Lieutenant Sterrett, fought an action with the Tripolitan ship
Tripoli, of fourteen guns. The engagement lasted three hours,
when the Tripoli struck, having lost her mizzenmast, and with
twenty of her crew killed and thirty wounded. Sterrett, having no
orders to make captures, threw all the guns and ammunition of the
Tripoli overboard, cut away her remaining masts, and left her
with only one spar and a single sail to drift back to Tripoli, as
a hint to the Bashaw of the new American policy.

In 1803 the command of our fleet in the Mediterranean was taken
by Commodore Preble, who had just succeeded in forcing
satisfaction from Morocco for an attack made upon our merchantmen
by a vessel from Tangier. He also proclaimed a blockade of
Tripoli and was preparing to enforce it when the news reached him
that the frigate Philadelphia, forty-four guns, commanded by
Captain Bainbridge, and one of the best ships in our navy, had
gone upon a reef in the harbor of Tripoli, while pursuing a
vessel there, and had been surrounded and captured, with all her
crew, by the Tripolitan gunboats, when she was entirely helpless
either to fight or sail. This was a very serious blow to our navy
and to our operations against Tripoli. It not only weakened our
forces, but it was also a great help to the enemy. The
Tripolitans got the Philadelphia off the rocks, towed her into
the harbor, and anchored her close under the guns of their forts.
They also replaced her batteries, and prepared to make her ready
for sea, where she would have been a most formidable danger to
our shipping.

Under these circumstances Stephen Decatur, a young lieutenant in
command of the Enterprise, offered to Commodore Preble to go into