CHAPTER XII

WE BLOW UP THE _PHILADELPHIA_

A DUEL

Reuben, Samuel and other members of our crew attended a theatrical performance in Malta during a period in which our ship was detained in that harbor by a gale.

There were British ships in port and the contacts of their crews with men from our ships was seldom friendly. The little affair of the Revolution had not yet been forgotten, and, besides, the British habit of impressing us did not contribute towards a harmonious spirit. This island was one of England's fortresses in those waters and, of course, Englishmen abounded.

We saw in the theatre several of our midshipmen, looking very spruce in their dress uniforms, with brass buttons shining and with flashing dirks hanging by light chains from their hips. Among them was Joseph Bainbridge, the younger brother of Captain William Bainbridge. He was a slender, bright-eyed, manly young fellow, the most popular middie aboard the _Constitution_.

The group were standing in the lobby as we entered. We saw a crowd of young British officers looking them over with an air that came near to being insulting. Our middies were returning their gaze boldly and with even more insolence.

One of the British officers, a tall, handsome fellow looking very fine in his scarlet coat with silk braid, collided with Bainbridge in the lobby.

"I beg your pardon," we heard young Bainbridge say. The lads had been warned by the captain to avoid quarrels and Bainbridge, we could see, was trying to obey the command.

"That fellow pushed Joe on purpose," said Reuben, clenching his huge fist. "I've heard of that pusher--he's Captain Tyler, the Governor's secretary, a bad man in a duel. He has a dozen deaths to his credit, and is itching to add an American life to his score!"

When the performance was over--the singer Carlotta had entertained us well--we went out behind the middies, as a sort of rear-guard. We weren't looking for trouble, but if those lads got into a tussle, we felt that they might need aid from some plain sailors.

Captain Tyrone Tyler was standing where Bainbridge and his comrades had to pass. He gave young Bainbridge a dig with his elbow, whereupon our middy turned and spoke to him sharply. Tyler then jammed his elbow into the middy's face, and with his other hand tried to seize our lad by the collar.

"Rough work--stand by!" said Reuben to us. We pushed forward.

Bainbridge, however, had eluded Tyler's grasp.

His hand went out towards his tormentor, but it had a card in it.

"You are a bully and a coward," he said as cool as ice, "and I welcome the duty of putting a stop to your insults to American officers."

Tyler took the card from him. The comrades of both men closed in.

"It'll be a duel," said Reuben, in great disgust, "and our lad will go up against that killer! Why didn't he decide to let us settle it with our fists?"

As the two parties separated, Reuben glanced towards another part of the lobby. "What ho," he exclaimed, "there's Lieutenant Decatur looking on! He'd have taken part in the affair, you can bet your boots!"

Stephen Decatur, first lieutenant of the _Constitution_, followed the midshipman out of the theatre. We saw him approach Bainbridge and draw him away from the other middies, who were as flustered as hens.

We learned later that the meeting was to be on the beach the next day at nine o'clock. You may be sure that every man Jack of us was on the lookout to see if Lieutenant Decatur intended to permit Bainbridge to go ashore. When we saw them go off together in the cutter there was little work done among the crew. It looked to us as if the midshipman was on his way to sure death, and we decided that Decatur was going to seek a way out of the quarrel for the lad.

Reuben shook his head. "That would be against the honor of the United States' navy. Decatur may give him a lesson or two in duelling, but he'll see the thing through. They're leaving the ship a full hour and a half before the time set--I'll wager there'll be pistol practice somewhere."

About half-past nine a boat put out from the shore. There were two officers in it and both sat upright and chatted to each other. Could it be that----?

An hour later, young Bainbridge told us what had happened. Decatur, as the second of Bainbridge, had chosen pistols at four paces. Tyler's second objected. "This looks like murder, sir!" he said to Decatur.

The lieutenant replied: "No sir, this looks like death; your friend is a professed duellist; mine is inexperienced."

Decatur gave the warning: "Take aim!" and then "Fire!" Both, through agitation, missed. Again they faced each other. The pistols were discharged simultaneously. Tyler fell. A surgeon hurried towards him, while Bainbridge turned to Decatur. "I don't think his bullet touched me!" he said.

"I thank God for that!" said the lieutenant. "I fear it is not so well with your adversary, but he invited it. Let's be off!" They passed poor Tyler, lying mortally wounded, and lifted their hats as they went.

