, and her
officers became the lions of the hour, vastly to the disgust of the
Spaniards on the xebec lying in the same port. Accordingly they took
every opportunity to annoy the Americans, challenging the boats of the
"Essex" as they passed the xebec, and not scrupling to use abusive
language to Capt. Bainbridge himself. One night a boat, under command
of Lieut. Stephen Decatur, was brought under the guns of the xebec,
and held there while the Spaniards shouted insults from the deck
above. Decatur called for the officer in command, and remonstrated
with him, but receiving no satisfaction, ordered his men to shove off,
declaring he would call again in the morning.

Accordingly, in the forenoon of the following day, a boat from the
"Essex," with Decatur in the stern-sheets, made for the Spanish
vessel. Coming alongside, Decatur went on board, and asked for the
officer who had been in command the night previous. He was told that
the man he sought had gone ashore.

"Well, then," thundered Decatur, in tones that could be heard all over
the vessel, "tell him that Lieut. Decatur of the frigate 'Essex'
pronounces him a cowardly scoundrel, and when they meet on shore he
will cut his ears off." And having thrown this bombshell into the
enemy's camp, Decatur returned to his ship.

The duel was never fought, for the civil authorities bestirred
themselves to prevent it. But the matter was taken up by the United
States minister to Spain, who never permitted it to rest until the
fullest apology was made by Spain for the indignities to which the
American naval officers had been subjected.

After having collected a large number of merchantmen, and taken them
safely out of the reach of Tripolitan cruisers, the "Essex" showed her
colors in the chief Barbary ports, and rejoined the flag-ship in time
to return to the United States in December.

While the "Essex" had been thus pacificly employed, the little
schooner "Enterprise" had carried off the honors by fighting the first
and only pitched battle of the year. This little craft, after
accompanying the "President" to Algiers, was ordered to Malta. While
on the way thither she fell in with a polacre-rigged ship flying the
Tripolitan colors. Closer inspection showed her to be a notorious
corsair, well known for the constant and merciless warfare she waged
upon American merchantmen. The stars and stripes, floating at the peak
of the American man-of-war, alarmed the Moors, and they opene