a Ten Years’ Residence at the Court of Tripoli: Published from the Originals in the Possession of the Family of the Late Richard Tully, Esq., the British Consul [London, 1957], 247-9, 379).

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