Lear had spent the winter of 1804-1805 with Commodore Barron at Malta, over whom he acquired, in Barron’s weakened condition of mind and health, a great influence. He was strongly opposed to Eaton’s expedition, and was the main factor in causing it to collapse; the aim of the expedition, which was the capture of Tripoli and dethronement of the Pacha, was not in accord with his views. On May 26th Lear arrived off Tripoli from Malta in the _Essex_, which delivered to Captain Rodgers of the _Constitution_ a letter from Barron announcing the necessity of the relinquishment by the latter of the command. Lear had already been informed by a letter written by the Danish consul at Tripoli of the probability of the Pacha’s willingness to treat, and at once on his arrival began negotiations. The preliminaries, after parleys of more than a week, were signed on June 3d. Prisoners were to be exchanged, the United States paying a balance of $60,000. A year was allowed to settle disputes before action; prisoners were no longer to be enslaved, and were at the conclusion of peace to be restored without ransom. No tribute was to be paid in future. Hamet was to be “persuaded” to withdraw from Derne, and his family was to be restored to him. There was, however, a secret article which allowed the Pacha four years in which to make this restoration. The unwisdom of placing the negotiations wholly in the hands of Lear had resulted in an unsatisfactory peace, and attacks ensued which must have caused him much bitterness; for General Eaton, as he was now called, pursued him violently in the press and before Congress to the end, in 1811, of Eaton’s life. Lear was strongly criticised in Congress itself, Senator Timothy Pickering declaring his conduct inexcusable. Madison’s instructions as Secretary of State anticipated that peace would be made “without any price or pecuniary compensation whatever”; and so undoubtedly it would have been had negotiations been put in the hands of the commodore of the now powerful force before Tripoli. Nor would Eaton’s wonderful action have gone for nought, nor would Hamet, whom we had made our ally, been thrown overboard with so little consideration. Commodore Rodgers allowed him two hundred dollars monthly to support himself and some fifteen dependents at Syracuse (the winter headquarters of the fleet) until twenty-four hundred dollars was voted him by Congress in 1806. His family, through pressure of our consul, was restored to him in October, 1807, and though his brother gave him residence in Morocco and a pension, and later the governorship of Derne, he had, two years later, to flee with his family to Egypt, where he died.