Young folks' history of the United States . as slaves the ^***® and passengers of all vessels that they took. Itwas a common thing, at that time, for notices to beread in American churches of the captivity of mem-bers of the church in Tripoli or Algiers. Then a sumof money was usually raised for the ransom of each, —as much as four thousand dollars for a captain or apassenger. Sometimes these sums were paid by sub-scription, and sometimes by the government. Thou-sands of Americans were thus held in captivity; andmillions of dollars were spent for ransom. A treatywas made with these Barb
Young folks' history of the United States . as slaves the ^***® and passengers of all vessels that they took. Itwas a common thing, at that time, for notices to beread in American churches of the captivity of mem-bers of the church in Tripoli or Algiers. Then a sumof money was usually raised for the ransom of each, —as much as four thousand dollars for a captain or apassenger. Sometimes these sums were paid by sub-scription, and sometimes by the government. Thou-sands of Americans were thus held in captivity; andmillions of dollars were spent for ransom. A treatywas made with these Barbary States, by which it wasagreed that the United States should pay a certainamount of money forthe protection of thenational a dispute aroseabout the terms ofthis treaty; and Pres-ident Jefferson re-solved to bear thishumiliation no long-er. The Americannavy consisted, atthat time, of but sixvessels ; and he sentfour of them to theMediterranean. Oneof these, the frigate Philadelphia, under Captain Bainbridge, ran aground. LIEUTENANT DECATUR. 238 BurningChe Phila-delphia. YOUNG FOLKS UNITED STATES. in the harbor of Tripoli, and was captured; and thecrew were made slaves. A young lieutenant, namedDecatur, proposed to the commander of the fleet totake command of a Tripolitan vessel that had just beencaptured, put an American crew on board, enter theharbor by night, and rescue or burn the was successfully done. The little Tripolitan ves-
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