JAMES LAWRENCE 315 in Old Tripoli, where they were defended by a land force. The attack was made in boats, at close quarters, under a heavy fire of the enemy, Lawrence had a second opportunity of distinguishing himself in this war in an action likely to be better remembered by the public, the glorious adventure of DecatuF, in the destruction of the wrecked and captured Philadelphia, in the harbor of Tripoli, in February, 1804. Lawrence was the first lieutenant of that officer in this brilliant adventure, and shared its full dangers and glories. Lawrence was also engaged in the Enterprise, in Preble's bombardment of Tripoli, the same year. He returned in the winter to the United States, with that commodore, in the John Adams. In the following spring of 1805, Law- rence successfully carried across the Atlantic one of the fleet of gunboats, No. 6, of which he was commander, destined for service in the Mediterranean. It was a small vessel, mounting two guns, not at all adapted for ocean navigation. The voyage was looked upon as a marvel. When near the Western Islands, Mr. Cooper, in his "Naval History" tells, he "fell in with the British frigate Lap- wing, 28, Captain Upton, which ran for him, under the impression that the gun- boat was some wrecked mariners on a raft, there being a great show of canvas and apparently no hull." After the war with Tripoli was ended, Lawrence returned to the United States, and in the interval, when the war with England, after the affair with the Leopard and Chesapeake, was daily becoming more imminent, we find him, in 1808, appointed first lieutenant of the Constitution. About the same time he married Miss Montaudevert, the daughter of a respectable merchant of New York. He was on duty in the Vixen, Wasp, and Argus ; and, at the commence- ment of the war of 181 2, was promoted to the command of the Hornet. While in this last vessel he sailed with Bainbridge, who had the flag-ship Constitution, on a cruise along the coast of South America, and, having occasion to look in at the port of San Salvador, found there the British sloop-of-war, Bonne Citoyenne, of eighteen guns, ready to sail for England with a large amount of specie. Law- rence, whose ship mounted an equal number of guns, was exceedingly anxious to engage with this vessel. He sent a challenge to its commander. Captain Green, through the American consul, inviting him to "come out," and pledging his honor that neither the Constitution, nor any other American vessel, should inter- fere, which Commodore Bainbridge seconded by promising to be out of the way, or at least non-combatant. The English captain, however, declined. It was an unhappy precedent which Lawrence thus established, injurious to the service and destined to act fatally against himself in the end, when from the challenger he became the challenged. The Constitution meanwhile sailed away, to close the year with her brilliant engagement with the Java, leaving the Hornet engaged in the blockade of the Bonne Citoyenne. Eighteen days since the departure of the flag-ship had passed while her consort was thus engaged, waiting till her expected prize should issue from the harbor, when the Hornet was robbed of her chances of victory by the arrival of his majesty's seventy-four, the Montague. Escape now became the
