Part 19 (1/2)

WAR WITH TRIPOLI.

One of the most disgusted men was Captain William Bainbridge, when obliged to carry the tribute in 1800 to the Dey of Algiers, who informed him that the Americans were his slaves, and must do as he ordered. The indignant officer expressed the hope that the next tribute he delivered would be from the mouths of his cannon. The following year the ruler of Tripoli became ruffled because we did not send him as much tribute as he thought he was ent.i.tled to, and actually declared war against us.

The flurry of 1798 with France had caused a considerable increase in our navy, which was furnished with plenty of daring officers, who afterward made names for themselves. They eagerly welcomed a war of that nature which of necessity was a naval one. The operations were confined to the Mediterranean, on whose sh.o.r.e are the Barbary States.

The first real fight took place in August, 1801, between the _Enterprise_, a vessel of twelve guns, and a Tripolitan vessel of fourteen guns. It occurred off Malta, and lasted for two hours, when the Tripolitan hauled down his flag. Thereupon the Americans left their guns and were cheering, when the enemy treacherously fired a broadside into the _Enterprise_. Nothing loth, Lieutenant Sterrett renewed the battle with such vigor that in a few minutes the flag was lowered a second time, only to renew the fighting when the enemy saw an advantage.

Thoroughly exasperated, Lieutenant Sterrett now determined to complete the business. The vessel was raked fore and aft, the mizzen-mast torn away, the hull knocked to splinters, and fifty men killed and wounded.

Then the American officer caught sight of the captain leaping up and down on the deck, shrieking and flinging his arms about, as evidence that he was ready to surrender in earnest. He threw his own flag overboard, but Lieutenant Sterrett demanded that his arms and ammunition should follow, the remainder of the masts cut away, and the s.h.i.+p dismantled. That being done, Sterrett allowed him to rig a jury mast and told him to carry his compliments to the Dey.

The war against the Tripolitans was very similar to that against the Spaniards in 1898. The _Enterprise_ had not lost a man, although the Americans inflicted severe loss on the enemy. In July, 1802, the _Constellation_, in a fight with nine Tripolitan gunboats, drove five ash.o.r.e, the rest escaping by fleeing into the harbor. More than once a Tripolitan vessel was destroyed, with all on board, without the loss of a man on our side.

But the war was not to be brought to a close without an American disaster. In 1803 the fine frigate _Philadelphia_, while chasing a blockade-runner, ran upon a reef in the harbor of Tripoli, and, being helpless, a fleet of the enemy's gunboats swarmed around her and compelled Captain Bainbridge and his crew to surrender. The frigate was floated off at high tide and the enemy refitted her.

A GALLANT EXPLOIT.

One night in February, 1804, the _Intrepid_, a small vessel under the command of Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, one of the bravest of American naval officers, approached the _Philadelphia_, as she lay at anchor, and, being hailed, replied, through a native whom he had impressed into service, that he was a merchantman who had lost his anchors. The Tripolitans allowed the vessel to come alongside without any suspicion on their part. Suddenly a score of Americans sprang up and leaped through the port-holes of the frigate. It took them but a few minutes to clear the deck, when the vessel was fired in several places and the men safely withdrew. The _Philadelphia_ burned to the water's edge.

Early in August, Commodore Preble bombarded the town of Tripoli from his mortar boats. During a fight with the gunboats James Decatur, a brother of Stephen, received the surrender of one he was fighting, and stepped on the deck to take possession. As he did so, the captain shot him dead.

Stephen had just destroyed a gunboat when he learned of this treacherous occurrence and dashed after the craft, which he boarded. Recognizing the captain from his immense size, he attacked him, and, in a desperate personal encounter, in which he narrowly escaped death himself, killed the Moor.

THE BOMB KETCH.

The Americans fixed up the _Intrepid_ as a bomb ketch, storing a hundred barrels of powder and missiles and a hundred and fifty sh.e.l.ls on deck.

Under command of Captain Richard Somers, and accompanied by twelve men, the vessel ran slowly into the harbor one dark night. The intention was to fire a slow-match and then for the officer and men to withdraw in boats. Captain Somers was discovered by the enemy, and in some unknown way the ketch was blown up with all on board, and without doing any material harm to the s.h.i.+pping and fortifications in the harbor.

Commodore Preble was superseded in November by Commodore Barron, who arrived with the _President_ and _Constellation_. This gave the Americans ten vessels, carrying 264 guns. Hostilities were pressed with so much vigor that the Dey of Tripoli became anxious to make peace before the terrible fleet from the West destroyed him and his people.

Accordingly, a treaty was signed on the 3d of June by which the Tripolitans were given $60,000 for the prisoners in their hands, and the payment of tribute to them was ended.

EXPEDITION OF LEWIS AND CLARK.

In those comparatively modern days the vast region west of the Mississippi was almost unknown. President Jefferson recommended a congressional appropriation for the exploration of the country. The appropriation being made, a party of thirty men left the Mississippi, May 14, 1804, under command of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Both had had a good deal of experience in the Indian country, and they ascended the Missouri in a flotilla for 2,600 miles. To the three streams which form the Missouri they gave the names of Jefferson, Gallatin, and Madison. A detachment was then left in charge of the boats, and the remainder, riding the horses they had captured and tamed, made their way across the mountains. They discovered the two streams which bear their names, and traced the Columbia to its outlet in the Pacific Ocean.

The expedition was absent for two years, and its report on returning added much to our geographical knowledge of the section. They were the first party of white men to cross the continent north of Mexico. Captain Lewis was appointed governor of Missouri Territory in 1806, and was acting as such when he committed suicide in 1809. Captain Clark was also governor of Missouri Territory, and afterward superintendent of Indian affairs. He died in St. Louis in 1838.

THE BURR AND HAMILTON DUEL.

No one read the wicked character of Aaron Burr more unerringly than Alexander Hamilton. He saw that he was ready to ruin his country for the sake of gratifying an insatiate ambition. Hamilton was always outspoken in expressing his opinions; and the hostility between the two became so bitter that Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. Although the latter had had a son killed through the barbarous code within the preceding year, he was foolish enough to accept the challenge, and the duel was fought at Weehawken, New Jersey, July 12, 1804. Hamilton fired in the air, but Burr aimed straight for his antagonist and inflicted a wound from which he died the next day.

Although Burr presided in the Senate after the duel, the whole country was shocked by the occurrence, and his friends fell away from him. In 1804, when Jefferson was re-elected to the presidency, George Clinton took the place of Burr as Vice-President. Burr then engaged in a plot to form a new empire in the southwest, the precise nature of which is uncertain. He found a few to join with him, but it came to naught, and in 1807 he was tried at Richmond, Virginia, on the charge of treason, but acquitted. He spent some years in wandering over Europe, and then returned to resume the practice of law in New York. He died in obscurity and poverty on Staten Island in 1836.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DEVELOPMENT OF STEAM NAVIGATION FOLLOWING FULTON'S DISCOVERY.]

A notable event of Jefferson's administrations was the first voyage of a steamboat up the Hudson. This was the _Clermont_, the invention of Robert Fulton, who was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1765.