they resisted whenever there was a chance of success. Young Bainbridge
was the last man to submit to coercion when he could help himself, and
on two occasions, while in command of merchant vessels, showed the
spirit that was in him. Once, when commanding the Hope, a little vessel
carrying only eleven men before the mast and four nine-pounders, he
fell in with a British privateer, carrying thirty men and eight guns. A
sharp action ensued; for privateers are not wont to heed any vessel's
rights when the privateer is the stronger party, and Paul Jones's
characterization of them as "licensed robbers" is not far wrong. The
Hope, however, made a good defence, and forced the privateer to call
for quarter. Under the existing law, Bainbridge could not claim her
as lawful prize, but was forced to let her go, shouting out to her
commander as they parted, "Tell your employers if they have occasion
for the Hope, they must send some other man than you to get her!"
Another time, the Indefatigable, frigate, under Sir Edward Pellew,
afterward Lord Exmouth and the conqueror of Algiers, sent a squad of
seamen on board the Hope, and took out of her a man alleged to be a
British subject. Bainbridge could not resist, but he sent word to Sir
Edward that the first British vessel of a force the Hope could cope
with, a man should be taken out of her, as sure as he was alive and
commanded the Hope. This he did within a week, and carried the man back
to the United States with him.
Things reached such a pass in 1798 that the necessity for a navy became
pressing, and steps were promptly taken to organize and equip a naval
force. Bainbridge, then twenty-four years old, was among the first to
apply for a commission, and he was given that of lieutenant commandant.
He soon got the command of a little cruiser of fourteen guns, captured
from the French, and renamed the Retaliation. The ship was ordered to
the West Indies, to cruise in company with the Montezuma, sloop of
war, and the Norfolk, brig. On a November day in 1798, while cruising
off Guadeloupe, Bainbridge found himself too near two French frigates,
Le Volontier, forty-four guns, and L'Insurgente, forty guns.[1]
L'Insurgente was a tremendously fast frigate, and soon overhauled
Bainbridge and compelled him to strike his colors. He was at once
taken on board Le Volontier, while L'Insurgente proceeded in chase of
the Montezuma and the Norfolk. Captain St. Laurent, of Le Volontier,
seeing L'Insurgente about to engage two adversaries, and knowing her
captain, Barreault, to be a man brave to rashness, was disturbed at
the prospect. He asked Bainbridge, who was on the quarterdeck, what
the force of the American ships was. Bainbridge promptly replied that
the Montezuma carried twenty-eight long guns, and the Norfolk twenty.
This was about double their real force. Captain St. Laurent at once
signalled L'Insurgente to return. Her captain, Barreault, was deeply
chagrined, and when he went on board Le Volontier, told Captain St.
Laurent that the American vessels were of trifling force, and he could
easily have taken them both. Then Bainbridge's clever _ruse_ was
discovered; but the French officers, realizing that he had done his
duty in trying to save his country's ships, showed no ill-will toward
him.
The Retaliation was the first and only ship of war captured by the
French during the years that war existed between the United States and
France, although it never was declared. But Bainbridge's reputation did
not suffer by this, as his whole conduct was that of a man of spirit
and capacity. He rose to the rank of captain just as he reached his
twenty-sixth birthday; and in 1800 he was appointed to the command
of the George Washington, of twenty-eight guns. His first duty was to
carry tribute to the Dey of Algiers. No more hateful service could
have been devised for him, and great blame rests upon the men in the
government who subjected the United States to such humiliation.
In September, 1800, Bainbridge reached Algiers, and anchored within
the mole. Scarcely had he landed the tribute, consisting of about
half a million in money,--enough to have built a ship that could have
knocked the Dey's forts about his ears,--when he was asked to carry
the Dey's ambassador to Constantinople, along with a present to the
Sultan, of slaves, wild beasts, and a large sum of money. Bainbridge
was furious at the demand; but the Dey insolently told him that he
must go, or the ship, which was completely in the Dey's power, would
be taken, her officers and crew sold into slavery, and war made on
American trade. Bainbridge was reminded that British, French, and
Spanish ships had performed the same duty; but no doubt Bainbridge
realized that in all those cases it was done from political motives,
while in his case it was done simply because he could not help himself.
