[5] Between 1791 and 1792, he worked as a clerk in the lower house of the Vermont legislature[5][7] In 1792, Eaton accepted a captain's commission in the Legion of the United States and began training at Legionville (Baden, Pennsylvania).

[8] For the charges, which included those of profiteering and "liberating from confinement"[9] a murder suspect, Eaton was sentenced to two months' suspended commission.

The Barbary Coast was made up of several Muslim states, under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, that bordered the Mediterranean Sea in Northern Africa.

In 1797, Joel Barlow, United States Consul to Algiers, negotiated with the dey and promised him a frigate, at the cost of nearly one million dollars.

United States President John Adams appointed William Eaton as Consult to Tunis to negotiate more agreeable terms.

In that time, as the demands of Algiers and Tripoli increased, Eaton had come to believe that it was better to use military force to secure trade in the region, than to continually pay tribute.

He wrote an impassioned letter to the Secretary of State, James Madison, voicing the opinion that, "The more you give the more the Turks will ask for.

"[15] Jack Kelly, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, wrote in the a 2009 article, Kill The Pirates, that Thomas Jefferson favored an international military intervention to the payment of tribute.

[13] The Atlantic Monthly (1860), called the belief that the United States was the first to refuse tribute to the Barbary pirates a "patriotic delusion".

[15] The article, flouting what it called "the popular view"[15] of events said, "The money question between the President and the pasha was simply one of amount".

William Eaton devised a plan in which the United States would support the restoration of Hamet Caramelli as pasha thereby creating fear of the U.S. within the rest of the Muslim world.

In addition, a U.S. fleet, under the command of Commodore Richard Morris, had recently captured a Tunisian vessel that was headed for Tripoli.

[16][17] Bainbridge had failed to scuttle the ship before being captured, but Stephen Decatur, commander of the USS Intrepid, in a covert mission, destroyed the Philadelphia by burning it, to prevent Tripoli from using it.

[16] In May 1804, Eaton was given the commission of a navy lieutenant and sent back to the Barbary regencies, under the supervision of Commodore James Barron, to find Hamet Caramelli and enlist his cooperation in the war.

It was with that force that Eaton and Caramelli made the 600 mile trek from Alexandria to Derne, a coastal city within the realm of Tripoli.

[11][15] "First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon of the U.S. Marine Corps raised the American flag for the first time over a conquered foreign city.

He requested reinforcements from Barron but instead received word that US Consul-General Tobias Lear was negotiating peace with Yusef Caramelli.

[15] Although Eaton returned to the United States to a hero's welcome, he was disappointed and embittered by the treaty and outraged that ransom had to be paid for the freeing of the hostages.

Jefferson, and his supporters, on the other hand, denied that administration ever intended the arrangement, contending that Eaton had lacked the authority to broker the deal.

Avoiding murder charges resulting from the death of his political rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel (1804), Burr traveled throughout the west.

Eaton then met with Jefferson to suggest that Burr be given an overseas post, warning that if he was not sent out of the country he would stage an insurrection within eighteen months.

[2] Eaton again warned of Burr's plans, in the fall of 1806, when he forwarded to the State Department a letter that he had received from his stepson, Timothy Danielson Jr., sent to him by a friend in Ohio, Morris Belknap.

[2] Finally, Wilkinson sent Jefferson a letter including what he claimed was a decryption of ciphered treasonous correspondence received from Burr.

[2][4] Eaton continued to say, "He [Burr] said, if he could gain over the marine corps, and secure the naval commanders, Truxton, Preble, Decatur, and others, he would turn Congress neck and heels out of doors; assassinate the President; seize on the treasury and navy; and declare himself the protector of an energetic government.

[2] After peace with Tripoli was made, William Eaton returned to Brimfield, Massachusetts, the place he had called home for most of his life.

After the trial Eaton was verbal about the treatment that he had received from the Federalists, notably John Marshall, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Tripoli Monument, in memory of the first American military casualties overseas in the battle at Derne, was sculpted of Italian marble by artist Giovanni Micali in 1806, and transported to the United States by the frigate USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") and placed at the new national capital of Washington, D.C. at the Washington Navy Yard on the East Branch (now the Anacostia River) of the Potomac River in 1808.

Consul General Eaton and his actions at Derne with other U.S. Navy personnel along with Greek mercenaries, were loosely portrayed in the 1950 historical feature film Tripoli, starring John Payne, Maureen O'Hara, and Howard da Silva.