William Eaton Quotes
Not much shall be feared nor expected from a people whose principal ministers, principal merchants, and principal generals consume day after day smoking tobacco and playing at chess, while the citizens and soldiers are sauntering in rags, sleeping against walls, or praying away their lives …. Such is the military and such the industry of Barbary.
He was right and his leading just a few American marines and capturing much of the area proved it.
William Eaton, 1764-1811, Diplomat, Army Officer, Letter to Timothy Pickering, Quoted in Joseph Wheelan, Jefferson’s War
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
During his campaign for the Senate against Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln adopted a tactic of showing up everywhere his opponent gave a speech and talked to the crowd afterward.
See Robert Burton {596290} for an earlier view with which Jefferson was probably familiar.
This quotation is interesting for two reasons. First, this is one of the most severe criticisms of a cabinet and ministers in English history. The second reason of interest is that it was these same ministers who made the policies and the decisions that would bring on the American Revolution. Were it not for the incompetence, there might not be a United States today. Pitt’s son later also castigated the ministers. See {641503}.
William Eaton was a United States Army officer and the diplomatic officer Consul General to Tunis (1797–1803). He played an important diplomatic and military role in the First Barbary War between the United States and Tripoli (1801–1805). He led the first foreign United States military victory at the Battle of Derne by capturing the Tripoli subject city of Derne in support of the restoration of the pasha (local monarch), Hamet Caramelli. William Eaton also gave testimony at the treason trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr. He served one term in the General Court of Massachusetts (state legislature). Eaton died on June 1, 1811 at the age of forty-seven.
