on the last day of October 1803, the U.S. frigate Philadelphia had been captured by Tripolitan forces.58 Three and a half months later, in the middle of February 1804, Commodore Stephen Decatur led a courageous expedition to destroy the Philadelphia in order to keep it from being turned against the United States.59 In British vice admiral Horatio Nelson’s view, Decatur’s mission was “the most bold and daring act of the age,”