With a very bad grace, he agreed, and the presents and passengers were
put in the ship and he sailed for Constantinople in October. It was
a cruise the officers of the George Washington never liked to speak
of; but there is no doubt that, although it was a time of the utmost
vexation and mortification, innumerable amusing incidents occurred.
The Mohammedans had great difficulty in keeping their faces toward
Mecca during the frequent evolutions of the ship, and a man had to be
stationed at the compass to let them know when it was time for them to
"go about." This was a standing cause of laughter and gibes from the
sailors, which naturally gave great offence to the Mohammedans; and
these disagreements, together with a ship full of wild beasts, made it
a cruise never to be forgotten.
Bainbridge was very doubtful whether his vessel would be allowed to
pass the Dardanelles, as the American flag had never been seen in those
seas before; so he concluded to get through by his wits. He approached
with a strong wind, and clewed up his light sails as if about to
anchor, saluting meanwhile. The salute was returned, and under cover
of the smoke sail was quickly made and the ship slipped past, out of
range of shot from the castles. When she reached Constantinople, a boat
was sent ashore to report her arrival. The Turkish officials sent back
word that they knew no such nation as the United States. They were
soon convinced that there was such a nation, and were well received.
The Sultan's brother-in-law, Capudan Pasha, became much attached to
Bainbridge, and mentioned that the Dey of Algiers was not in favour
with the Sublime Porte. Bainbridge, knowing he would return to Algiers,
got a letter from Capudan Pasha, in which the Dey was commanded to
treat the American commander with the highest respect. Bainbridge
returned to Algiers in January, and was immediately met with another
demand,--that he take the Algerine ambassador back to Constantinople.
This he firmly refused, at an interview in which the Dey stormed,
raged, and threatened. In the midst of this, Bainbridge calmly produced
Capudan Pasha's letter. The Dey paused, grew pale, and trembled, and
then burst into profuse offers of assistance, which Bainbridge coolly
declined, and left the palace.
The next day, in obedience to orders from Constantinople, the Dey
declared war against France, and notified all of the French in
Algiers--fifty-six men, women, and children--that unless they left
within forty-eight hours, they would be sold into slavery. France was
then at war with the United States, but this did not prevent Bainbridge
from offering these unfortunates an asylum on the George Washington at
great inconvenience to himself, and carrying them all to Spain. For
this humane act he received the personal thanks of Napoleon Bonaparte,
then First Consul.
Bainbridge returned to the United States with the George Washington,
and soon after got the Essex, a thirty-two-gun frigate attached to
the squadron which was sent to the Mediterranean in 1801, under the
command of Commodore Richard Dale. Among the lieutenants of the Essex
was Stephen Decatur, afterward the celebrated Commodore.
The ship arrived at Barcelona in August, and took a berth in the
harbor, close to the Spanish guardship. The neatness of the Essex and
the seamanlike appearance and conduct of her officers and men were so
much remarked upon that it gave great offence to the officers of the
guardship. The stay of the American frigate at Barcelona was a long
scene of turmoil, owing to collisions between her junior officers and
the Spanish midshipmen. In one of these Decatur figured prominently.
Bainbridge acted with spirit and also with judgment, but was glad to
get away from such uncomfortable quarters.
By that time Congress was beginning to wake up to the necessity for
a more vigorous policy with regard to the Barbary powers, and the
squadron was directed to protect American shipping by force. The
corsairs interpreted this to mean war, and their aggressions reached
such a pitch, after the return of Dale's squadron in 1802, that in 1803
Commodore Preble was sent out with the Constitution, the Philadelphia,
and five smaller vessels, to reduce these piratical powers. Bainbridge
was promoted from the command of the Essex to the Philadelphia, a fine
thirty-eight-gun frigate, carrying a few more than three hundred men.
Her first lieutenant was David Porter, who, as a young midshipman, had
distinguished himself in the Constellation under Captain Truxtun, and
who was destined to a highly honorable and active career during the
whole time of his service in the navy.
