The Americans fixed up the Intrepid as a bomb ketch, storing a hundred barrels of powder and missiles and a hundred and fifty shells on deck. Under command of Captain Richard Somers, and accompanied by twelve men, the vessel ran slowly into the harbor one dark night. The intention was to fire a slow-match and then for the officer and men to withdraw in boats. Captain Somers was discovered by the enemy, and in some unknown way the ketch was blown up with all on board, and without doing any material harm to the shipping and fortifications in the harbor.
Commodore Preble was superseded in November by Commodore Barron, who arrived with the President and Constellation. This gave the Americans ten vessels, carrying 264 guns. Hostilities were pressed with so much vigor that the Dey of Tripoli became anxious to make peace before the terrible fleet from the West destroyed him and his people. Accordingly, a treaty was signed on the 3d of June by which the Tripolitans were given $60,000 for the prisoners in their hands, and the payment of tribute to them was ended.
EXPEDITION OF LEWIS AND CLARK.
In those comparatively modern days the vast region west of the Mississippi was almost unknown. President Jefferson recommended a congressional appropriation for the exploration of the country. The appropriation being made, a party of thirty men left the Mississippi, May 14, 1804, under command of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Both had had a good deal of experience in the Indian country, and they ascended the Missouri in a flotilla for 2,600 miles. To the three streams which form the Missouri they gave the names of Jefferson, Gallatin, and Madison. A detachment was then left in charge of the boats, and the remainder, riding the horses they had captured and tamed, made their way across the mountains. They discovered the two streams which bear their names, and traced the Columbia to its outlet in the Pacific Ocean.
The expedition was absent for two years, and its report on returning added much to our geographical knowledge of the section. They were the first party of white men to cross the continent north of Mexico. Captain Lewis was appointed governor of Missouri Territory in 1806, and was acting as such when he committed suicide in 1809. Captain Clark was also governor of Missouri Territory, and afterward superintendent of Indian affairs. He died in St. Louis in 1838.
THE BURR AND HAMILTON DUEL.
No one read the wicked character of Aaron Burr more unerringly than Alexander Hamilton. He saw that he was ready to ruin his country for the sake of gratifying an insatiate ambition. Hamilton was always outspoken in expressing his opinions; and the hostility between the two became so bitter that Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. Although the latter had had a son killed through the barbarous code within the preceding year, he was foolish enough to accept the challenge, and the duel was fought at Weehawken, New Jersey, July 12, 1804. Hamilton fired in the air, but Burr aimed straight for his antagonist and inflicted a wound from which he died the next day.
Although Burr presided in the Senate after the duel, the whole country was shocked by the occurrence, and his friends fell away from him. In 1804, when Jefferson was re-elected to the presidency, George Clinton took the place of Burr as Vice-President. Burr then engaged in a plot to form a new empire in the southwest, the precise nature of which is uncertain. He found a few to join with him, but it came to naught, and in 1807 he was tried at Richmond, Virginia, on the charge of treason, but acquitted. He spent some years in wandering over Europe, and then returned to resume the practice of law in New York. He died in obscurity and poverty on Staten Island in 1836.
