The year after Preble's recall, another New-England man, William Eaton, led an army of nine Americans from Egypt to Derne, the easternmost province of Tripoli,--a march of five hundred miles over the Desert. He took the capital town by storm, and would have conquered the whole Regency, if he had been supplied with men and money from our fleet. "Certainly," says Pascal Paoli Peek, a non-commissioned officer of marines, one of the nine, "certainly it was one of the most extraordinary expeditions ever set on foot." Whoever reads the story will be of the same opinion as this marine with the wonderful name. Never was the war carried into Africa with a force so small and with completer success. Yet Eaton has not had the luck of fame. He was nearly forgotten, in spite of a well-written Life by President Felton, in Sparks's Collection, until a short time since; when he was placed before the public in a somewhat melodramatic attitude, by an article in a New York pictorial monthly. It is not easy to explain this neglect. We know that our Temple of Fame is a small building as yet, and that it has a great many inhabitants,--so many, indeed, that worthy heroes may easily be overlooked by visitors who do not consult the catalogue. But a man who has added a brilliant page to the _Gesta Dei per Novanglos_ deserves a conspicuous niche. A brief sketch of his doings in Africa will give a good view of the position of the United States in Barbary, in the first years of the Republic. Sixty years ago, civilized Europe not only tolerated the robbery, the murder, and the carrying into captivity of her own people, but actually recognized this triple atrocity as a privilege inherent to certain persons of Turkish descent and Mahometan religion inhabiting the northern coast of Africa. England or France might have put them down by a word long before; but, as the corsairs chiefly ravaged the defenceless coasts of Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples, the two great powers had no particular interest in crushing them. And there was always some jealous calculation of advantage, some pitiful project of turning them to future account, which prevented decisive action on the part of either nation. Then the wars which followed the French Revolution kept Europe busy at home and gave the Barbary sailors the opportunity of following their calling for a few years longer with impunity. The English, with large fleets and naval stations in the Mediterranean, had nothing to fear from them, and were, probably, not much displeased with the contributions levied upon the commerce of other nations. Barbary piracy was a protective tax in favor of British bottoms. French merchantmen kept at home. Spain, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland tried to outbid one another for the favor of the Dey, Bey, and Pacha, and were robbed and enslaved whenever it suited the interests of their Highnesses. The Portuguese kept out of the Mediterranean, and protected their coast by guarding the Straits of Gibraltar.