Shortly afterwards his life was saved by one of those acts of heroism which stir the blood.  In a general attack upon the Tripolitan gunboats, Decatur laid his ship alongside one of the enemy, grappled with her and boarded.  Decatur was the first over the side and a desperate hand-to-hand combat followed.  The pirate captain, a gigantic fellow, soon met Decatur face to face, and stood on tiptoe to deal him a tremendous blow with his scimitar.  Decatur rushed in under the swinging sword, grappled with him, and they fell to the deck together, when another Tripolitan raised his scimitar to deal the American a fatal blow.  A young sailor named Reuben James, himself with both arms disabled from sword cuts, seeing his beloved captain’s peril, interposed his own head beneath the descending sword and received a wound which marked him for life.  An instant later, Decatur’s crew rallied to him, killed the pirate captain and drove the remainder of his crew over the side into the sea.

At the outbreak of the war of 1812, Decatur was given command of the United States, and on the morning of October 25, overhauled the British frigate Macedonian near the Canary Islands.  Seventeen minutes later, the Macedonian, with a third of her crew dead, hauled down her colors.  Decatur had lost only twelve men killed and wounded, and placing a crew aboard his prize, got her safely to New York.  This victory was soon followed by disaster, for, securing command of the President, a frigate mounting forty-four guns, he attempted to get past the British blockade of New York harbor, but ran into a squadron of the enemy, and, after a running fight lasting thirty hours, was overhauled by a superior force and compelled to surrender.  Decatur was taken captive to Bermuda, but was soon parolled, and, after commanding a squadron in the Mediterranean, built himself a house at Washington, expecting to spend the remainder of his days there in honorable retirement.

But it was not to be.  In 1816, Decatur, while a member of the board of navy commissioners, had occasion to censure Commodore James Barron.  Barron considered himself insulted, and a long correspondence followed, which finally resulted in Barron challenging Decatur to fight a duel.  Under the code of honor then in vogue, Decatur could do nothing but accept, and the meeting took place at Bladensburg, Maryland, March 22, 1820.  At the word “fire,” Barron fell wounded in the hip, where Decatur had said he would shoot him, while Decatur himself received a wound in the abdomen from which he died that night.  He was, all in all, one of the most brilliant and efficient men the navy ever boasted; and he will be remembered, too, for his immortal toast:  “My country:  may she be always right; but, right or wrong, my country!”

Closely associated with Decatur in some of his exploits was William Bainbridge, as handsome, impetuous and daring a sailor as ever trod a deck.  Bainbridge, who was five years younger than Decatur, began his seafaring career at the age of sixteen, and three years later was in command of a merchantman.  He entered the navy at its reorganization in 1798, and two years later was appointed to command the George Washington, a ship of twenty-eight guns.