Note p. 215 n. 1 — INDEX.

[119] Born in Maryland, 1779; died, 1820. Began service in the navy, 1798; distinguished himself against Tripoli in 1804; commanded the Atlantic squadron in 1812, and captured the British ship Macedonian; humbled the Barbary States in 1815; was navy commissioner from 1816 to 1820, when he was killed in a duel with Commodore Barron, who had been found by court-martial guilty of negligence in commanding the Chesapeake against the Leopard (§ 293).

[120] The Philadelphia, commanded by Captain Bainbridge, while pursuing a frigate of the enemy, ran upon a rock off the Tripolitan coast and was captured, along with her captain and crew, November 1, 1804. Attempts to liberate the prisoners failed, and they were not released for nearly two years. But Decatur, in the ketch Intrepid, ventured one dark night into the harbor of Tripoli and destroyed the Philadelphia, under the fire of the enemy’s batteries.

[121] Jefferson had long been friendly to France and more or less hostile to Great Britain, but when he heard that the former power had acquired Louisiana, he wrote: “The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water mark. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.”

[122] Among the people of the Northern states dueling was practically put a stop to by Hamilton’s death.

[123] The Chesapeake was taken by surprise, and Commodore Barron had no time to make an effective resistance.