Decatur is one of the most illustrious names in the naval annals of America. Among the many officers who have borne this name, none was more celebrated and admired in his life time and none more deeply lamented at his untimely decease than Commodore Stephen Decatur.
[pg 251]
Burning Of The Philadelphia.
[pg 253]
His life was a series of heroic actions. But of these perhaps the most remarkable of all is that which is recorded in the following language of his biographer—the burning of the frigate Philadelphia.
Decatur had been sent out from the United States, in the Argus, to join Commodore Preble's squadron before Tripoli. He exchanged this vessel with Lieutenant Hull for the Enterprise.
After making that exchange, he proceeded to Syracuse, where the squadron was to rendezvous. On his arrival at that port, he was informed of the fate of the frigate Philadelphia, which had run aground on the Barbary coast, and fallen into the hands of the Tripolitans. The idea immediately presented itself to his mind of attempting her recapture or destruction. On Commodore Preble's arrival, a few days afterwards, he proposed to him a plan for the purpose, and volunteered his services to execute it. The wary mind of that veteran officer at first disapproved of an enterprise so full of peril; but the risks and difficulties that surrounded it, only stimulated the ardour of Decatur, and imparted to it an air of adventure, fascinating to his youthful imagination.