Before the news of this flight into Egypt reached the United States, Eaton had been instructed by the President to take command of an expedition on the coast of Barbary in connection with Hamet.  It had been determined to furnish a few pieces of field-artillery, a thousand stand of arms, and forty thousand dollars as a loan to the Pretender.  But when the President heard of Hamet’s reverses, he withheld the supplies, and sent Eaton out as “General Agent for the several Barbary States,” without special instructions.  The Secretary of the Navy wrote at the same time to Commodore Barron:—­“With respect to the Ex-Bashaw of Tripoli, we have no objection to your availing yourself of his cooperation with you against Tripoli, if you shall, upon a full view of the subject, after your arrival upon the station, consider his cooperation expedient.  The subject is committed entirely to your discretion.  In such an event, you will, it is believed, find Mr. Eaton extremely useful to you.”

After Commodore Barron had reached his station, he did consider the “cooeperation” expedient; and ordered Hull in the Argus to Alexandria with Eaton in search of Hamet, “the legitimate sovereign of the reigning Bashaw of Tripoli.”  If Eaton succeeded in finding the Pacha, Hull was to carry him and his suite to Derne, “or such other place as may be determined the most proper for cooeperating with the naval force under my command against the common enemy ...  You may assure the Bashaw of the support of my squadron at Benghazi or Derne, and that I will take the most effectual measures with the forces under my command for cooperating with him against the usurper his brother, and for reestablishing him in the Regency of Tripoli.  Arrangements to this effect with him are confided to the discretion with which Mr. Eaton is vested by the Government.”

It would seem from these extracts that Eaton derived full authority from Barron to act in this matter, independently of his commission as “General Agent.”  We do not perceive that he exceeded a reasonable discretion in the “arrangements” made with Hamet.  After so many disappointments, the refugee could not be expected to leave a comfortable situation and to risk his head without some definite agreement as to the future; and the convention made with him by Eaton did not go beyond what Hamet had a right to demand, or the instructions of the Commodore,—­even in Article ii., which was afterward particularly objected to by the Government.  It ran thus:—­

“The Government of the United States shall use their utmost exertions, so far as comports with their own honor and interest, their subsisting treaties, and the acknowledged law of nations, to reestablish the said Hamet Bashaw in the possession of his sovereignty of Tripoli against the pretensions of Joseph Bashaw,” etc.