Stephen Decatur and the Frigate Philadelphia: Intrepid and Tripoli
The gunboats at once ran alongside and took possession, and the officers and crew were sent as prisoners to Tripoli, after being stripped, in some cases, of nearly all their clothing. The officers were well treated by the bashaw, but the capture of so many prisoners made an instant change in his position. He had taken three hundred and fifteen captives, twenty-two of them quarter-deck officers, from the Philadelphia, for whom he demanded an enormous ransom, while his former supposed inclination to peace disappeared. A few days afterwards the prize was got off the reef, partly by the aid of a high wind, and was taken in triumph to the city, the leaks being stopped. The guns, anchors, and other articles which had been thrown upon the reef were raised, and the ship partly repaired, and moored off the town, about a quarter of a mile from the bashaw's castle, her guns being remounted.
The fleet had been absent during these occurrences, Commodore Preble first learning at Malta of the loss of the Philadelphia. On his return to Tripoli a suggestion was made by Captain Bainbridge of the possibility of destroying the lost vessel, which was slowly being fitted for sea as a Tripolitan cruiser. The suggestion being made to Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, commander of the Enterprise, he at once decided to attempt the perilous undertaking, with the aid of a ketch called the Mastico, which he had recently captured. This vessel was fitted for the purpose, renamed the Intrepid, and on the evening of February 3, 1804, entered the harbor of Tripoli, having on board a crew of seventy-six men.]
It was a mild evening for the season, and the sea and bay were smooth as in summer. Perceiving that he was likely to get in too soon, when about five miles from the rocks Mr. Decatur ordered buckets and other drags to be towed astern, in order to lessen the way of the ketch, without shortening sail, as the latter expedient would have been seen from the port and must have awakened suspicion. In the mean time the wind gradually fell, until it became so light as to leave the ketch but about two knots' way upon her, when the drags were removed.
About ten o'clock the Intrepid reached the eastern entrance of the bay, or the passage between the rocks and the shoal. The wind was nearly east, and, as she steered directly for the frigate, it was well abaft the beam. There was a young moon, and as these bold adventurers were slowly advancing into a hostile port, all around them was tranquil and apparently without distrust. For near an hour they were stealing slowly along, the air gradually failing, until their motion became scarcely perceptible.
Most of the officers and men of the ketch had been ordered to lie on the deck, where they were concealed by low bulwarks', or weather-boards, and by the different objects that belong to a vessel. As it is the practice of those seas to carry a number of men even in the smallest craft, the appearance of ten or twelve would excite no alarm, and this number was visible.
The Philadelphia hailed the ketch, when sufficiently near. Answer was returned that it was a Maltese vessel, which had lost its anchors in a gale, and wished to ride by the frigate during the night. The pilot, who could speak the Tripolitan language, continued to converse with the Moors, until the ketch came so near as nearly to run afoul of the frigate.
Not the smallest suspicion appears to have been yet excited on board the frigate, though several of her people were looking over her rails, and notwithstanding the moonlight. So completely were the Turks deceived that they lowered a boat and sent it with a fast. Some of the ketch's men, in the mean time, had got into her boat, and had run a line to the frigate's fore-chains. As they returned, they met the frigate's boat, took the fast it brought, which came from the after part of the ship, and passed it into their own vessel. These fasts were put into the hands of the men, as they lay on the ketch's deck, and they began cautiously to breast the Intrepid alongside of the Philadelphia, without rising. As soon as the former got near enough to the ship, the Turks discovered her anchors, and they sternly ordered the ketch to keep off, as she had deceived them,-preparing, at the same time, to cut the fasts. All this passed in a moment, when the cry of "Amerikanos!" was heard in the ship. The people of the Intrepid, by a strong pull, brought their vessel alongside of the frigate, where she was secured, quick as thought. Up to this movement not a whisper had betrayed the presence of the men concealed. The instructions had been positive, to keep quiet until commanded to show themselves, and no precipitation, even in that trying moment, deranged the plan.