chapter 5, section 1 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: _R. L. Playfair, The Scourge of Christendom, chapter 16._

BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1803-1805. American War with the pirates of Tripoli.

"The war with Tripoli dragged tediously along, and seemed no nearer its end at the close of 1803 than 18 months before. Commodore Morris, whom the President sent to command the Mediterranean squadron, cruised from port to port between May, 1802, and August, 1803, convoying merchant vessels from Gibraltar to Leghorn and Malta, or lay in harbor and repaired his ships, but neither blockaded nor molested Tripoli; until at length, June 21, 1803, the President called him home and dismissed him from the service. His successor was Commodore Preble, who Sept. 12, 1803, reached Gibraltar with the relief-squadron which Secretary Gallatin thought unnecessarily strong. ... He found Morocco taking part with Tripoli. Captain Bainbridge, who reached Gibraltar in the 'Philadelphia' August 24, some three weeks before Preble arrived, caught in the neighborhood a Moorish cruiser of 22 guns with an American brig in its clutches. Another American brig had just been seized at Mogador. Determined to stop this peril at the outset, Preble united to his own squadron the ships which he had come to relieve, and with this combined force, ... sending the 'Philadelphia' to blockade Tripoli, he crossed to Tangiers October 6, and brought the Emperor of Morocco to reason. On both sides prizes and prisoners were restored, and the old treaty was renewed, This affair consumed time; and when at length Preble got the 'Constitution' under way for the Tripolitan coast, he spoke [to] a British frigate off the Island of Sardinia, which reported that the 'Philadelphia' had been captured October 21, more than three weeks before. Bainbridge, cruising off Tripoli, had chased a Tripolitan cruiser into shoal water, and was hauling off, when the frigate struck on a reef at the mouth of the harbor. Every effort was made without success to float her; but at last she was surrounded by Tripolitan gunboats, and Bainbridge struck his flag. The Tripolitans, after a few days work, floated the frigate, and brought her under the guns of the castle. The officers became prisoners of war, and the crew, in number 300 or more, were put to hard labor. The affair was in no way discreditable to the squadron. ... The Tripolitans gained nothing except the prisoners; for at Bainbridge's suggestion Preble, some time afterward, ordered Stephen Decatur, a young lieutenant in command of the 'Enterprise', to take a captured Tripolitan craft renamed the 'Intrepid,' and with a crew of 75 men to sail from Syracuse, enter the harbor of Tripoli by night, board the 'Philadelphia,' and burn her under the castle guns. The order was literally obeyed. Decatur ran into the harbor at ten o'clock in the night of February 16, 1804, boarded the frigate within half gun-shot of the Pacha's castle, drove the Tripolitan crew overboard, set the ship on fire, remained alongside until the flames were beyond control, and then withdrew without losing a man."

_H. Adams, History of the United States: Administration of Jefferson, volume 2, chapter 7._

"Commodore Preble, in the meantime, hurried his preparations for more serious work, and on July 25th arrived off Tripoli with a squadron, consisting of the frigate Constitution, three brigs, three schooners, six gunboats, and two bomb vessels. Opposed to him were arrayed over a hundred guns mounted on shore batteries, nineteen gunboats, one ten-gun brig, two schooners mounting eight guns each, and twelve galleys. Between August 3rd and September 3rd five attacks were made, and though the town was never reduced, substantial damage was inflicted, and the subsequent satisfactory peace rendered possible. Preble was relieved by Barron in September, not because of any loss of confidence in his ability, but from exigencies of the service, which forbade the Government sending out an officer junior to him in the relief squadron which reinforced his own. Upon his return to the United States he was presented with a gold medal, and the thanks of Congress were tendered him, his officers, and men, for gallant and faithful services. The blockade was maintained vigorously, and in 1805 an attack was made upon the Tripolitan town of Derna, by a combined land and naval force; the former being under command of Consul-General Eaton, who had been a captain in the American army, and of Lieutenant O'Bannon of the Marines. The enemy made a spirited though disorganized defence, but the shells of the war-ships drove them from point to point, and finally their principal work was carried by the force under O'Bannon and Midshipman Mann. Eaton was eager to press forward, but he was denied reinforcements and military stores, and much of his advantage was lost. {265} All further operations were, however, discontinued in June, 1805, when, after the usual intrigues, delays, and prevarications, a treaty was signed by the Pasha, which provided that no further tribute should be exacted, and that American vessels should be forever free of his rovers. Satisfactory as was this conclusion, the uncomfortable fact remains that tribute entered into the settlement. After all the prisoners had been exchanged man for man, the Tripolitan Government demanded, and the United States paid, the handsome sum of sixty thousand dollars to close the contract. This treaty, however, awakened the conscience of Europe, and from the day it was signed the power of the Barbary Corsairs began to wane. The older countries saw their duty more clearly, and ceased to legalize robbery on the high seas."

_S. Lane-Poole, Story of the Barbary Corsairs, chapter 20._

ALSO IN: _J. F. Cooper, History of the U. S. Navy,