Decatur's squadron was the first to sail, leaving New York on May 20, 1815. He had ten vessels in all, his flag-ship being the forty-four-gun frigate _Guerrière_, and his officers and crew being all seasoned veterans of the war with England. The fleet of the Dey of Algiers, however, was no mean foe. It consisted of twelve vessels, well armed and manned, six sloops, five frigates, and one schooner. Its admiral was a very remarkable man, one of the fierce tribe of Kabyles from the mountains, Reis Hammida by name, who had made himself the scourge of the Mediterranean. He had plenty of reckless courage; once he had boarded and captured in broad daylight a Portuguese frigate under the very cliffs of Gibraltar, and at another time, being in command of three Algerine frigates, had dared to attack a Portuguese ship of the line and three frigates, in face of the guns leveled at him from the Rock of Lisbon, directly opposite. The city of Algiers itself was one of the best fortified ports on the Mediterranean. It lay in the form of a triangle, one side extending along the sea, while the other two rose against a hill, meeting at the top at the Casbah, the historic fortress of the Deys. The city was guarded by very thick walls, mounted with many guns, and the harbor, made by a long mole, was commanded by heavy batteries, so that at least five hundred pieces of cannon could be brought to bear on any hostile ships trying to enter. Decatur's fleet was only a few days out of New York when it ran into a heavy gale, and the wooden ships were badly tossed about. The _Firefly_, a twelve-gun brig, sprung her masts, and had to put back to port. The other ships rode out the storm, and kept on their course to the Azores, keeping a sharp watch for any suspicious-looking craft. As they neared the coast of Portugal the vigilance was redoubled, for here was a favorite hunting-ground of Reis Hammida, and Decatur knew what the Algerine admiral had done before the Rock of Lisbon. They found no trace of the enemy here, however. At Cadiz Decatur sent a messenger to the American consul, who informed him that three Algerine frigates and some smaller ships had been spoken in the Atlantic Ocean, but were thought to have returned to the Mediterranean. Decatur wanted to take the enemy by surprise, and so sailed cautiously to Tangier, where he learned that two days earlier Reis Hammida had gone through the Straits of Gibraltar in the forty-six-gun frigate _Mashuda_. The American captain at once set sail for Gibraltar, and found out there that the wily Algerine was lying off Cape Gata, having demanded that Spain should pay him half a million dollars of tribute money to protect her coast-towns from attack by his fleet.