Hull’s victory was not the result of accident, but of long and careful training.  He had begun his sea career in the merchant service at the age of fourteen, was a captain at the age of twenty, and entered the navy in 1798.  He soon gained a high reputation for seamanship, and his genius for handling a ship under all conditions was one of the most important factors in his success.  He saved his ship on one occasion, when she was becalmed and practically surrounded by a powerful British fleet, by “kedging”—­in other words, sending a row-boat out with an anchor, which was dropped as far ahead as the boat could take it, and the ship pulled up to it by means of the windlass.  As soon as the British saw him doing this, they tried it too, but Hull managed to get away from them by almost superhuman exertions.  He served in the navy for many years after his memorable victory over the Guerriere, but never achieved another so notable.

The second capture of a British frigate in the war of 1812 was made by Stephen Decatur, who had distinguished himself years before by an exploit which Lord Nelson called “the most daring act of the age.”  Decatur, who possessed in unusual degree the dash and brilliance so valuable in a naval commander, came naturally by his love of the sea, for his grandfather had been an officer in the French navy, and his father was a captain in the navy of the United States.

Entering the service at the age of eighteen, his first cruise was in the frigate, United States, which he was afterwards to command.  He rose steadily in the service and got his first command six years later, being given the sixteen-gun brig Argus, and sent with Commodore Preble to assist in subduing the Barbary corsairs.

It is difficult to-day to realize that there was a time when the United States paid tribute to anybody, more especially to a power so insignificant as the Barbary States.  Yet such was the fact.  Lying along the north coast of Africa were the half-civilized states of Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, and most of their income was from piracy.  All merchantmen were their prey; they divided the loot and sold the crews into slavery.  Many nations, to secure immunity from these outrages, paid a stated sum yearly to these powers, and the United States was one of them.

Why the nations did not join together and wipe the pirates out of existence is difficult to understand, but so it was.  On one occasion, Congress actually revoked an order for some new ships for the navy, and used the appropriation to buy off the Barbary powers.  The fund was known as the “Mediterranean Fund,” and was intrusted to the secretary of state to expend as might be necessary.  But after a while, the Barbary powers became so outrageous in their demands, that it occurred to the State Department that there might be another way of dealing with them, and a squadron under Commodore Preble was sent to the Mediterranean for the purpose.