Tripoli was a feeble Power, and without much effort could be watched and blockaded; but if the other governments on the coast should make common cause against the United States, the task of dealing with them was not so easy. Morocco was especially dangerous, because its ports lay on the ocean, and could not be closed even by guarding the Straits. When Preble arrived, he found Morocco taking part with Tripoli. Captain Bainbridge, who reached Gibraltar in the “Philadelphia” August 24, some three weeks before Preble arrived, caught in the neighborhood a Moorish cruiser of 22 guns with an American brig in its clutches. Another American brig had just been seized at Mogador. Determined to stop this peril at the outset, Preble united to his own squadron the ships which he had come to relieve, and with this combined force,--the “Constitution,” 44; the “New York,” 36; the “John Adams,” 28; and the “Nautilus,” 14,--sending the “Philadelphia” to blockade Tripoli, he crossed to Tangiers October 6, and brought the Emperor of Morocco to reason. On both sides prizes and prisoners were restored, and the old treaty was renewed. This affair consumed time; and when at length Preble got the “Constitution” under way for the Tripolitan coast, he spoke a British frigate off the Island of Sardinia, which reported that the “Philadelphia” had been captured October 21, more than three weeks before. The loss greatly embarrassed Preble. The “Philadelphia” was, next to the “Constitution,” his strongest ship. Indeed he had nothing else but his own frigate and small brigs of two and three hundred tons; but the accident was such as could not fail sometimes to happen, especially to active commanders. Bainbridge, cruising off Tripoli, had chased a Tripolitan cruiser into shoal water, and was hauling off, when the frigate struck on a reef at the mouth of the harbor. Every effort was made without success to float her; but at last she was surrounded by Tripolitan gunboats, and Bainbridge struck his flag. The Tripolitans, after a few days’ work, floated the frigate, and brought her under the guns of the castle. The officers became prisoners of war, and the crew, in number three hundred or more, were put to hard labor.