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39  4 “If it had not been for the Capture of the Philadelphia” W hen the Chesapeake reached Washington at the end of May 1803, Decatur was ordered to Boston to oversee construction of the sixteen-gun brig Argus. He was to complete the task quickly, enlist a crew of seventy men, and sail to the Mediterranean. There he would deliver the Argus to Isaac Hull and take command of Hull’s schooner, the Enterprise. It would be Decatur’s first command. First, though, Secretary Smith, recognizing that Decatur had been “almost constantly in service” for five years, allowed him to spend two weeks “with your friends in Phila.” before proceeding to Boston.1 Over the five years of his service, Decatur had spent perhaps five months in Philadelphia. Whenever he could, he had found opportunities to sail away from home. Now, as he had for the past five years, he would pass only briefly through Philadelphia . His assignment to Boston introduced Decatur to Captain Edward Preble, who was already there refitting the USS Constitution. Decatur would complete the Argus under Preble’s supervision, and Preble would take charge of the American forces against Tripoli. Preble was not an easy man to work for. Like Decatur, Preble seemed impatient, but for different reasons. His health was failing—he had never fully recovered from his daring voyage to the East Indies during the French war—and his doctor had already forbidden him to take command of a ship in the war against Tripoli. Preble now, in this brief moment of relatively stable health, pushed himself and those under him to work quickly and efficiently. Decatur, who had already heard about Preble’s reputation as a strict disciplinarian with clear ideas of order, saw this at work at Boston. Preble was now determined to finish the task President Jefferson had entrusted to him. He would arrive in the Mediterranean with an expanded fleet: while Decatur was building the Argus in Boston, Charles Stewart was in Philadelphia building the Siren, John Smith was building the Vixen in Baltimore, and Richard Somers in Norfolk was refitting the Nautilus as a schooner. This new force and new commander marked a revised strategy for the war. Morris had been a disaster. Not only had he failed to fight Tripoli, but also his feeble attempts to enforce the blockade had led to his arrest in Tunis. His utter 40 chapter four powerlessness had contributed to a breakdown in discipline; his men had exchanged fire only with one another, in duels or drunken brawls. Preble would be a different kind of commander. He was in Boston overseeing extensive repairs to the Constitution, which was slowly rotting away in the Charles River, where it had been anchored since the end of the French war. Preble had also begun construction on the Argus (which he had wanted to call the Merrimack, after the New England river; Secretary Smith and President Jefferson named it instead for the adventurous ship that sought the golden fleece). He was determined to move quickly. Within two weeks of laying the Argus’s keel at Harrtt’s shipyard in Boston, Preble predicted that it would be finished ahead of schedule. Secretary Smith wrote that he would be pleased “if the Brig building under your superintendency, being the last ordered , shall be the first ready for sea.”2 Decatur, arriving on July 9, reported to Smith that he was sorry “to find the Argus not in that state of forwardness I am induced to believe you expected she would be in at this period.” Still, the ship was “planked up & sealed, & her bottom is now preparing for coppering ,” and “her spar’s rigging, sails & boats are nearly completed.” Furthermore , he wrote, “the builders assure me she will be launched this month.”3 To meet this schedule Decatur had to compete with Preble, who had assigned all available workers and material to his flagship rather than to Decatur ’s brig. Decatur also had to compete with Preble for sailors, and for both sailors and workmen he was competing not just with Preble but with Boston’s merchant fleet as well. The Argus would not be the first ship launched; at the end of July, by which time Decatur had hoped to be under way, Somers and the Nautilus had already reached Gibraltar.4 While twelve days of “almost incessant rains” in Boston set back Decatur’s construction schedule, he moved ahead to find a crew. Unable...

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