American commerce.' In 1803, Commodore Preble was sent thither to humble

the pirates. After bringing the before Tripoli with his squadron.

Emperor of Morocco to terms, he appeared

One of his vessels (the Philadelphia), com

manded by Bainbridge,' struck on a rock in the harbor, while reconnoitering;

and before she could be extricated, she was captured [October 31, 1803] by the Tripolitans. The officers were treated as prisoners of war, but the crew were made slaves.

1 Captain Bainbridge had been on that coast the previous year. He arrived at Algiers in September, 1800, in the frigate George Washington, with the annual tribute money [page 381]. The dey, or governor, demanded the use of his vessel to carry an ambassador to Constantinople. Bainbridge remonstrated, when the dey haughtily observed: "You pay me tribute, by which you become my slaves, and therefore I have a right to order you as I think proper." Bainbridge was obliged to comply, for the castle guns would not allow him to pass out of the harbor. He sailed for the East, and had the honor of first displaying the American flag before the ancient city of Constantinople. The Sultan regarded it as a favorable omen of future friendship, because his flag bore a crescent or half-moon, and the American a group of stars. ' William Bainbridge was born in New Jersey, in 1774. He was captain of a merchant vessel at the age of nineteen years, and entered the naval service in 1798. He was distinguished during the second War for Independence [page 409], and died in 1833.

UNITED STATES FRIGATE.

The credit of the American navy was somewhat repaired, early in the following year, when Lieutenant Decatur,' with only seventy-six volunteers, sailed into the harbor of Tripoli, in the evening of February 3, 1804, and runing alongside the Philadelphia (which lay moored near the castle, and guarded by a large number of Tripolitans), boarded her, killed or drove into the sea all of her turbaned defenders. set her on fire, and under cover of a heavy cannonade from the American squadron, escaped, without losing a man. As they left the burning vessel, the Americans raised a shout, which was answered by the guns of the batteries on the shore, and by the armed vessels at anchor near. They went out into the Mediterranean unharmed, sailed for Syracuse, and were received there with great joy by the American squadron, under Commodore Preble. This bold act humbled and alarmed the bashaw; yet his capital withstood a heavy bombardment, and his gun-boats gallantly sustained a severe action [August 3] with the American vessels.

LIEUTENANT DECATUR.

2

In the following year, through the aid of Hamet Caramelli, brother of Jessuff, the reigning bashaw (or governor) of Tripoli, favorable terms of peace were secured. The bashaw was a usurper, and Hamet, the rightful heir to the throne, was an exile in Egypt. He readily concerted, with Captain William Eaton, American consul at Tunis, a plan for humbling the bashaw, and obtaining his own restoration to rightful authority. Captain Eaton acted under the sanction of his government; and early in March [March 6, 1805], he left Alexandria, with seventy United States seamen, accompanied by Hamet and his followers, and a few Egyptian troops. They made a journey of a thousand miles across the Libyan desert, and on the 27th of April, captured Derne, a Tripolitan city on the Mediterranean. Three weeks later [May 18], they had a successful battle with Tripolitan troops; and on the 18th of June they again defeated the forces of the bashaw, and

MOHAMMEDAN

SOLDIER.

1 Stephen Decatur was born in Maryland in 1779. He entered the navy at the age of nineteen years. After his last cruise in the Mediterranean, he superintended the building of the gun-boats. He rose to the rank of commodore; and during the second War for Independence [page 409], he was distinguished for his skill and bravery. He afterward humbled the Barbary Powers [note 5, page 390]; and was esteemed as one among the choicest flowers of the navy. He was killed, at Bladensburg, in a duel with Commodore Barron, in March, 1820, when forty-one years of age.

While the American squadron was on its way to Syracuse, it captured a small Tripolitan vessel, bound to Constantinople, with a present of female slaves for the Sultan. This was taken into service, and named the Intrepid, and was the vessel with which Decatur performed his bold exploit at Tripoli. This act greatly enraged the Tripolitans, and the American prisoners were treated with the utmost severity. The annals of that day give some terrible pictures of white slavery on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Bashaw, or Pacha [Pas-shaw], is the title of the governor of a province, or town, in the dominions of the Sultan (or emperor) of Turkey. The Barbary States [note 5, page 390] are all under the Sultan's rule.

The bashaw, who was a third son, had murdered his father and elder brother, and compelled Hamet to fly for his life. With quite a large number of followers, he fled into Egypt.

pressed forward toward Tripoli. The terrified ruler had made terms of peace [June 3, 1805] with Colonel Tobias Lear, American consul-general' in the Mediterranean, and thus disappointed the laudable ambition of Eaton, and the hopes of Hamet."

While these hostile movements were occurring in the East, the President

had, in a confidential message to Congress, in January, 1803, proposed the first of those peaceable conquests which have opened, and are still opening, to civilization and human industry, the vast inland regions of our continent. He recommended an appropriation for defraying the expenses of an exploring expedition across the continent from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. The appropriation was made, and presently an expedition, consisting of thirty individuals, under Captains Lewis and Clarke, was organized. They left the banks of the Mississippi on the 14th of May, 1804, and were absent about twenty-seven months. It was very successful, particularly in geographical discoveries, and

A consul is an officer appointed by a government to reside in a foreign port, to have a general supervision of the commercial interests of his country there. In some cases they have powers almost equal to a minister. Such is the case with consuls within the ports of Mohammedan countries. The word consul was applied to Napoleon [page 387] in the ancient Roman sense. It was the title of the chief magistrate of Rome during the Republic. The treaty made by Lear provided for an exchange of prisoners, man for man, as far as they would go. Jessuff had about two hundred more prisoners than the Americans held, and for these, a ransom of $60,000 was to be paid. It was also stipulated that the wife and children of Hamet should be given up to him.

Hamet afterward came to the United States, and applied to Congress for a remuneration for his services in favor of the Americans. He was unsuccessful; but Congress voted $2,400 for his temporary relief.