Zacks plunders the letters and memoirs of most of the principals and turns up riches, including the notes of Antoine Zuchet, ambassador of Holland under Napoleon to Tripoli, that provide a nicely observed account of Karamanli and his court during the crisis. government, he tracked down Hamet in exile in Egypt, put together a ragtag army of Bedouins, former French soldiers and eight Marines, and marched nearly 600 miles across the deadly Egyptian desert, a trip made even more maddening and dangerous by the near-daily desertions (and grudging returns) of various portions of the army as they tried to extort more pay. With borrowed money and only a vague and shifting backing from the U.S. That Hamet was weak, cowardly and duplicitous didn't deter Eaton. should stand up to the corrupt Karamanli by backing a rebellion headed by his brother Hamet. There was, however, a battle fought, at the city of Derne in the eastern part of the country, that proved pivotal, and it is that amazing tale that provides the heart of "The Pirate Coast." It's the story of William Eaton, an obsessive American patriot and former ambassador to the Barbary state of Tunis who was convinced that the U.S. In fact, despite his public posture, President Jefferson preferred negotiation (in the form of ransom payments) to military action, and the men of the Philadelphia would be redeemed nearly two years later in part by a payment of $60,000 to Karamanli. These are, after all, the "shores of Tripoli" immortalized in the Marine Corps hymn, and one has a vague image from some high school history class of Marines hitting the beach to make short work of some bearded guys with scimitars and colorful silk turbans. In it we learn that many of our commonly held notions of the fight against the Barbary pirates are wrong. It was the capture, in October 1803, of the USS Philadelphia after it ran aground on an uncharted reef near Tripoli, and the enslavement of its crew, that set in motion the events vividly recounted in Richard Zacks' "The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805." From 1785 to 1815 more than 600 American citizens were captured and enslaved by Barbary pirates. gained independence, it lost British protection, and soon its ships were being attacked.
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