The war with England having ended, the Yankee navy was in prime condition for attending to these pirates, and just five days after the ratification of the treaty of peace with Great Britain, the United States declared war against them. Two squadrons were fitted out, one at Boston under Commodore William Bainbridge, and the other at New York under Commodore Stephen Decatur. The two were to unite in the Mediterranean, where Bainbridge was to assume command, because he was senior by right of the date of his commission.
Decatur got under way first, sailing on May 20, 1815. He carried with him Mr. William Shaler as Consul-general to the pirate states; and Shaler, Bainbridge, and Decatur were fully empowered to negotiate new treaties.
The squadron under Decatur included the new frigate Guerrière (rated a forty-four); the Macedonian (captured from the British), Captain Jacob Jones; the Constellation, Captain Charles Gordon; the sloop-of-war Epervier (captured from the British), Captain John Downes; the Ontario, Captain Jesse D. Elliott; the brig Firefly, Captain George W. Rodgers; the brig Flambeau, Captain John B. Nicholson; the brig Spark, Captain Thomas Gamble; the schooner Spitfire, Captain A. J. Dallas; and the schooner Torch, Captain Wolcott Chauncey—in all, ten vessels and two hundred and ten guns.
The squadron at Boston was headed by the new Yankee seventy-four-gun line-of-battle ship Independence, and included the frigates United States and Congress, the sloop Erie, the brigs Boxer, Chippewa, Saranac, and Enterprise, and the sloop (one-masted) Lynx. The Boxer was the vessel captured by the Yankee brig Enterprise, and the Enterprise was the old favorite. But these vessels arrived in the Mediterranean too late to have any part in negotiating a treaty. Decatur had already done the work, and this is the more remarkable when one considers the force of the Algerian navy. As estimated by Maclay, the Algerian force afloat was a half stronger than Decatur’s. It included five frigates armed with eighteens and twelves, six sloops-of-war armed with twelves, nines, and sixes, and a schooner—in all twelve vessels carrying three hundred and sixty guns. Moreover, these vessels were fully manned with able seamen, and their admiral, “Rais Hammida, was the terror of the Mediterranean.” He “had risen from the lowest to the highest place in the Algerian navy” (something that cannot be done in the navy of the American republic), and he had proved his prowess and valor over and again.
Moreover the harbor of Algiers, “formed by an artificial mole, was defended by double and triple rows of heavy batteries, so that over five hundred pieces of ordnance bore upon the maritime approaches of the place.” In fact, when England in the year 1816 made war on the Dey, “five ships of the line, five frigates, four bomb ketches and five gun-brigs were deemed by the Lords of the Admiralty too small a force.”
On June 15, 1815, Decatur’s squadron arrived off Tangiers at the mouth of the Strait of Gibraltar, and learned that the pirate admiral, Rais Hammida, in his forty-six-gun frigate Mashouda, had sailed up the Mediterranean two days before, intending to call at Carthagena.
At this the entire American squadron sailed into the Mediterranean and after a brief call at Gibraltar came in sight of the Mashouda at daylight on the morning of June 17. The enemy when first seen was lying-to under top-sails off Cape Gata, but heading toward the African shore. The pirate admiral was wholly unsuspicious of the character of the approaching Yankee squadron until the Constellation, the nearest of the squadron, was but a mile away. At that time the American flag was set on the Constellation by a mistake. Decatur ordered the British flag set on all the other ships, but Hammida had taken alarm, and spreading his wings like a flushed partridge—making sail with a rapidity that excited the admiration of the Yankees—he headed for Algiers, not far away.
There was an easterly wind, but the Algerian soon found that the Constellation was heading him off, and when the Yankee opened fire on him he tacked about and headed for a neutral port on the north shore. At this the squadron tacked in pursuit, and the flagship Guerrière soon overhauled the enemy.
Pirate though he was, it is impossible not to feel some admiration for the Algerian admiral and his crew in the fight that followed. It was one ship against a squadron and small guns against large, but Rais Hammida never thought of surrender. On the contrary, the pirates opened with muskets as the brig Guerrière ranged up. A man was shot from the Guerrière’s wheel and others were injured, but Decatur waited until he was yard-arm to yard-arm and then fired a broadside that made the enemy shiver. The pirate admiral had been wounded by a shot from the Constellation and was unable to stand, but he had bravely remained on deck, lying on a couch. Now a forty-two-pounder shot struck him at the first broadside of the Guerrière, cutting him entirely in two.
A second broadside from the Guerrière followed and then she ranged ahead of the Mashouda’s bow. At that the pirates up helm and strove to run for it. This brought the brig Epervier fairly under the pirate’s bows. Captain Downes commanded the Epervier, and Downes was a seaman fit to be associated with Captain Stewart of the Constitution, for by backing and filling his sails he was able to give the pirate no less than nine broadsides in twenty-five minutes, at the end of which time the Mashouda’s commander yielded to the inevitable and hauled down his flag.