The American blue-jackets were now in no humor for trifling. Their blood was up, for they were indignant at such unheard-of treachery, and it looked as if there would be no question to settle about prisoners, for the reason that none of the Tripolitans would be left alive. But the polacca was by this time in a sinking condition, her mizzen-mast was shot away, her deck was slippery with blood, and the dead and wounded were lying about in heaps; and the Rais, Mahomet, himself wounded and disheartened, convinced that the time had come when neither ferocity nor fraud could help him, threw his flag into the sea and prostrated himself upon the rail, begging for quarter. Then Lieutenant Sterrett, who was as generous as he was gallant, ordered the firing to cease and took possession of the enemy. As the polacca could not be made a prize, the Americans cut away her masts, threw overboard her guns, and left her with the surviving fragment of her crew to make the best of her way back to Tripoli. Upon her arrival, the Pasha was so incensed at the news of her defeat that he had the Rais, wounded as he was, mounted on a jackass and paraded up and down the streets of the city, after which he was given five hundred blows of the bastinado. Such was the result of the first fight between the Americans and their piratical enemy, and it was a long time before the latter forgot the lesson. By the autumn of 1801 the terms of enlistment of Dale's crews having nearly expired, his ships were ordered home, and in the next spring a new squadron was sent out under Commodore Richard Morris, Congress having meantime passed an act that was to all intents a declaration of war. But the new commodore was not an energetic man, nor did he seem to concern himself much about what was to be done; and a whole year was passed by the squadron in fruitless cruises among the Mediterranean ports, sometimes convoying merchantmen, sometimes merely lying in harbor, but doing little or nothing against the enemy. At the end of this time the President found it necessary to replace Commodore Morris by a more active man; and in the summer of 1803 he was ordered home, and upon his arrival was dismissed the service.