CHAPTER XIV
DECATUR AND THE PHILADELPHIA
STORY OF THE BRAVE MEN WHO DISGUISED A KETCH AS A MERCHANTMAN AND SAILED INTO THE HARBOR OF TRIPOLI BY NIGHT, DREW UP ALONGSIDE THE CAPTURED PHILADELPHIA, AND THEN, TO THE ORDER “BOARDERS AWAY!” CLIMBED OVER THE RAIL AND THROUGH THE PORTS, AND WITH CUTLASS AND PIKE DROVE THE PIRATES INTO THE SEA OR TO A WORSE FATE—“THE MOST BOLD AND DARING ACT OF THE AGE.”
With 315 American prisoners, including twenty-two officers, to hold for ransom, and with a swift and most substantial thirty-six-gun frigate added to his fleet, the Bashaw of Tripoli had gained a decided advantage over the Americans. He was so pleased over it that on a festival day that followed the accident, he brought the officers before him where his court was assembled in gala attire and, after a proper greeting, the Americans were liberally sprinkled with ottar of roses and other perfumes and were served with coffee and sherbet. Later, however, they were confined in filthy dungeons and otherwise ill treated. But, in spite of dungeons, through the aid of Mr. N. C. Nissen, the Danish consul at Tripoli, who was unremitting in kind attentions to the Americans, Bainbridge was able to communicate with the American fleet, and on December 5, 1803, he sent a letter, written with lime juice (which becomes legible when heated), in which he proposed that the Philadelphia be destroyed as she lay at anchor by the Americans, who might come into the harbor at night in a schooner, and, after firing her, get away again. The suggestion was adopted, and it was carried out in a fashion that made the name of Decatur famous in the annals of the American navy.
At this time Stephen Decatur, Jr., was a lieutenant of the navy and in command of the famous schooner Enterprise. On December 23, 1803, he fell in with a Tripolitan ketch named the Mastico, that was carrying a lot of female slaves to the Sultan of Turkey, and very quickly captured her. This prize he carried to Syracuse, where the American fleet, under Capt. Edward Preble, was at anchor.
It is worth recalling here that Capt. Edward Preble, who was now in command of the Constitution, had, as a boy of fourteen years, been driven from his home at Portland (Falmouth), Maine, when that town was destroyed by the infamous Mowat at the beginning of the war of the Revolution.
Stephen Decatur.
From an engraving by Osborn of the portrait by White.
At Syracuse the project of destroying the Philadelphia by means of a small vessel well manned was mentioned to Decatur. He eagerly asked to be allowed to undertake the work with his schooner, the Enterprise, but the matter was not at once decided on. Later Lieut. Charles Stewart, who commanded the brig Siren, asked for the place, but Preble had decided meantime that Decatur should do it and that the captured ketch Mastico should be employed because she was of a rig that could more easily enter the harbor of Tripoli without attracting attention.
Accordingly, the ketch was taken into the service as a tender and a picked crew of sixty-two volunteers put on board, with a faithful Malta man for pilot. In addition to these, there were a dozen young officers from the Enterprise and from the flagship Constitution, among whom were two midshipmen of whom the world was to hear later on—James Lawrence and Thomas Macdonough. Macdonough was then but twenty years old, while Lawrence was but sixteen. Decatur himself was only twenty-four.