One of the most disgusted men was Captain William Bainbridge, when obliged to carry the tribute in 1800 to the Dey of Algiers, who informed him that the Americans were his slaves, and must do as he ordered. The indignant officer expressed the hope that the next tribute he delivered would be from the mouths of his cannon. The following year the ruler of Tripoli became ruffled because we did not send him as much tribute as he thought he was entitled to, and actually declared war against us.
The flurry of 1798 with France had caused a considerable increase in our navy, which was furnished with plenty of daring officers, who afterward made names for themselves. They eagerly welcomed a war of that nature which of necessity was a naval one. The operations were confined to the Mediterranean, on whose shore are the Barbary States.
The first real fight took place in August, 1801, between the Enterprise, a vessel of twelve guns, and a Tripolitan vessel of fourteen guns. It occurred off Malta, and lasted for two hours, when the Tripolitan hauled down his flag. Thereupon the Americans left their guns and were cheering, when the enemy treacherously fired a broadside into the Enterprise. Nothing loth, Lieutenant Sterrett renewed the battle with such vigor that in a few minutes the flag was lowered a second time, only to renew the fighting when the enemy saw an advantage.
Thoroughly exasperated, Lieutenant Sterrett now determined to complete the business. The vessel was raked fore and aft, the mizzen-mast torn away, the hull knocked to splinters, and fifty men killed and wounded. Then the American officer caught sight of the captain leaping up and down on the deck, shrieking and flinging his arms about, as evidence that he was ready to surrender in earnest. He threw his own flag overboard, but Lieutenant Sterrett demanded that his arms and ammunition should follow, the remainder of the masts cut away, and the ship dismantled. That being done, Sterrett allowed him to rig a jury mast and told him to carry his compliments to the Dey.
The war against the Tripolitans was very similar to that against the Spaniards in 1898. The Enterprise had not lost a man, although the Americans inflicted severe loss on the enemy. In July, 1802, the Constellation, in a fight with nine Tripolitan gunboats, drove five ashore, the rest escaping by fleeing into the harbor. More than once a Tripolitan vessel was destroyed, with all on board, without the loss of a man on our side.
But the war was not to be brought to a close without an American disaster. In 1803 the fine frigate Philadelphia, while chasing a blockade-runner, ran upon a reef in the harbor of Tripoli, and, being helpless, a fleet of the enemy's gunboats swarmed around her and compelled Captain Bainbridge and his crew to surrender. The frigate was floated off at high tide and the enemy refitted her.
A GALLANT EXPLOIT.
One night in February, 1804, the Intrepid, a small vessel under the command of Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, one of the bravest of American naval officers, approached the Philadelphia, as she lay at anchor, and, being hailed, replied, through a native whom he had impressed into service, that he was a merchantman who had lost his anchors. The Tripolitans allowed the vessel to come alongside without any suspicion on their part. Suddenly a score of Americans sprang up and leaped through the port-holes of the frigate. It took them but a few minutes to clear the deck, when the vessel was fired in several places and the men safely withdrew. The Philadelphia burned to the water's edge.
Early in August, Commodore Preble bombarded the town of Tripoli from his mortar boats. During a fight with the gunboats James Decatur, a brother of Stephen, received the surrender of one he was fighting, and stepped on the deck to take possession. As he did so, the captain shot him dead. Stephen had just destroyed a gunboat when he learned of this treacherous occurrence and dashed after the craft, which he boarded. Recognizing the captain from his immense size, he attacked him, and, in a desperate personal encounter, in which he narrowly escaped death himself, killed the Moor.
THE BOMB KETCH.