At Syracuse Preble learned the full extent of the disaster. The fine frigate had been run aground off Tripoli. Captain Bainbridge, discouraged by his ill fortune, had surrendered too quickly. Three hundred and fifteen of our officers and men had been led ashore in triumph. In his haste Bainbridge had not even taken effective measures to destroy his own ship. She was floated and brought into the harbor of Tripoli. Her guns were fished out of the water and remounted. She was manned with a strong Tripolitan crew. Thus she contributed to the strength of the defenses, and constituted a threat to every merchant vessel in the Mediterranean. Gloomy were the thoughts of poor Bainbridge as he viewed these developments from his prison window. Preble was not the man to worry over past disasters. He was concerned with future successes. How could he counteract, in part at least, the loss of the _Philadelphia_? There was no direct method for rescuing the crew. But there might be a chance to regain the ship, or at least destroy her so that the enemy could not use her. Bainbridge, through the connivance of the Danish consul at Tripoli, had suggested that she be attacked by a party of men secreted in the hold of a merchant vessel. The capture of a Tripolitan ketch provided the means of carrying through this daring plan. The next essential item was a cool and daring commander. The commodore invited to this post of honor and danger Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, then in command of the _Enterprise_. To this young officer might well be applied a sentence from Plutarch: “Being ever thirsty after honor, and passionate for glory, if anything of a greater or extraordinary nature was to be done, he was eager to be the doer of it himself.” Decatur eagerly accepted his commodore’s invitation. Once the squadron got wind of the venture and of the commander selected, there was no lack of volunteers. Decatur naturally gave first choice to the people in his own ship. Five of her officers and sixty-two of her sailors shifted over to the ketch. This was formally commissioned and appropriately renamed _Intrepid_. Five midshipmen from the _Constitution_ completed the complement. Last, but by no means least, was a brave Sicilian pilot, Salvador Catalano.