“The men gave a great cheer then, and the officers joined in—for we couldn’t help cheering a man who with a forty-four gives the lie to another man with an eighty-gun ship. In a little while, though, a boat came alongside with a very polite explanation. The ship really was the Maidstone frigate, thirty-eight guns, and the delay in answering our hails came from suspecting that we might be French, and therefore they wanted to get their people at quarters. After that we all felt differently toward ‘Old Pepper,’ as the steerage fellows call him, and we know his heart is all right if his temper is all wrong.”
The conversation then turned upon the distressing news of the loss of the frigate Philadelphia, the handsomest in the world, and the capture of all her company by the Tripolitans. While commanded by Bainbridge, Decatur’s old captain in the Essex, the Philadelphia had run upon a rock at the entrance to the harbor of Tripoli, and, literally mobbed by a Tripolitan flotilla, she was compelled to surrender. All her guns had been thrown overboard, and every effort made to scuttle her, when the Americans saw that capture was inevitable, but it was with grief and shame that the officers of the Constitution told Decatur that the ship had been raised, her guns fished up, her masts and spars refitted, and she lay under the guns of the Bashaw’s castle in the harbor, flying the piratical colors of Tripoli at her peak. If anything could add to the misery of the four hundred officers and men belonging to her, it was the sight of her, so degraded, which they could not but witness from the windows of their dungeons in the Bashaw’s castle. Her recapture had been eagerly talked over and thought over, ever since her loss; and it was a necessary step in the conquest of the piratical power of the Barbary States, for she would be a formidable enemy to any ship, even the mighty Constitution herself.
When Decatur entered the cabin, nothing could have been a greater contrast to the scene he had lately witnessed. Commodore Preble was handsomely shaved and dressed, and was a model of dignity and courtesy. He made no allusion to what had just happened, but at once began questioning Decatur as to their present and future plans.
“I have a plan, sir,” said Decatur, after a while, with a slight smile—“just formed since I have been on this ship, but nevertheless enough developed for me to ask your permission. It is, to cut out the Philadelphia as she now lies in the harbor at Tripoli. I hear that when Captain Bainbridge was compelled to haul down his flag he ordered the ship scuttled. Instead of that, though, only a few holes were bored in her bottom, and there was no difficulty in patching them and raising her.”
As Decatur spoke, some inward voice seemed to cry out to him, “Hold on to this plan, for that way lies immortality!” His dark eyes gleamed with a strange light, and he seemed to hear such words as “Glory! immortality!” thundering in his ears.
As soon as he spoke, Commodore Preble answered him quickly and firmly:
“Certainly, the ship must be destroyed, for the honor of the flag, and it will also be a measure of prudence in the coming campaign against the fleet and town of Tripoli. But as to cutting her out, that is an impossible thing.”
“I think not, sir,” answered Decatur, with equal firmness.
“You think not, Captain Decatur, because you are not yet twenty-five years old. I think to the contrary, because I am more than forty. The flag will be vindicated if the Philadelphia is destroyed, and never permitted to sail under Tripolitan colors. Anything else would be quixotic to attempt.”
“At all events,” said Decatur, “I may ask the honor of being the one to make the attempt. My father was the Philadelphia’s first commander, and if I can rescue her it will be glory enough for a lifetime.”