Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-10-24

the fire in the burning frigate reached
her batteries. By a strange freak of
the wind, the flaming hull was shift
ed around and poured terrific broad
side into the town-the American
warship's almost human retaliation
upon her hated captors. From their
prison windows Captain Bainbridge
and the 800 men who had been cap
tured on that once proud ship watched
with mingled joy and grief the work
of destruction. At least, the Phila-
delphia would not serve as the enc
my's slave.
In a veritable rain of shot and shell
that sent brilliant jets OF illumined
water all about her, the Intrepid
dashed out OF the harbor, joined the
Siren and set sail for Syracuse. She
had not lost a single man, and only
one member of her crew had need for
the surgeons aid. The Tripolitans
lost twenty men. in addition to those
unnumbered victims who had retreat
ed to the depths of the burning ship.
When the story of the adventure was
told abroad the pirate nations along
the northern coast of Africa sat up
in wild-eyed amazement. This was
not the sort of thing they had been
accustomed to. The war had dragged
along for almost three years and nolh-
ing much had happened. They be-
gan to ask who this Stephen Decatur
was, and little while later they had
a reply when one of their command
ing officers, under pretense of sur
render, boarded the ship commanded
by Decatur's brother and murdered
him. No sooner had the news of this
dastardly act come to the newly ap-
pointed captain than he made off for
his dead brothers ship, engaged the
murderous Turk in a hand-to-hand
fight. bore him, struggling and plead
ing for mercy, to the deck and ran
him through with his short sword, the
only weapon he happened to have at
hand when the death of his brother
wag reported to him.
Without waiting to wash the blood
from his hands, he gave orders for
the occupation of the Turks ship, and
that night he joined the American
fleet with two captured vessels. And
these were not all of his feats of dar-
that set all Europe
by the ears. Indeed, America was
given greater prestige by the achieve
ments of her infant navy in the Med
iterranean than by any other measure
of peace or war in her entire his
tory. The Importance of these bril-
liant battles can be somewhat under
stood when we remember that in the
latter days of 1900 the George Wash
ington slipped into the harbor Of
Constantinople without passports be-
cause she was mistaken for some sort
Of native craft, enveloped as she was
in a cloud of smoke from the guns
that had fired her salute.
The officer who came aboard to ask
under what flag the George Wash
ington sailed looked puzzled when he
was informed that she sailed under
her own flag. He carried the message
to the war department. and returned
in a few minutes to say his govern
ment had never heard of such coun-
try as the United States. and 1t was
only when Captain cambridge replied
that she belonged to the New World,
the land discovered by Columbus, the
young nation that had won a signal
victory over England in its struggle
for liberty, that the Turkish govern
ment was able to place" the United
States among the nations of the
world.-St. Louis Post-Dispatch.