The Shining Sea (7 page)

D
AVID
P
ORTER WAS ANXIOUS TO DISTINGUISH HIMSELF IN
Tripoli, and Bainbridge was as well. But Bainbridge's desire was far stronger than his first lieutenant's. Unlike Porter, whose career had been marked by continuous success, Bainbridge's, at least in his own estimation, had been a failure. His first disappointment had come on November 20, 1798, at the start of the Quasi-War. Then a lieutenant, Bainbridge, captain of the armed schooner
Retaliation
, was sailing off Guadeloupe with the sloop of war
Montezuma
(Commodore Alexander Murray) and the 18-gun brig
Norfolk
(Captain Thomas Williams). Suddenly, several sail were spotted. Two in the west appeared to be French. The
Montezuma
and
Norfolk
went after them, while Bainbridge in the
Retaliation
approached two in the east, who appeared to be friendly British cruisers. As Bainbridge got closer, however, he discovered that he'd made a dreadful mistake. The strangers were not British, but powerful French warships—the 40-gun frigate
L'Insurgente
and the 44-gun
Volontier. L'Insurgente
immediately sent up the French flag and opened fire, while the
Volontier
pulled alongside the
Retaliation
and ordered Bainbridge to haul down his colors. He had no choice but to comply. The French took the
Retaliation
, with Bainbridge and his crew aboard, to
Basse-Terre, the capital of Guadeloupe, and put them in prison for a time before exchanging them.

Bainbridge was understandably chagrined at being forced to surrender the
Retaliation
without a fight, but he was soon absolved of any blame and promoted to master commandant. Nonetheless, his failure to elude the French frigates or to fight them, rankled, and he yearned for a chance to wipe away the embarrassment by winning an important victory. He was given the opportunity when he was sent back into the fight against France as skipper of the
Norfolk.
He had some success with her—enough to get him promoted to captain on May 2, 1800—but it wasn't nearly enough for him; he wanted far more.

That was not to be, however. Immediately after receiving his promotion to captain, he was assigned the miserable duty of carrying tribute to the Dey of Algiers in accordance with a treaty signed with the pirate state in 1796. Bainbridge sailed to Algeria in the 24-gun
George Washington—
the first American warship to sail past Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean. Instead of simply delivering the tribute, Bainbridge sailed into the harbor at Algiers and put the
George Washington
within reach of the port's guns. It was a tactical error that gave the dey an opportunity to force Bainbridge into carrying gifts to the dey's master, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople. The sultan was unhappy with the dey for making an untimely peace with France, and the dey was anxious to appease him. He compelled Bainbridge to fly the Algerian flag at the
George Washington
's main while he sailed to Constantinople. It was a humiliation for Bainbridge and for his country, one that disturbed him far more than having to surrender the
Retaliation
. Fortunately for Bainbridge, Jefferson did not share his chagrin, and, believing that, given the circumstances, Bainbridge had acted wisely, the president did not even consider reprimanding him. In fact, he praised Bainbridge for his good judgment.

Soon after, Bainbridge became involved in the war with Tripoli as skipper of the
Essex
. He had a great desire to achieve the sort of distinction that would make up for what he considered his failure in Algeria. Sailing in company with the
Philadelphia
(Captain Samuel Barron) he looked into the harbor at Tripoli on September 28. In surveying the city, Bainbridge thought “it had a mean appearance, [looking] little better than a village. Their fortifications appear to cover a good deal of ground; it shows but
few guns and apparently is slightly built.” Little happened on this occasion for him to distinguish himself, and that remained the case until Preble gave him command of the
Philadelphia
and ordered him to blockade Tripoli. Bainbridge hoped the new assignment would be the means of ridding himself of the humiliation he continued to feel.

T
HE
P
HILADELPHIA
AND THE
V
IXEN
ARRIVED OFF
T
RIPOLI
on October 7, 1803. The city's fortifications appeared much improved since Bainbridge first viewed them in 1801, but he saw nothing that would deter him. He wanted action right away, and so, of course, did Porter. The Tripolitans refused to accommodate them, however, keeping well clear of the powerful American warships. Bainbridge and his first mate became increasingly frustrated. “Made the coast of Tripoli on the 7th,” he grumbled to Preble, “and have remained on this solitary station without the good fortune of seeing our enemies except under the refuge of well fortified works.”

