Decatur had no hope whatsoever of sailing away. The castle cannons began shooting; a ball pierced his topgallant sail.
Decatur ordered two oared boats in the water, with tow ropes tied to the Mastico/Intrepid. The men literally pulled for their lives, hauling the ship inches, feet, yards away from the burning Philadelphia and toward the mouth of the harbor. Meanwhile, as the men rowed, they heard an enormous broadside. Many of the forty-four cannons of the Philadelphia were mounted and loaded with powder and shot; the flames ignited the charges and sent cannonballs hurtling toward the town. The fat anchor cable soon burned through, and the vessel flambé began to drift deeper into the harbor and toward the Bashaw’s castle.
The Americans pulled harder to escape. In freshening winds and choppy surf, they pulled for almost two hours before reaching the edge of the harbor. There, in the dark, they stumbled onto another boat. They were stunned and ready to attack until they realized it was the Siren’s boat come to help.
Sometime after midnight, the two ships rendezvoused, along with the small boats, and sailed back toward Syracuse. Not a single man was killed, only one slightly wounded. They could see Philadelphia burning for miles.
From the letters of the Dutch consul Antoine Zuchet, there emerges a view from inside Tripoli looking out to the harbor, and, more particularly, an intimate glimpse of how the Bashaw reacted to the raid.
“The Americans have just partially erased the shame of Captain Bainbridge’s easy surrender of the frigate Philadelphia,” wrote Zuchet to the foreign ministry in Amsterdam.
It was the evening on the Feb. 16 around 10 P.M. that by a very determined bravery they burned the frigate that was anchored in the middle of the harbor. Despite all efforts, the Bashaw could not slow the voracity of the flames which continued for 36 hours, leaving almost no remnant of the incineration.
Into what fits of rage did this gallant enterprise throw the Bashaw; it was necessary that this prince unleash his fury on someone. So it was the poor artillerymen [of the castle cannons] who felt the sad effects of his rage. He beat them upside down and sideways; except those lucky ones who dared to seek refuge in the mosques.
The Bashaw . . . who had preened over the capture and had expected to use the frigate to lay down the law to the entire universe, was deeply hit by this misfortune; but his political side required him to try to hide his chagrin and he forced himself, as much as he could, to try to show indifference over the loss, saying that it was only a punishment of Heaven and had nothing to do with the valor of his enemies.
The American officers who a few days prior to the burning of the frigate had been allowed to walk in the countryside . . . were once again confined in their prison, and their guard was doubled and soldiers were posted on the roof of their building. Yussef, still not satisfied with these precautions, commissioned a new prison house built inside his castle; he ordered an iron grill placed at roof level over the [tall] interior courtyard. He apparently fears that, in imitation of Daedalus, they might escape by flying away upon the air.
While the officers lost promenade privileges, the crew suffered much more in the wake of the raid. “Early in the morning and much earlier than usual,” wrote Private Ray, “our prison doors were unbolted, and the keepers like so many fiends from the infernal regions, rushed in amongst us, and began to beat everyone they could see, spitting in our faces and hissing like serpents of hell. Word was soon brought that the wreck of the frigate Philadelphia lay on the rocks near the round fort, almost consumed by fire. We could not suppress our emotions, nor disguise our joy at the intelligence, which exasperated them more and more, so that every boy we met in the streets would spit on us and pelt us with stones; our tasks were doubled, our bread withheld, and every driver exercized cruelties tenfold more rigid and intolerable than before.”
Bashaw Yussef, receiving spy reports from Malta that the U.S. Navy was planning to bombard or even invade his city, stepped up his efforts to fortify Tripoli’s defenses. The crew of the Philadelphia, under the orders of Carpenter Godby, “who to court favour from the Turks struck several of our men,” worked at salvaging the metal work, bolts, spikes, copper sheathing, from the charred remains of the frigate. The Bashaw was growing desperate. Unable to locate enough lumber for shipbuilding, he ordered the town’s olive presses dismantled for planks for gunboats.
About two weeks after Decatur’s daring raid, the thirty American officers were marched through the prison yard of the crew on their way to their new unpleasant accommodations inside the castle. The guards ordered silence. “Captain Bainbridge, however, bid us be of good heart,” recalled Private Ray, “although he looked very much dejected himself.” (Bainbridge was indeed gaunt and emaciated despite access to a steady diet with meat.)