On 25 July 1785, three miles southeast of Cape St. Vincent, Portugal, a small, American merchant vessel plodded along in light winds. She was the Maria out of Boston, bound for Cadiz. Among her crew of six was Seaman James Leander Cathcart, a veteran of the American Revolution who had enlisted in the Continental Navy and served in the frigate Confederacy until she was captured by the British. As a prisoner of war, he had endured horrid conditions in the British prison ships Good Hope and Old Jersey. All things are relative, however, and that terrible trial would pale in comparison to what lay ahead.
As the summer sun approached meridian, a strange-looking vessel closed on the Maria. She had long yards that curved downward toward the narrow hull, giving the sails an exotic triangular shape Cathcart recognized as typical of the so-called Barbary States of North Africa.
He later recalled that "the first salutation we received was a shout from the whole crew of the cruiser indicative of our being a good prize." The Maria's crew of six was no match for the approaching vessel that carried 14 guns and a crew of 21. The Americans were forced to surrender and were taken aboard and herded below into a tiny sail room, joining 36 others who had been captured earlier. "It is impossible to describe the horror of our situation while we remained there," Cathcart later wrote. "Let imagination conceive what must have been the sufferings of 42 men, shut up in a dark room in the hold of a Barbary Cruiser full of men and filthy in extreme, destitute of every nourishment, and nearly suffocated with heat . . . ."
On their arrival at Algiers, they were given rags swarming with vermin to wear, fed coarse camel meat and sour milk, and spent time in dark rat-infested dungeons "where the slaves sleep four tier deep." Resistance of any kind was punished severely by a practice known as bastinado, which consisted of savage beatings on the soles of the feet and posterior. Cathcart suffered such torture on several occasions.
James Cathcart would remain a prisoner for ten long years. He and many other Americans who were similarly captured and enslaved would endure hardships that are difficult to comprehend. Yet, America was helpless to respond because the Navy had been disbanded at the end of the Revolution and, for a time, the new nation's merchant mariners would remain at the mercy of these merciless brigands. It was a particularly bitter pill to swallow for a people who had recently earned their freedom in a long and arduous war.
Eventually, Cathcart would be released but would return as a diplomatic representative to Tripoli, playing a key role in an unfolding drama of retribution as the resurrected U.S. Navy earned its sea legs off the Barbary Coast. With a cast of characters that included the likes of Stephen Decatur, Edward Preble, and Presley O'Bannon, it is a story peppered with incredible feats of daring and disheartening setbacks, a time for the establishment of core values and for hard lessons learned. But by the final curtain, Barbary piracy was ended and the United States Navy firmly established, never again to be abandoned.
Much as Cathcart had risen from slave to diplomat, the new nation had faced great trials and emerged as a player on the world stage—with a Navy that would ensure that it would continue to play a leading role.