As the reader will remember, the Americans had a fleet in the Mediterranean, at that time, negotiating treaties with the Barbary pirates. It was in the days when the lucky schooner _Enterprise_ thrashed the pirate polacre _Tripoli_, losing not a man herself, but killing twenty of the enemy and wounding thirty more; when Stephen Decatur avenged the treacherous killing of his brother James in a hand-to-hand fight with the pirate murderer, and afterward burned the _Philadelphia_; when Somers went to his death in the fire-ship _Intrepid_. At the various civilized ports where the American ships called, the American officers fell in with the officers of the European navies. The Yankees had already shown somewhat of their skill as sea-warriors, but in the mind of the European officer they were at best mere plebeians. They were of the people. In short, in the mind of the European officer, they were not gentlemen. The English officers were the chief aggressors in treating the Americans with contumely. Considering the state of civilization at that day, what was an American officer to do? On a certain night in the month of February, 1803, while the _Chesapeake_, the _New York_, the _John Adams_, and the _Enterprise_ were lying at Malta, a number of the officers went ashore to spend the evening. Eventually they gathered at the theatre. While a number of them stood in the lobby there, the secretary of the Governor came in with some friends. He was of mature years and a noted duellist of that day--had killed a number of men, in fact--and his mission in the theatre was to get a fight with one of the Yankee officers. He had openly boasted, it is said, that he would “have a Yankee for breakfast” the next day. Looking over the group, he selected one of the youngest, Midshipman Joseph Bainbridge, for his victim, and on walking past the group jostled him. As it happened, Bainbridge was at that moment speaking to a shipmate and was taken wholly by surprise. Having no idea that anyone would wilfully seek a deadly quarrel, his first impression was that the jostling was accidental. Nevertheless, when the secretary walked away with a jaunty air, Bainbridge suspected that an insult had been intended, and he was just speaking to his shipmates about it when Lieutenant Stephen Decatur happened along. Decatur had had experience in such matters, and Bainbridge at once stated the case to him. “We’ll very soon learn whether it was an accident or an insult,” said Decatur, and he was turning away to go in search of the offender when the fellow came past the group from behind Decatur. As he arrived beside young Bainbridge, the duellist said, in a voice that all could hear: “Those Yankees will never stand the smell of gunpowder.” Then he jostled the youngster again and started on, but before he could take a second step he received a blow from the Yankee’s fist that knocked him sprawling.