Reuben James, ever since I met him, had talked Decatur, Decatur, Decatur. He idolized him. During our country's affair with France he had served on a frigate on which Decatur was a midshipman, and the exploits of the young officer had so appealed to Reuben that he would have followed the youth into the mouth of death.

And indeed, what Reuben told me about Decatur made me also a fervent worshipper.

My own state was proud to claim Decatur as a son, for he was born in Sinnepuxent, Maryland. He was of the blood of Lafayette. His father and grandfather had been naval officers before him; and the former had served with honor on our side in the war of the Revolution.

This, however, was not his first experience in these waters. He had been an officer in Captain Dale's squadron, serving on the _Essex_ under Captain Bainbridge. Bainbridge and he had been linked in an affair that made him eager now to help his imprisoned friend. The commander of a Spanish gunboat insulted Captain Bainbridge at long distance while the _Essex_ lay in the harbor of Barcelona. Later Decatur was also insulted. Decatur visited the gunboat.

"Where is your captain?" he demanded of the officer on duty.

"He has gone ashore," was the reply.

"Tell him that Lieutenant Decatur, of the frigate _Essex_, pronounces him a cowardly scoundrel, and that when they meet on shore he will cut his ears off!"

The matter came to the attention of the commandant of the port, who requested Captain Bainbridge to curb his fiery officer. The captain replied that if the gunboat commander did not know how to be courteous to American officers he must take the consequences. The commandant thereupon ordered the gunboat captain to apologize to Decatur. The matter reached the ears of the King of Spain.

"Treat all officers of the United States with courtesy," he ordered, "and especially those attached to the United States frigate _Essex_."

DECATUR'S BRILLIANT EXPLOIT

Seventy volunteers were required to help Lieutenant Decatur blow up the _Philadelphia_. Seventy volunteers--that meant that I had a chance to go. Fortunately, I was one of the first to hear the orders read, and thus had an opportunity to apply before others. Captain Eaton was on board the _Siren_, returning from sitting at the court of inquiry, when Lieutenant Stewart, commander of the _Siren_, read to him orders he had just received from Commodore Preble. I, as orderly to Captain Eaton, was present at the reading. Plain and direct was the message, but thrilling enough without flourishes.

I stepped forward.

"Pardon me, Sir," I said, "but I want to be one of the seventy volunteers. I speak also for Reuben James. Reuben has served under Lieutenant Decatur at other times, and he'd be heartbroken to be left behind."

I realized as I waited for a reply that I had done a bold thing. I was not supposed to be hearing the letter read, much less acting upon it. However, Lieutenant Stewart was not strict about discipline and he took no offence at my act.

"Your name goes down!" he said, "also Reuben James, though he'll be given a chance to speak for himself. You show the right spirit, young man, but don't feel lofty about it, for I expect any other man of our navy would have said the same thing if he were standing in your place."

Properly humbled, I went off to tell Reuben James that he had me to thank for gaining him an adventure.

Lieutenant Stewart's prediction came true. The crews of the squadron actually fought with each other for a chance to go. Decatur's name to them spelt romance. His exploits had been on every man's lips.

The crew of the ketch _Intrepid_ having been chosen, off we started. It was sundown when we drifted into the harbor of Tripoli. We approached the city knowing that a sudden fear of attack had swept over Tripoli; that the forts were manned; the guns loaded, and a sharp watch kept.

We learned later that the Moslem guards congratulated themselves when they saw the ketch entering the harbor, thinking that it was manned by good Mohammedans who had had the shrewdness to escape blockading ships.

The gates of the city were shut. The Captain of the Port would not inspect the ship until morning. The call of the muezzin sounded over the still waters of the bay. Night fell on the city.

On board the _Intrepid_ all of the crew, except six men disguised as Moors, were concealed below deck or behind bulwarks. Our ketch drifted towards the _Philadelphia_. A sentinel on the frigate hailed us, but the answer came back from our Maltese pilot in the sentry's own language to the effect that the ketch had lost her anchors during a recent gale and wished to make fast to the anchors of the _Philadelphia_ until new ones could be purchased the next morning. As if taking permission for granted, Lieutenant Decatur directed Blake, a sailor who spoke Maltese, and Reuben and myself to set out from the ketch in a small boat for the purpose of fastening a line to a ring-bolt on the frigate's bow. When this was done, the sailors on the ketch were to haul on the line, to bring our boat nearer to the frigate. The men hidden behind the bulwarks caught the rope as it came through the hands of their disguised comrades, and helped in the hauling.

