George Hodge, the boatswain, a non-commissioned officer, suggested using the ship’s boats to try to float out the huge stern anchor a distance behind the ship, drop it, and then try to haul or warp the ship backwards. Ideally, the anchor’s giant triangular flukes would bury themselves in the sandy bottom; the men would turn the capstan to pull on the anchor cable. Bainbridge rejected his idea and later stated enemy gunboats “commanded the ground” where the anchor would have had to have been dropped. Hodge and many sailors privately grumbled that the effort was well worth the risk.
Now deeper into the afternoon, the officers regarded the situation as desperate. They suggested a radical move, and Bainbridge concurred: chop down the foremast. With topmast and topgallant perched above, this stout pole towered 176 feet. Bainbridge hoped it would fall to the right, and this would cure the ship’s tilt left or, even better, without the weight, the ship would float free. The carpenters wielded axe blows on the right side of the base; oak chips flew. They chopped it down, but the men hadn’t planned their tree-cutting well enough. The foremast fell to the left and, even worse, yanked the main topgallant mast with it. The decks tilted more. The bow was a mess of tangled ropes and shattered masts.
Around 3 P.M. Bainbridge yet again called all his officers together to consult on the situation. (At this time, Ray observed three more gunboats just leaving the harbor, which would have brought his total to six potential attacking vessels.) Bainbridge saw the decision in stark terms: surrender or fight against overwhelming odds, with scant means of self-defense. (While the Tripoli ships might eventually prove overwhelming, up to that moment, not one cannonball had hit the deck of the Philadelphia, nor were any sailors killed or wounded.)
What many men aboard didn’t realize was that William Bainbridge had already surrendered a U.S. Navy ship; he had already gained the unwelcomed distinction of becoming the first officer in the history of the United States Navy (after the end of the War of Independence) to surrender.
A half decade earlier, back in 1798, the United States was fighting an undeclared war against France over commerce, mainly against Caribbean privateers. Bainbridge, then a twenty-four-year-old lieutenant, was given command of the Retaliation, eighteen guns, and 140 men, joining a small squadron of three American ships off Guadeloupe. Commodore Alexander Murray was chasing a French privateer when on the morning of November 20, 1798, he reconnoitered with Bainbridge. They spotted two large sails in the distance. Murray consulted Bainbridge, who informed him that he had spoken earlier with a British warship, and he was convinced these two arriving ships were also British, then our ally.
Murray in the Montezuma sailed off after a French privateer, leaving Bainbridge in the Retaliation, who headed in the direction of the arriving sails. He gave the flag signal agreed upon for encountering British ships. No answer. He drifted closer. He gave the signal for American ships and received a muddled answer.
By now, the large frigates were bearing down upon him. The first ship, 36 guns, fired across his bow and hoisted the tricolor of Revolutionary France. The second ship, a 44-gun leviathan, arrived, and Commodore St. Laurent of the Voluntaire demanded that Bainbridge surrender. Without firing a shot, after having carelessly sidled up to unknown ships, William Bainbridge ordered the Stars and Stripes to be lowered, and he surrendered.
The men aboard the Philadelphia also might not have been aware of another stain on Bainbridge’s navy record. After being released from prison in Guadeloupe, Bainbridge had somehow avoided censure and was made a captain and sent on a mission commanding the George Washington to deliver naval supplies and other tributary gifts to Algiers in 1800. Bainbridge navigated across the Atlantic without incident, but once in Algiers he allowed the harbor pilot to guide him to a berth directly under the massive guns of the fortress. The Dey of Algiers then arrogantly demanded that Bainbridge run an errand for him, carrying presents to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul. Bainbridge objected, as did the American consul, Richard O’Brien, who pointed out the Algiers–United States treaty called for American merchant vessels to run emergency errands but certainly not U.S. Navy ships. The Dey threatened war.
With George Washington tucked under the massive guns of Dey Bobba Mustapha, Bainbridge felt himself constrained to agree to run the Dey’s errand. To add insult to injury, the Dey demanded George Washington sail under the Algerian flag. Bainbridge agreed to this as well, and the 100-foot-long American pennant was struck. As a midshipman noted in the ship’s log: “The Algerian Flag hoisted on the Main top Gallant royal mast head [the ship’s highest point] . . . some tears fell at this Instance of national Humility.”