Aggravated by the inactivity and wanting to make some move before Preble arrived with the rest of the squadron, Bainbridge on October 19 sent the
Vixen
to patrol off Cape Bon Peninsula at the northeastern tip of Tunisia. There had been vague rumors of a Tripolitan warship in that area and American commerce being threatened.
“My motives of ordering her off Cape Bon,” he explained to Preble, were “to grant more efficient protection to our commerce, than I would by keeping her with me.” It was a decision Bainbridge and Porter would deeply regret.

As the days went by, Bainbridge's annoyance at the inaction mounted. He kept searching for any opportunity—however small—to attack the enemy. On October 31 he saw his chance.
“At 9 A.M., about five leagues eastward of Tripoli, [I] saw a ship in shore of us,” he reported, “standing before the wind to the westward.” She was obviously a Tripolitan vessel, sailing in waters honeycombed with shoals, sandbars, hidden rocks, and ledges. In spite of the dangers, Bainbridge gave chase with three leads continuously chanting soundings. His prey hoisted Tripolitan colors and continued on her course close to shore.
“About 11 o'clock [I] had approached the shore to 7 fathoms of water, [and] commenced firing at her, which we continued by running before the wind until half past 11, being then in 7 fathoms water and finding our fire ineffectual to prevent her
from getting into Tripoli, gave up the pursuit and was beating off the land when we ran on the rocks in 12 feet of water,” he reported. An instant before grounding, Bainbridge, suddenly aware of the danger, ordered the helm put hard-a-port and the yards sharp braced. But it was too late. The frigate, making eight knots, ground to a halt in deep sand and rock on Kaliusa Reef—well-known to locals but not to Bainbridge, Porter, or any other officer. When the ship struck, Porter was half way up the mizzen rigging. The sudden jolt made him reverse course and return immediately to the quarterdeck, where he remained close to Bainbridge.

They both recognized that the
Philadelphia
was in serious danger. And she was alone; the
Vixen
was not around to help. She would have been of great service. “Had I not sent the schooner from us,” Bainbridge wrote to Preble, “the accident might have been prevented: if not, we should have been able to have extricated ourselves.”

Reacting quickly, Bainbridge, at Porter's urging, threw on all sails, hoping to move the ship forward into deeper water ahead, but all they succeeded in doing was planting her more firmly on the reef. The Tripolitans, in the meantime, had been studying the frigate's predicament, and they dispatched nine gunboats to assess the possibility of attacking her. They approached cautiously, of course. The
Philadelphia
could still sink them all fast.

As the enemy gunboats slowly closed in, Bainbridge asked Porter's opinion on what to do. He suggested that all the officers be consulted, and Bainbridge agreed. They advised lowering a boat to explore the depth of water in the immediate vicinity, which was done. Finding that the deepest water was astern, the officers urged Bainbridge to back the ship off, which he attempted to do by running the guns abaft, laying all the sails aback, loosening the topgallant sails, and setting a heavy press of canvas, hoping the wind would push the ship off the reef. But she did not budge. As a last desperate measure, a second council of officers advised cutting away the foremast, which Bainbridge did as well. As expected, the main topgallant mast toppled with it. But again, the
Philadelphia
would not move. Towing her off with the ship's boats, or using ketch anchors to accomplish the same thing was impractical; she was too deeply embedded, and the captain feared that the Tripolitan gunboats—getting closer all the time—would shoot the boat crews working the ketch anchors.

With Porter continuing to advise him, Bainbridge next cast three anchors off from the bows, started the water in the hold, and hove the big guns overboard, reserving only enough to resist the gunboats, which by now were firing on the ship. Nothing worked. Part of the stern was then cut away to allow the remaining guns to bear on the Tripolitan attackers, but that did not work either.

