Background
William Eaton was born on February 23, 1764 at Woodstock, Connecticut, the son of Nathan and Sarah (Johnson) Eaton.
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Diplomat military army officer
William Eaton was born on February 23, 1764 at Woodstock, Connecticut, the son of Nathan and Sarah (Johnson) Eaton.
After a runaway enlistment in the army at sixteen, he underwent a series of hardships.
He managed, however, to prepare himself for Dartmouth, and by alternately teaching and studying, succeeded in graduating in 1790.
He then went to teach in Windsor, Vermont, and, while holding this position, secured, through the influence of Senator Bradley from that state, the appointment of captain in the United States army. This was in March 1792.
In the fall of 1792 he was ordered to the Army of the West, on the Ohio. He was sent to Georgia in 1793, and while there made an enemy of his commandant and was court-martialed.
The young officer plead his own cause to the secretary of state, Timothy Pickering, to such effect that he was ordered to Philadelphia without loss of rank.
In July 1797, having been charged with a secret mission relating to the William Blount conspiracy, he returned in two days with prisoner and papers. By this time he had progressed so far in the esteem of the secretary of state that he was appointed consul to Tunis, and left for his post in December 1798, accompanied by the special diplomatic agent, James L. Cathcart.
The government had made, through a French agent, Joseph E. Famin, a treaty with the piratical Bey of that North African country, which was unsatisfactory to the Senate.
Eaton and Cathcart succeeded in rearranging this agreement and Cathcart proceeded to Tripoli, which country, in 1801, declared war on the United States. The situation there was unique; the reigning Pasha had usurped his brother’s throne. Cathcart had formerly suggested that an attempt be made to effect a peace with the country by reinstating the exiled Hamet Karamanli.
The proposition was placed before Congress by Eaton himself in the early part of 1804, some favorable attention was given to his scheme, and in September of the same year, with the title of "Navy Agent to the Barbary States, ” he returned to the Mediterranean to pursue his venture.
On his arrival, he discovered that the exiled Pasha had fled to Upper Egypt. Undaunted, he sought out his charge and brought him to Alexandria. From there began a spectacular march through the Libyan Desert with a motley army of Greeks, Italians, and Arabs, collected along the way.
After many seemingly unsurmountable difficulties this strange army arrived at Derne, a Tripolitan seaport. Eaton, with the aid of American gunboats, occupied the town. Victory seemed sure. Suddenly he was ordered to leave Tripoli and instructed that a treaty was being negotiated which would secure the illegal ruler on the Tripolitan throne and provide for the payment of ransom for imprisoned American officers.
Eaton was incensed and humiliated. He returned immediately to America, where his brilliant services had given him great prestige, but the warmth with which he defended himself after the government had supported the treaty-makers made him many political enemies.
His feat was mentioned by the president in his annual message, but Eaton’s complaints kept him from receiving a medal from the House of Representatives.
The remainder of his life was none too happy.
In 1807 he was summoned to witness in the Aaron Burr trial; he had been closely associated with Burr, but was able to clear himself before the court. In December of that year he took a seat in the Massachusetts legislature, but because of his too ready utterance of his opinions he was not reelected.
He retired to Brimfield, Massachusetts, where he spent his last years. The fatigues of his active life, the disappointments in his cherished schemes, and his excesses had undermined his health, and he died at forty-seven years of age.
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On August 22, 1792, he married Eliza Sykes, the widow of Gen. Timothy Danielson.