The Foreign Service Journal, September 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2022 53 A portrait of Mordecai Manuel Noah. b Paying ransom to free U.S. prisoners from the Barbary States was not new for the United States. George Washington, John Adams andThomas Jefferson had ransomed captives, made trea- ties with the Barbary States and paid yearly tributes. Like Euro- pean states involved in seaborne commerce in the Mediterranean, they felt that paying for the treaties and other costs was still cheaper than building warships, running a naval establishment and paying increased insurance charges on cargo. The issue, however, had continued to fester, and during President Jefferson’s tenure had led to the First Bar- bary War (1801-1805), principally against Tripoli, which the United States Navy won. In July 1812, after the war against Great Britain and Spain had begun, the United States was still paying a yearly tribute to the Dey of Algiers, who complained that the United States still owed him $27,000, and threatened that unless paid he would enslave all Americans in the country. U.S. Consul General Tobias Lear (1762-1816) borrowed the money and paid the dey, but was still expelled, with all Americans, from the country. Then, on Aug. 25, the Algerians seized the U.S. merchant brig Edwin on the high seas, took the cargo and enslaved the crew of 11, soon joined by another American, taken from a Spanish ship. b Meanwhile, in May 1813, Noah embarked for the Mediterra- nean, but his ship was intercepted by the British Royal Navy, and he ended up in England for nine weeks. He then left for Cadiz, Spain, where he began to work on his secret mission. There, he was not very circumspect. He revealed his purpose to U.S. Consul Richard S. Hackley (1770-1829), a businessman with intimate ties to the Spanish government nobility, and sought Hackley’s advice on whom to recruit to negotiate with the Algerian ruler. Hackley recommended a man of dubious integrity, as perhaps Hackley, himself, was. (In fact, as it turned out, Hackley later obtained title to most of the Florida peninsula, then a Span- ish possession, from the Duke of Alagón, an adviser to the king of Spain. After the U.S. had purchased Florida from Spain, Hackley and his heirs spent years in court trying unsuccessfully to enforce their claim.) The person Hackley recom- mended to Noah was Richard Raynal Keene (1779-1839), a lawyer who had been employed in the office of Maryland’s attorney general and former delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention Luther Martin (1748-1826). Keene had eloped with his employer’s 15-year-old daughter, Eleonora Martin (1786-1807), and subse- quently moved to New Orleans. In New Orleans, he was involved in the Aaron Burr conspiracy, and was accused of trying to acquire land grants in Spanish Florida and of fomenting hostilities between Spain and the United States. Keene, who was clearly a self-aggrandizing, untrustworthy schemer, had later moved to Spain and become a Spanish subject. Noah, unwisely, struck a deal with Keene, making him his front man: Keene would get paid $1,000 for his work, regardless of success, and $3,000 if he succeeded in freeing the prisoners. b Keene arrived in Algiers in February 1814, met with the dey and disclosed that he was acting on behalf of the U.S. government. The dey was totally unresponsive and declined to negotiate at any price. Then Keene turned to the British consul (Britain was then at war with the United States), who ransomed two American sailors, claiming that they were British, and four other seamen who claimed to be from Louisiana. Keene paid the British consul $10,000 and in May 1814, unable to secure the release of the other 10 sailors, returned to Spain to report to Noah. Keene gave Noah a bill for $15,852, claiming he had paid $12,000 to the British, plus his expenses of $3,852. Noah paid him and billed the State Depart- ment $25,910, which included passage back home for the freed CONGREGATIONSHEARITH ISRAEL (NEWYORK)