The Philadelphia arrived at Gibraltar in August, 1803, and the next day
began to cruise up and down the straits in search of corsairs. In a
day or two she fell in with a Moorish vessel, the Meshboha, in company
with an American brig which had been captured, and her company taken
aboard the Meshboha. The Philadelphia stood by, and forced the Moorish
captain, Lubarez, to send all his prisoners to the Philadelphia, and to
come aboard himself. Bainbridge invited him into the cabin, and feeling
sure that he had orders to capture American ships, directed him to
produce these orders. Lubarez stoutly denied he had any such orders.
"Very well," coolly responded Bainbridge, taking out his watch. "I am
now going on deck for half an hour. When I return, if you cannot show
your orders, I will immediately hang you at the yardarm for a pirate."
At the end of half an hour Bainbridge returned. Lubarez then sullenly
admitted he had orders, but they were inside his waistcoat.
"Take off your waistcoat," said Bainbridge.
Lubarez began slowly to remove his waistcoat; but another appeared
under it. He finally peeled off five waistcoats, and underneath the
last one were the orders. Bainbridge immediately took possession of the
Meshboha and her prize, and carried them both into Gibraltar.
In a few days Commodore Preble reached Gibraltar, and Bainbridge was
sent to Tripoli, with orders to intercept and capture every Tripolitan
vessel possible. He arrived before Tripoli, in the autumn of 1803,
and immediately began a vigorous blockade. On the 31st of October he
gave chase to a xebec trying to get into the harbor. He was rapidly
overhauling her, when, at the mouth of the harbor, the water suddenly
shoaled, and the Philadelphia ran upon a tremendous reef, known to the
Tripolitans, but not down on any chart.
At once every effort was made to get the ship off, but she held fast,
and soon heeled over so far to starboard that her guns on that side
became useless. The Tripolitans at once saw her desperate plight, and
gunboats came out in swarms to attack her. The Americans fought the
gunboats off as best they could, meanwhile working with amazing energy
to save the ship. All the water in her was pumped out, the anchors were
cut from the bows, most of her guns thrown overboard, and at last the
foremast was cut away. Still the ship stuck fast. Bainbridge, who had
shown great coolness and determination in the dreadful circumstances in
which he found himself, presently saw that he must give up the ship.
He called a council of his officers, and they agreed that all had been
done that men could do. The carpenters were ordered to scuttle the
ship; and just as the autumn night was closing in, the Philadelphia's
colors were hauled down, and the Tripolitans swarmed over the decks, in
the ports, and everywhere a foot could be set. Then looting began; the
officers being robbed of everything, even their swords and epaulets.
Bainbridge gave up his watch and money in dignified silence; but when
his wife's picture was about to be torn from around his neck, he swore
no man should have it, and fought the Tripolitan off who would have
taken it.
The officers and men were then carried into the town, where the
officers were received by the Bashaw in great state, surrounded by
his ministers. It is said that Bainbridge never looked handsomer or
more imposing than when he appeared at the head of his officers before
the barbaric prince. The Bashaw treated them with Eastern courtesy,
gave them a handsome supper, for they were half dead with hunger and
fatigue, and then sent them to a temporary prison. They were in charge
of Sidi Mohammed D'Ghies, one of the great officers of state, who
proved to be a man of good heart, and whose ideas of military honor
were Western rather than Eastern.
Then began a captivity which lasted for nineteen months. The men were
reduced to a position of slavery, and made to work for their Tripolitan
masters. The officers were closely confined, and after several attempts
at escape had been made by the younger ones, they were removed to the
dungeons of the Bashaw's castle.
The situation of Bainbridge was sad in the extreme. He felt himself
to be foredoomed to misfortune. He had lost his first ship, the
Retaliation, in the French war. His cruise in the George Washington
had been painful and humiliating in many respects; and now he had lost
one of the two frigates that the country depended upon to punish the
corsairs. A very affecting letter of his to his wife exists, in which
he seems plunged into despair; and in it he says he sometimes thinks
"it would have been a merciful dispensation of Providence if my head
had been shot off while our vessel lay rolling upon the rocks." But
from this sharp affliction his gallant spirit rallied after a time. His
officers and men felt undiminished confidence in and affection for him,
and did all in their power to comfort him.
