The story of the most stirring and the most unfortunate attack on the city remains to be told. Captain Preble, “desirous of annoying the enemy by all means,” decided to send a fireship among their shipping. The ketch _Intrepid_, that had served so well in the attack upon the captured _Philadelphia_, was selected for the sacrifice. A hundred barrels of powder in bulk and 150 fixed shells and a lot of old iron were placed in a bin amidships, and from this a pipe led to a room well aft, where a huge mass of combustibles was placed. It was intended to handle the ketch as a blockade runner and so get her into the midst of the enemy’s shipping. She was then to be fired in the after-room, and the blaze there, it was supposed, would be fierce enough to prevent the Tripolitans extinguishing it. Meantime a train regulated to burn fifteen minutes would be running through the pipe to the magazine. Two swift rowboats were placed on the ketch, and in these her crew hoped to escape to the smaller vessels that would be in waiting to pick them up. [Illustration: Map of the HARBOR OF TRIPOLI, Showing where the Philadelphia grounded and where burned and where Intrepid was blown up. ] The glory which Decatur and his men had won in their attacks on the _Philadelphia_ had inspired the whole force of the fleet, and volunteers a-plenty were eager to man the ketch. Of those who offered, Master Commandant Richard Somers was chosen to command, while Midshipman Henry Wadsworth was made second, with ten seamen for a crew. In addition to these was a stowaway--Midshipman Joseph Israel. He had pleaded in vain for permission to go, and so hid on board. He was discovered, but was then allowed to go. Every man of the crew knew very well the great danger of the venture, and Somers and his officers declared they would not be taken alive. Somers, before starting, took off a ring he wore and, breaking it into three pieces, gave one to Decatur, another to Master Commandant Charles Stewart, his most intimate friends. He kept the third himself. The two pieces given away were to be preserved as mementoes if he failed to return. The seamen of the crew disposed of their effects as if facing certain death. It was on the night of September 4, 1804, that the attempt was made. A fog lay low over the water, and a fair wind filled the sails as the ketch, at 8 o’clock, left the flagship and sailed away silently into the night. A little later the _Argus_, the _Vixen_, and the _Nautilus_, all small cruisers, stood over toward the channel in order to cover the retreat of the ketch, for three Tripolitan gunboats had anchored there during the afternoon and were likely to make trouble for the ketch’s crew. The _Nautilus_ led the way for the guarding fleet, and she held the ketch in view until so near the channel that there was danger that she (the _Nautilus_) would be discovered, when she hauled her wind to await the event of the expedition.