Great guns let it blow, high or low,
Our duty keeps us to our tethers,
And where the gales drive we must go."
Hard luck, indeed! The frigate Philadelphia stranded on a reef in the harbor of Tripoli, and Captain Bainbridge and his men were left captives in the hands of the Bashaw. Yet the ill wind for them was a kind wind for me, since it brought me a chance to serve under Stephen Decatur in what men say is one of the most brilliant exploits in our navy's annals.
Fortunately, before this disaster befell, Captain Bainbridge had been given an opportunity to show the Mediterranean squadron his mettle, for Commodore Preble had assigned the Philadelphia, under Bainbridge, to blockade duty on the Barbary Coast.
When I fell in again with Samuel Childs and Reuben James after my sojourn in Tunis, the first yarn spun to me in the night watch was that of how the Philadelphia had been captured. Reuben James was boatswain aboard of her when she was seized. He dived overboard and swam to safety when he saw that the jig was up, and rejoined the fleet to tell again and again the story of Bainbridge's gallantry in the face of misfortune.
Reuben's story ran like this: The Philadelphia, while cruising in the vicinity of Cape Gata, had come upon and hailed a cruiser and a brig. When the commander of the cruiser, at Captain Bainbridge's repeated demands, sent a boat aboard with his ship's papers, the captain learned that the cruiser belonged to the Emperor of Morocco; that her name was the Meshboha; that her commander was Ibrahim Lubarez; that she carried twenty-two guns and one hundred men.
The captain then sent an armed party to search the brig. He found imprisoned in her hold Captain Richard Bowen, and seven men. The brig was the Celia of Boston. Captain Bainbridge released her crew, and imprisoned the officers and men of the Meshboha aboard his frigate.
Asked by what authority he had captured an American vessel, Ibrahim Lubarez replied that he understood that Morocco intended to declare war on the United States and that when he seized the vessel he thought that a state of war existed. The captain suspected that the Emperor of Morocco had given orders that American ships be seized. "You have committed an act of piracy," he told the Moor, "and for it you will swing at our yardarm!"
"Mercy! Mercy!" wailed Ibrahim. Unbuttoning five waistcoats, he brought forth from a pocket of the fifth a secret document signed by the Governor of Tangiers.