attempt we
have detailed. Lieutenant Stephen Decatur had volunteered to
make an effort to destroy the vessel, with the aid of a
recently-captured ketch, called the Mastico. This, renamed
the Intrepid, manned with a crew of seventy-six men, had
entered the harbor on the evening of February 3, 1804. What
followed, to the capture of the frigate, has been told. The
succeeding events remain to be detailed.

Doubtless Lieutenant Decatur would have attempted to carry
off the prize had it been possible. His orders, however,
were to destroy it, and the fact that there was not a sail
bent or a yard crossed left him no alternative. The command
was, therefore, at once given to pass up the combustibles
from the ketch. There was no time to be lost. The swimming
fugitives would quickly be in the town and the alarm given.
Every moment now was of value, for the place where they were
was commanded by the guns of the forts and of several armed
vessels anchored at no great distance, and they might look
for an assault the instant their character was determined.

With all haste, then, officers and men went to work. They
had been divided into squads, each with its own duty to
perform, and they acted with the utmost promptitude and
disciplined exactness. The men who descended with
combustibles to the cockpit and after-store-rooms had need
to haste, for fires were lighted over their heads before
they were through with their task. So rapidly did the flames
catch and spread that some of those on board had to make
their escape from between-decks by the forward ladders, the
after-part of the ship being already filled with smoke.

In twenty minutes from the time the Americans had taken
possession of the ship they were driven out of her by
flames, so rapidly had they spread. The vessel had become so
dry under those tropical suns that she burned like pine. By
the time the party which had been engaged in the store-rooms
reached the deck, most of the others were on board the
Intrepid. They joined them, and the order to cast off was
given. It was not an instant too soon, for the daring party
were just then in the most risky situation they had been in
that night.

The fire, in fact, had spread with such unexpected rapidity
that flames were already shooting from the port-holes. The
head fast was cast off, and the ketch fell astern. But the
stern fast became jammed and the boom foul, while the
ammunition of the party, covered only with a tarpaulin