Meantime Master Commandant Somers, finding he could not sail his boat inside of the reef by the route Decatur had taken, went down wind to the opposite end of the reef, and for a time faced five of the enemy’s boats. The other American gunboats came in later, and the enemy was driven off. The _Constitution_ (the flagship) and the smaller vessels of the American fleet sailed close under the enemy’s batteries, silencing them over and again, and bombarding the city. That the batteries were not permanently silenced was due to the fact that the Tripolitans had 25,000 soldiers within, and these remanned the guns of each battery as soon as the American ships ceased firing at it. So well did the Americans show their power here in hand-to-hand fights that thereafter the Tripolitans would never engage them in that way. And the manner in which the _Constitution_ was handled must also be mentioned, for she was sailed boldly into the harbor, and there sail was taken in or made as if it were a mere exhibition of skill in a friendly port, while her guns were handled with the precision of peaceful target practice. The admiration of all foreigners was excited, but the time when American naval crews were to compel the respect of all foreign powers had not yet arrived. In the subsequent attacks on the city, there were many incidents of interest to American readers. A heavy shot penetrated the castle one day where the American prisoners were confined. It covered Captain Bainbridge with the débris of the wall and snatched the clothes off the bed on which he was lying. While one of the American gunboats was firing on a shore battery, a hot shot penetrated her magazine and she was blown up. At the moment of the explosion Midshipman Robert T. Spence and a gun’s crew were loading the big gun on the bow. As it happened, the explosion did not injure either them or their gun, although it opened wide the bottom of the boat. And so it came to pass that, as the smoke cleared away, spectators saw Spence and his men still at work loading the gun. And not only did they complete their work; as the boat sank under them they gave three cheers for the flag, and fired their last shot at the enemy, with the rising water wetting their feet. [Illustration: The Battle of Tripoli, August 3, 1804. _From the painting by Corné, 1805, at the Naval Academy, Annapolis._] Spence was not able to swim, but he got hold of a big oar, and so kept afloat with eleven others until picked up, when he and the others saved turned to and continued the fight.