Having everything in readiness, the Mastico sailed on February 9, 1804, for Tripoli, with the brig Siren in company to lie in wait off the harbor and pick up the crew of the Mastico should they be obliged to take to the small boats at any time.

Running across to Tripoli, the expedition arrived by night, but a furious gale defeated the hope of success and all but swamped the Mastico. For six days she rolled to the waves, her crew in distress for lack of food and of any sleeping accommodations whatever, and because of the vermin the slaves had left behind. But on the 16th of February the weather moderated to a breeze that would just serve their purpose, and they stood in for the harbor, overhauling their combustibles on the way and finding everything dry and fit.

When night drew on, the men were divided into five crews, of which three were to fire as many different parts of the ship, one was to hold her upper deck, and one to remain in and guard the ketch. Meantime seven more volunteers had been taken from the Siren. When night had fully come the little ketch parted from the brig, and at 9 o’clock was sailing into the harbor by the channel in which the Philadelphia had been lost.

All the crew but six well-disguised men were hidden below or stretched out on deck in the shadow of the bulwarks, as soon as the city’s lights came well in view, and with a failing wind the ketch thereafter drifted toward the great hulk of the Philadelphia, which was soon brought plainly in view in the moonlight. Her ports were aglow with lights, and her crew were seen to be at least awake if not alert.

Drawing near at about 10 o’clock, the pilot, at Decatur’s order, steered the ketch so as to foul the Philadelphia’s rigging at the bowsprit. Then a sentinel hailed the ketch. The Malta pilot replied that the ketch had lost all her anchors during the gale and wished to make fast to the cables of the Philadelphia until others could be procured on shore. Then an officer asked what brig was off shore, for he had seen the Siren in spite of precautions. The pilot replied that it was the English war-brig Transfer, which had been purchased at Malta for the Tripolitans and, fortunately, was due to arrive.

As the pilot talked, many of the Tripolitans gathered at the Philadelphia’s rail and ports to peer over at the ketch. So when, at last, the chains at the Philadelphia’s bow were almost within grasp the wind failed, and the next instant a cat’s-paw caught the ketch aback; she began to drift toward the broadside of the big ship, where all these Tripolitans would have a fair view of her deck. It was a moment of great peril, but without the least flurry two of the disguised sailors got into a small boat and carried a line to a ring-bolt on the man-o’-war’s bow. Then the disguised men on board the ketch began hauling in, while those lying in the shadow of the bulwarks, trusting to the depth of the shadow, lent their aid by hauling hand over fist as they lay there.

Meantime the Tripolitans had sent a small boat with a line by which they intended to swing the ketch astern of the Philadelphia, but the Yankees in the small boat, with great presence of mind, took it from them and carried it to the ketch, “to save the gentlemen the trouble,” as they explained in broken Maltese.

During all this time the pilot had been entertaining the Tripolitan officer with a high-colored description of the ketch’s cargo—had really entertained him until the men hauling on the bow line had brought the ketch within ten yards of the big ship, when unhappily the tension on the line from the stern drew the ketch broadside on to the Philadelphia, where the eyes of the idle spectators could fall on the men who were lying on the ketch’s deck eagerly hauling in on the bow line. One fair look was enough, and in an instant the ship was resounding with the cry,

“Americano! Americano!”

The moment for action had come. Springing to their feet, the Americans ran away with the line. A Tripolitan climbed over the Philadelphia’s bows and cut the line loose, but the momentum already gained was great enough to land the ketch fair in place, where grapnels were thrown out, and with that Decatur cried, “Boarders away!” and sprang for the rail of the Philadelphia.