The very day after their capture they sent him a letter saying, "We,
late officers of the United States frigate Philadelphia, wishing
to express our full approbation of your conduct concerning the
unfortunate event of yesterday, do conceive that the charts and
soundings justified as near an approach to the shore as we made, and
that after she struck every expedient was used to get her off and to
defend her which courage and abilities could dictate.
"We wish to add that in this instance as in every other, since we have
had the honor of being under your command, the officers and seamen
have always appreciated your distinguished conduct. Believe us, sir,
that our misfortunes and sorrows are entirely absorbed in our sympathy
for you. We are, sir, with sentiments of the highest and most sincere
respect, your friends and fellow sufferers."
Here follow the signatures of every officer under Bainbridge.
He soon received letters from Commodore Preble; and the brotherly
kindness expressed in them reflects the greatest honor upon a superior
officer who could feel so generously in an affair which crippled and
embarrassed him so cruelly as the loss of the Philadelphia. Preble
wrote: "May God bless and preserve you! Recollect that destiny, not
want of courage, has deprived you of liberty, _but not of honor_." And
he adds, "The first consul of France, the celebrated Bonaparte, has
interested himself deeply in your situation."
To the chagrin of the Americans, they found that the Philadelphia had
not been thoroughly scuttled, and she was hauled off the rocks by the
Tripolitans, the holes in her bottom stopped, her foremast refitted,
her guns and anchors fished up, and she was towed within the harbor.
From the one window of their underground prison, the unfortunate
officers of the Philadelphia could see the ship riding at anchor, and
disgraced by the pirate flag of Tripoli.
The captives were allowed to communicate at intervals with Commodore
Preble, who gave them assurance that they were not forgotten, and that
the Bashaw would have to surrender them and pay dearly for having
imprisoned them. Besides these official communications, means were
found by which letters written in lemon juice were exchanged, and in
one of these Bainbridge suggested the possibility of destroying the
Philadelphia at her moorings,--which was afterward carried out with
splendid dash by Decatur.
In spite of those alleviations, there were long months of weariness and
dreariness in a peculiarly trying captivity. The time was not wholly
wasted. The midshipmen, whose untamed spirits frequently got them
into difficulties, were set to work by the older officers, and all,
men as well as officers, bore their imprisonment with fortitude. The
seamen were made to labor on the fortifications; and as they were often
unruly, the slave-drivers had no hesitation in ordering them to be
bastinadoed on every occasion. The man who administered the punishment
was not so hard-hearted as his masters, and although he regularly laid
on the required number of blows upon the soles of the sailors' feet, he
winked at the fact that they had wrapped folds of matting around their
feet, and the blows hurt not at all. The sailors were clever enough to
shriek and scream during this mock bastinadoing, and the slave-drivers
were completely deceived by Jack's ruse.
At last, on the night of the 15th of February, 1804, the captives were
awakened by the firing of heavy guns. By the light of a brilliant moon
and the blazing hull and spars of the Philadelphia out in the harbor,
they saw the destruction of the ship by Decatur[2] and his gallant
band. While they watched her burn to the water's edge, her shotted guns
burst with heat and flame, her magazine blew up, and when the sun rose
next morning, not a vestige remained of the lovely frigate. She had
been destroyed by the Americans under Decatur, without the loss of a
single man.
This gave heart to the prisoners, and they felt their deliverance was
at hand; but it was not until the spring had passed and the summer
dragged along into August that one day they were roused by a heavy
cannonade. They were then confined underground in the Bashaw's castle,
and there was only one window by which they could see the offing. They
eagerly clambered up, and the thrill of joy they felt may be imagined
when they saw a smart flotilla of small vessels, led with the greatest
dash and impetuosity by Decatur and Somers, burning, sinking, or
driving back the Tripolitan gunboats. And farther out in the offing,
they saw the glorious Constitution coming into action in grand style,
choosing her range with majestic deliberation, and then her batteries
roaring out destruction to her enemies, while the Tripolitan shot fell
short, or dropped harmlessly against her stout sides.
