Background
He was born probably in 1773 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, United States, the son of Sibbel (Warner) and Capt. Timothy Shaler, who commanded the sloop Lyon, a privateer during the American Revolution.
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He was born probably in 1773 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, United States, the son of Sibbel (Warner) and Capt. Timothy Shaler, who commanded the sloop Lyon, a privateer during the American Revolution.
In 1828 he received an honorary master's degree from the College of New Jersey.
He first appears in 1800 in Mauritius, where he met Richard Jeffry Cleveland and sailed with him to Copenhagen as partner in a venture to sell coffee. At Copenhagen they purchased the Lelia Byrd, a brig of Portsmouth, Virginia, of which, by a toss of a coin, Shaler became captain. After various adventures in South America, they bought furs for the China trade in Mexico and on the Pacific coast of North America, and reached Canton in 1803.
Returning alone in 1804 to collect more furs, Shaler visited the Hawaiian Islands and gained the confidence of the brilliant native king, Kamehameha I, whom he aided in negotiating the peaceful annexation of the last independent island of the archipelago. Having sold his brig to the king, he freighted his furs on another vessel, which took him to Canton as a passenger. His "Journal of a Voyage Between China and the North-Western Coast of America" gives a valuable account of his experiences and observations during more than a year of trading with Indians and Spaniards.
During the summer of 1810 he was appointed consul and agent for commerce and seamen at Havana, whither he went in September; in January 1812, he left Havana for Louisiana and Natchitoches as an official agent to report on the filibustering activities of the Mexican revolutionist, Alvarez de Toledo.
He returned to New York in February 1814 and in August made a journey to Ghent, having been commissioned by President Madison to attend as observer any general European peace congress. When a quarrel arose between Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams over his function, he returned disgustedly to America in December. As joint commissioner with Commodore Stephen Decatur, 1779-1820, to negotiate a peace with Algiers, he set sail from New York in May 1815 with the squadron which Decatur was taking to chastise that state for declaring war on the United States in 1812. The American commissioners secured at the cannon's mouth the most liberal treaty ever made with Algiers by a Christian power, and Shaler immediately went ashore as consul general. The treaty of 1815 remained in force until December 1816; on December 23, though the Dey wished to renew the treaty of 1795, by which the United States paid tribute, he was forced to accept the American terms and signed a treaty embodying the provisions of the treaty of 1815.
After this, though he had a leave of absence from April 1821 to the summer of 1822, Shaler remained at Algiers for twelve years, enjoying great prestige with both foreigners and natives. He wrote an article, "On the Language, Manners, and Customs of the Berbers, or Brebers, of Africa", and in 1826 he published Sketches of Algiers.
In 1828 he visited the United States on account of ill health, and resigned the Algiers consulate to accept appointment, confirmed March 29, 1830, to that at Havana, where he lived. He died in 1833.
As a Captain William Shaler sailed out of San Diego Bay during an extended Pacific voyage and it became one of the first visits to California by an American. Shaler's subsequent written description was widely circulated and led to increased American travel to and trade with California. He achieved success in a position of a diplomat in Algiers, Mexico and Cuba. Shaler was appointed Secretary to the U. S. peace delegation on Treaty of Ghent. As U. S. Consul in Algiers he took part in a peace mission to end the Second Barbary War. He was also the author of "On the Language, Manners, and Customs of the Berbers, or Brebers, of Africa", "Sketches of Algiers" - a volume which contains his remarkably accurate observations of the country, its government, and its history.
In 1825 Shaler was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Quotes from others about the person
According to A. S. Mackenzie, he was a man of "superior talents, calm dignity of manner, and immoveable firmness" (The Life of Commodore Oliver H. Perry, 1840).
William Shaler was never married and had no children.
