John Barth - Letters

Barlow was incredulous. Why should the Dey accept his own money, so to speak, for the sailors’ ransom, especially as he would be relinquishing his best leverage for delivery of the frigate & payment of the rest of his demands? He need not know the source of the money, I replied; ’twas Bacri himself who routinely assay’d & certified, for a fee, the Dey’s revenues. As for that leverage, it should be pointed out to him that the plague was reducing it every day: $200,000 for 100 sick Yankee sailors was not a bad price; the Dey could always capture fresh hostages if “we” defaulted on the rest of the treaty. But Bacri, Barlow protested, slightly less incredulous but still shaking his head: What was in it for Bacri? I admitted that to be the harder question, for while our friend was most certainly not just a Jewish banker, neither was he just our friend. The best I could suggest was that we charter from Bacri himself a ship to fetch the sailors home in, and route it to Philadelphia by way of Livorno & Lisbon, where the captain — or one of us — might expedite delivery of the promist gold. Beyond that, we must (and, I added earnestly, we should) simply trust to Bacri’s goodwill.

It was this last touch, I believe, that persuaded Barlow in the 1st instance (who now hugg’d and waltzt about the room with me again, to the amazement of our Algerine house-servants) & Bacri in the 2nd, who did indeed drag his heels in indecision & astonishment at the audacity of our proposal, but at last agreed & took it upon himself to point out to the Dey that five percent of his hostages had succumb’d already to the plague. Mirabile dictu, the stratagem workt, with a celerity that startled even us: not 48 hours from the time we hatcht the plan, the prisoners were ransom’d with the Dey’s own gold & waiting aboard the ship Fortune (leased from Bacri, but crew’d & captain’d by themselves) for a fair southwesterly to carry them to Leghorn!

“Andrew Burlingame Cook the Fourth,” said Barlow, who had taken to teasing me with my full name, “you must go with them.” In one bold stroke, he declared, I had accomplisht the chiefest part of his mission. He himself must linger on until the gold arrived & the treaty was concluded. But much as he wisht my company & counsel, he wisht even more my being out of reach of the pest, & charged me now with a mission of more moment to him than his own welfare: I was to stop in Leghorn to ascertain that Bacri’s office there had received the letter of credit from Humphreys in Lisbon (we’d learnt, aghast, that Humphreys had sent it by the regular post instead of by express courier!) & to make sure that it was promptly negotiated & the specie shipt before Napoleon, who had open’d his great campaign against the Austrians in northern Italy, should close the port. I was then to go to his Ruthy in the rue du Bac, deliver to her his last will & testament along with letters of an equally intimate but less lugubrious character, assure her that she had no rivals amongst the pantaloon’d ladies of Algiers, & assure him, by return post, that she was similarly faithful. That is (he regarded me meaningly here: no libertine, he was no monk either, & had not been perfectly celibate all these months), that whatever shifts she might have devised to assuage her loneliness, they posed no threat to her love for him.

“And this inquiry you are to discharge with perfect tact,” he concluded, “as only you — or your father — could.” Except that, should the impulse take me, I was to consider myself free to stay aboard of the Fortune & visit the country to which I had just render’d a considerable service, perhaps even seeking out “Henry Burlingame IV” & settling once for all in my heart whether he was my father. For if he was not, or if no face-to-face accounting could justify his behavior to me, then he, Barlow, would be pleased to regard me officially as he regarded me already in his heart: as his own son.

I was much toucht, & much confused in my own heart — but enough surfeited with pestiferous Algiers to delight in putting it behind me. I went, not to Philadelphia, but to Leghorn & thence back to dear Paris. But to appease my conscience both for leaving good Joel as the Dey’s sole American hostage, in effect, & for declining that invitation to be his son (I didn’t want a father, I began with some excitement to understand), I perform’d him one final service ere I went, as important in my history as in his.

Our diplomatic successes in the cause of the U. States, remember, like most successes in international affairs, were at the expense of other governments, inasmuch as the Dey’s chief revenue was still the prizes taken by his corsairs. What game our treaty pledged him to forgo, he bagg’d elsewhere. In consequence, while Barlow was currently the envy of the Algerine consular community, he was also the prime target of their cabals. Nothing would have more pleased the Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, & Venetian consuls than the default of our treaty payments & a resumption of Algerine piracy against U. States merchantmen. Thus far they had been content to asperse privily, to the Dey, Barlow’s character & intentions: he was a sodomite, they insinuated; a Christian cleric; a closet poet. But on the eve of the Fortune’s departure, when my belongings were already packt & shipt aboard, Barlow came to my chambers much concern’d that a graver move against him might be afoot.

His profession of fidelity to Ruthy, I repeat, had been a shade disingenuous. Joel loved & misst her, no question, & wisht himself in her arms in the rue du Bac; she had no rivals amongst the veil’d Algerines. But he had for some weeks been enjoying a flirtation with the young wife of a man attacht to the Spanish consulate (we call’d her “Consuelo del Consulado”), and had left off her pursuit out of delicacy only when the husband, a gambler & general libertine, had perisht of the plague a few days since. Not once had this Consuelo responded to Barlow’s gallantries by more than a flash of her Andalusian eyes; now, suddenly, a message purportedly in her hand was deliver’d from the Spanish consulate: Could her carísimo Senor B. arrange discreetly to meet her carriage — alone, in person, at once — at a certain headland not far hence, on business of a most urgent but confidential nature?

He suspected a trap, of course. The note could have been forged, or written under duress; the woman or someone acting in her stead could be baiting him into a compromising position, to the end of either embarrassing or blackmailing him. Worse, some hired ruffian might be waiting in the carriage to knock him on the head & toss him into the sea, on pretext of defending the young widow’s honor. Even supposing the message genuine, he had misgivings: what if his little flirtation should lead to something more consequential & less extricable? On the other hand, if the lady truly needed his aid or craved his company, and he injured or insulted her by not responding, he would make a considerable enemy in the consular community: a fresh widow so ready to go to’t (let us suppose) would just as readily look to her revenge if scorn’d. And what if she did innocently need his help, or crave a bit of extra-consular consolation? He’d be a knave & fool not to provide it! & cetera.

Amused as I was by his embarrassment & excitement, I quite shared his apprehensions, & proposed at once to meet the carriage in his stead. I would declare he had been summon’d to an unexpected private audience with the Dey (no consular person could fail to acknowledge such priority), but would be honor’d to meet her at her convenience in our villa. If she seem’d offended, I would improvise, confess I had intercepted her message & taken it upon myself to investigate. If she seem’d sincere — whether sincerely distrest or sincerely amorous — I would endeavor to pacify her & either fetch her to the villa or arrange another assignation in less vulnerable circumstances, for Barlow to pursue at his own discretion. If I smelt a rat, he would be forewarn’d. And if it should prove an outright ambuscade? Why, then I would make shift to extricate myself as best I could: I had learnt a thing or two in the streets of Paris.