For six weeks the attack was kept up furiously, and in that time five
tremendous assaults were made by Commodore Preble's squadron. In one of
these destructive cannonades a round shot from the Constitution tore in
at the one window from which a part of the harbor could be seen, and,
narrowly missing Bainbridge, knocked him down and almost covered him
with the mass of stone and mortar it dislodged. But Bainbridge was not
the man to mind a trifle like this, and every time the Constitution
came within range, she was welcome to the tired eyes, and the thunder
of her well-served batteries was music to the ears of the imprisoned
Americans. They hoped from day to day for release, and although the
season for active operations closed before the Bashaw had actually
been reduced to submission, yet it was plain that the town could not
withstand another such cannonade.
When the Constitution was forced to depart, she left behind her a
menacing promise to the Bashaw that she would come back the next
season, and finish the work; and the last of May, 1805, saw her again
off the town. This time the Bashaw was anxious to make peace. Sidi
Mohammed D'Ghies urged him to send Bainbridge aboard the Constitution
on his parole, to see what the Americans demanded. The Bashaw asked
if Sidi really thought that Bainbridge would return if once his foot
touched the Constitution's deck.
"Certainly," replied Sidi; "the American captain will keep his word,
and I will leave my eldest son as a hostage that he will return."
The Bashaw, only half believing, allowed Bainbridge to go, and on
the 1st of June, 1805, nineteen months exactly after his capture,
Bainbridge again trod the deck of an American man-of-war. Commodore
Rodgers, commanding the Constitution, and all the officers of the
squadron received him affectionately. They had brought out a treaty
of peace for the Bashaw to sign, and the first stipulation was that
every American prisoner should be given up immediately and without
conditions. This, Bainbridge said, he did not believe the Bashaw would
ever agree to, as it was a fixed principle with the Barbary powers
never to give up a prisoner without ransom. Bainbridge returned to
the shore at nightfall, and, with Sidi, went to the castle, where
the Bashaw expressed great surprise at seeing him again. The Bashaw,
however, was far less inclined to keep up the fight than Bainbridge
imagined. After a day or two of hesitation, a council of war was held
at which Bainbridge was invited to be present,--an honor never before
bestowed upon a prisoner of the Barbary States. When Bainbridge entered
the council chamber at the castle, he found the Bashaw surrounded
by all of his great officers of state, with the treaty brought by
Commodore Rodgers spread out before them. To sign it meant peace, and
the immediate release of every American prisoner; to refuse it meant
that the Constitution and her consorts lying out within gunshot of the
town, would be thundering at their forts and ships within an hour.
The question of peace or war was debated with grave eloquence. The
council was evenly divided. At last the decision had to be made. The
Bashaw, after a solemn pause, took his signet ring from his bosom, and,
affixing it to the treaty, said with dignity,--
"It is peace."
Bainbridge is said to have thought, after the event happened, that the
Bashaw had no real intention of withstanding another bombardment, and
his hesitation and final yielding to the advocates of peace was a
preconcerted arrangement.
As soon as the treaty was signed, the forts and castle saluted the
American flag, and the squadron returned the salute. Next day the
American prisoners were released. A Neapolitan who had been held in
slavery for years by the Tripolitans had been very kind to the sailors
and marines, and they asked Bainbridge if he would authorize the purser
to advance them seven hundred dollars out of their pay to buy the
Neapolitan's freedom. This was done, and the man was restored to his
country by these grateful men.
The squadron sailed for Syracuse, where a court of inquiry into the
loss of the Philadelphia was held, and Bainbridge was honorably
acquitted. On his return to the United States he was received with
much kindness by his companions in arms, by the government, and the
people, all of whom regarded him as a brave and capable officer who had
lost his ship by one of those fateful accidents against which neither
courage nor capacity can prevail.