Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/445

With the "Constitution," the only heavy frigate on the station after the loss of the "Philadelphia," and with half-a-dozen small brigs and schooners, Preble worked manfully at his task of annoying the Pacha of Tripoli. Three years' experience showed that a mere blockade answered no other purpose than to protect in part American commerce. It had not shaken the Pacha in the demand of black-mail as his condition of peace. Bainbridge, still held a prisoner in the town, believed that Jefferson must choose between paying what the Pacha asked, or sending eight or ten thousand men to attack him in his castle. Black-mail was the life of the small pirate rulers, and they could not abandon it without making a precedent fatal to themselves, and inviting insurrection from their subjects. Preble could only strike the coast with fear; and during the summer of 1804 he began a series of dashing assaults with the "Constitution," helped by four new craft,—the "Argus" and "Syren," fine sixteen-gun brigs; the "Nautilus" and "Vixen," fourteen-gun schooners; the "Enterprise," of twelve guns, and a captured Tripolitan brig of sixteen guns, re-named the "Scourge,"—all supported by eight small gunboats borrowed from the King of Naples who was also at war with Tripoli. Thus commanding a force of about one hundred and fifty guns, and more than a thousand men, August 3, carrying his flag-ship into the harbor, Preble engaged the Tripolitan batteries at very short range for two hours. Fortunately, the Mussulmans could not or did not depress their guns