Four hours went by in this desperate struggle to free the ship, which had now heeled over to port. Porter described Bainbridge as acting during the entire time with “great coolness and deliberation.” Their situation was now desperate. Enemy gunboats were becoming bolder. They took up positions on the
Philadelphia
's starboard side, where they pummeled the helpless frigate with eighteen and twenty-four pounders, without the
Philadelphia
being able to reply. Her remaining guns on that side could only fire into the water.

It was now four P.M., and Bainbridge saw no hope of either getting the ship off the reef or fighting off the gunboats. At this moment of supreme peril, he called another meeting of officers—hardly unusual, even for the bravest, most self-assured skippers. Truxtun made it a practice to call them in extreme emergencies to decide or approve a course of action. John Paul Jones had done the same. So, for that matter, had George Washington. In fact, Bainbridge had been consulting right along, but now the fateful decision to surrender or fight to the death had to be made before the gunboats blew up the ship and killed all aboard, something the Tripolitans probably did not want to do, but might do inadvertently.

After laying out the options, Bainbridge, with a heavy heart, proposed to surrender the frigate rather than fight to the death, and Porter supported him. So did the others. Later, Porter would explain that Bainbridge had “coolly and prudently called a council of his officers who were unanimously of opinion that to save the lives of the brave crew there was no alternative but to haul the colors down and with tears in his eyes did that truly brave man submit to painful necessity.”

“In such a dilemma, too painful to relate, the flag of the United States was struck,” Bainbridge reported to Preble. Both Porter and Bainbridge were convinced that the only realistic alternative to putting themselves and their crew into the hands of the enemy was to blow up the ship. But neither Bainbridge nor Porter ever considered doing this. “Some fanatics,”
Bainbridge told Preble, “may say that blowing the ship up would have been the proper result. I thought such conduct would not stand acquitted before God or man, and I never presumed to think I had the liberty of putting to death the lives of 306 souls because they were placed under my command.”

Before surrendering, Bainbridge ordered all the arms thrown overboard, the magazine drowned, and the signal books and everything else of value to the enemy destroyed. He also ordered the ship's carpenter to smash the pumps, bore holes in the hull, and scuttle the ship. He forgot to get rid of his personal papers, however, which the bashaw eventually retrieved and gleaned important information from, particularly about Preble's fleet.

Unfortunately, Bainbridge's humiliations were not over. The Tripolitans did not react to the colors coming down, so he was forced to send Porter and Midshipman James Biddle over to the gunboats under a white flag of truce and inform them that the
Philadelphia
had surrendered. When the two officers pulled alongside the lead gunboat, “Nearly twenty men of ferocious appearance, armed with sabers, pistols and muskets, jumped into the boat and at once commenced their work of insult and plunder,” Porter reported. “Two of them snatched Mr. Biddle's sword, pulled off his coat, and began to fight for it, until at length, probably to decide their dispute, they returned it to him. His cravats were violently torn from his neck, his waistcoat and shirt opened, and his breast exposed, for the purpose, as he very naturally inferred, of perpetuating their horrid vengeance, though their intention, it appeared, was only to search for valuables that he might have concealed about his person. They searched all his pockets and took all his papers and money, except twenty dollars in gold which he had slipped into his boots and thereby secured.”

Around six P.M., the Tripolitans swarmed aboard the frigate, robbing the sailors and officers of everything except the clothes on their backs—and they even ripped off some of those. During the evening, when they could plunder no more, the Tripolitans dragged the officers and crew ashore to the palace gates. The bashaw was understandably pleased to see them, for they represented a great deal of ransom money.

To add to Porter's misery and shame, the
Philadelphia
did not sink. The ship's carpenter had not succeeded in scuttling her. The pumps,
which were supposed to have been made inoperable, actually continued working. The Tripolitans stopped up the holes. The frigate remained where she was, heeled over to port, stuck on the reef. But forty hours later, her tragedy was compounded immeasurably when a strong westerly wind brought on a violent storm and a high sea that allowed the Tripolitans, after a mighty effort, to float her off the reef and bring her into Tripoli Harbor, where they repaired her. The frigate's guns were also retrieved, and when cleaned (which they easily were), the bashaw had a fearsome 36-gun warship to sell or operate, as he chose, along with 307 Americans to ransom.