A Call to Arms by William C. Hammond

Cutler—without the abundant embroidery and lace, longer lapels with nine gold buttons on each breast, four additional buttons on the cuffs and at the pockets, gold epaulet on each shoulder, and rich blue cloth cut to the waist in front and with tails behind that defined a captain’s uniform.
    Richard Cutler and Peter Cabot, brothers respectively of the groom and bride, took up position behind Caleb at the altar. Katherine Cutler, seated in a front pew with Diana, Caleb’s two sisters, and their husbands, looked on wistfully as the ceremony commenced. The Endicott family and Will sat in the pew directly behind them. Jamie, seated across the aisle from the Endicotts, sensed more than observed Frances Endicott’s furtive glances in his direction. He made a mental note to introduce her to his two fellow midshipmen at the reception and then make a graceful exit.
    The ceremony and reception were everything a grand wedding should be, and the newlyweds left afterward on a brief wedding trip to NewYork. For the others, it was back to what passed for normal these days. The war in the Mediterranean was going badly, and the national press was making sure that everyone knew it. To date, Commodore Morris’s squadron had accomplished little of note beyond sailing from one to another of the more appealing destinations along the north shore of the Mediterranean, setting a social standard a British admiral might covet. Accompanying Morris in Chesapeake were his wife—labeled tongue-in-cheek by the press the “Commodoress”—and their young son. It was the commodore’s wife, so the newspapers needled, who had set such high standards of social intercourse with a husband all too eager to satisfy her every desire.
    True, there had been some naval action. The frigate John Adams had blockaded the 26-gun Moroccan warship Meshuda in Gibraltar to prevent her from bringing aid to the sultan’s friend and ally, the bashaw of Tripoli. But that blockade had accomplished little beyond roiling waters that hitherto had been calm. In April 1803, James Simpson, the U.S. consul in Tangiers, received notice that Sultan Moulay Suleiman had declared war on the United States. Moroccan warships now threatened American merchantmen in both the Atlantic and the western Mediterranean.
    To the east the news was equally disturbing. In direct contravention of President Jefferson’s long-standing policy of refusing to pay tribute, Secretary of State James Madison had authorized James Cathcart, the American consul in Tripoli who had been summarily dismissed from the regency when the bashaw declared war on the United States, to offer Yusuf Karamanli $20,000 for a peace settlement plus an annual annuity of $40,000. Yusuf, enraged by the consul’s refusal to pay the $225,000 he had demanded and an annual tribute of $25,000, again showed Cathcart the palace door, this time for good. With the basis for war against America now reaffirmed, consulate dispatches from Algiers and Tunis warned that both regencies were reexamining their relationship with the United States.
    â€œLooks like everything’s blowing up over there,” Richard said to Agreen on a sunny, frosty, April afternoon on Long Wharf. His mood matched the brightness of the day. “According to this dispatch”—he held up an official document delivered several hours earlier—“President Jefferson is soon to recall Commodore Morris and is sending a more powerful squadron to the Mediterranean. Jefferson, Smith, and Madison are none too pleased with Morris. Odds are he’ll be facing a court-martial for what Secretary Smith refers to as ‘an absence of energy’ in his naval operations.”
    â€œIt couldn’t happen to a worse man,” Agreen said, grinning at his own turn of phrase. “So Captain, what does all this mean for us? From thatgiddy look on your face, I reckon we’ve received orders t’ sail with the new