Suspecting nothing, the Moslems on the _Philadelphia_ sent in turn a small boat with a line to aid in mooring the _Intrepid_, but Blake met them and took the line from their hands, saying, in broken Maltese:

"We will save the gentlemen the trouble."

So far so good. But now, as the ketch was being hauled in by the bow line, the pull of the stern line swung her broadside towards the Tripolitans, and the guards on the _Philadelphia_ saw the men who, under the screen of the bulwarks, were hauling in the line.

"Americanos! Americanos!" we heard them shriek.

Swift action followed on the part of Decatur. The hidden sailors sprang into the open and gave the line a pull that sent the ketch close to the _Philadelphia_. An Arab cut the rope, but the Americans were now near enough to throw grapnels.

"Boarders away!" Decatur shouted. We in the boat clambered up the sides of the _Philadelphia_. The rest of the seventy climbed like cats over the vessel's rail with Midshipman Morris in the lead and Decatur at his heels. The _Philadelphia's_ deck was home ground to many of us, and in a moment we had cleared the quarterdecks of the enemy. Then, in a cutlass charge, we drove the panic-stricken crew before us. Some of the infidels leaped overboard. Others sought refuge below, but died at the hands of sailors who had climbed through the ports. In ten minutes' time a rocket went up from the Americans to signal to the _Siren_ that the _Philadelphia_ had been taken.

Combustibles had been rushed on board. Firing gangs were distributed through the ship. So swift was the work and so fierce was the blaze that Midshipman Morris and his gang, who were setting fire to the cockpit, were almost cut off by flames started elsewhere. From the portholes on both sides the flames leaped out, enveloping the upper deck. I saw that Decatur was the last to leave the ship.

The ketch, when all of the boarding party had returned to it in safety, had its period of danger too, for while it was still fastened at the frigate's stern, flames poured from the cabin of the _Philadelphia_ into the cabin of the ketch where the ammunition was stored. The line was instantly severed. The crew laboring desperately with the big sweeps, eight to a side, pushed the _Intrepid_ clear of the burning vessel and headed for the sea.

At last the flames reached the magazine of the vessel, which burst with a tremendous roar. Great sheets of flames arose and sparks flew like a storm of stars over the waters of the harbor. This was the end of the good ship _Philadelphia_.

Every man on the _Intrepid_ returned without injury. Lord Nelson later declared this exploit to be "the most bold and daring act of the age." Decatur was made a captain. He received a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, and noted with joy that it was addressed to "Stephen Decatur, Esq., Captain in the Navy of the United States." His pride increased when he read:

"The achievement of this brilliant enterprise reflects the highest honor on all the officers and men concerned. You have acquitted yourself in a manner which justifies the high confidence we have reposed in your valor and your skill. The President has desired me to convey to you his thanks for your gallant conduct on this occasion, and he likewise requests that you will in his name thank each individual of your gallant band for their honorable and valorous support, rendered the more honorable from its having been volunteered. As a testimonial of the President's high opinion of your gallant conduct in this instance, he sends you the enclosed commission."

Some people asked if the _Philadelphia_ could not have been saved, though Commodore Preble's orders were to destroy her. We heard one of the captive officers of the frigate say later:

"I know of nothing which could have rendered it impracticable to the captors to have taken the _Philadelphia_ out of the harbor of Tripoli." The pilot on board the ketch, _Catalona_, was of the same opinion. Decatur himself told his wife that he believed that he could have towed the ship out, even if he could not have sailed her.

But Commodore Preble, in setting down explicit orders to destroy her, had written: "I was well informed that her situation was such as to render it impossible to bring her out."

He wrote thus because Captain Bainbridge himself had written:

"By chartering a merchant vessel and sending her into the harbor with men secreted, and steering directly on board the frigate, it might be effected without any or a trifling loss. It would not be possible to carry the frigate out, owing to the difficulty of the channel."

The main object was to get the _Philadelphia_ out of the possession of Tripoli. This Decatur did without risking the success of his enterprise.