and seizing everything valuable, snatching even from Bainbridge his epaulets, gloves, watch, and money when in the boat of his captors. It was ten at night when the 307 prisoners were landed at the town. The officers were very civilly received in state by the Pacha, given supper, and at one o’clock of the morning taken to the former American consulate, a house good enough in itself but almost destitute of furniture and other comforts. But for the kindness then shown by Mr. Nicholas C. Nissen, the Danish consul, then as ever an unswerving friend of American prisoners, their condition would have been greatly more trying. His name should be held in grateful remembrance. He did indeed receive the thanks of Congress and had the lasting gratitude of the officers of the _Philadelphia_, who, after their release, presented him in grateful recognition of his kindness with a handsome testimonial of silver. The men were confined in a warehouse much too small but were later transferred to a larger. They were set to various kinds of work, even to the building, as mentioned, of a fort which came to be known as the American fort and received much maltreatment, particularly after the burning of the _Philadelphia_ in the harbor, which soon came to pass. The ship had been floated largely through the influence of a northerly gale which had raised the water-level on the coast and had on November 5th been brought into the harbor. Her guns and anchors were weighed, the former mounted, and work begun to put the ship in order. It is seldom that the soul of man is more sorely tried than was that of her gallant captain when he became conscious of this success of the enemy. It was not until November 27th that Preble on his arrival at Malta received news confirming rumors of the _Philadelphia’s_ loss in letters from Bainbridge. In one of December 5, 1803, Bainbridge had suggested the destruction of the _Philadelphia_, an idea which naturally had already occurred to Preble. On December 17th the latter sailed for Tripoli, taking with him the _Enterprise_, commanded by Decatur, who captured on the way a ketch (or topsail schooner) named the _Mastico_, with a crew of seventy. It was this captured vessel, renamed the _Intrepid_, which was finally used in the coming adventure and has thus come down through more than a century in the list of famous ships.