The Pirate Coast
Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805
Chapter One
Tripoli
Would to God that the officers and crew, of the Philadelphia had
one and all determined to prefer death to slavery; it is possible such a
determination might save them from either.
-COMMODORE EDWARD PREBLE TO SECRETARY
OF THE NAVY ROBERT SMITH
THE CARPENTERS WHO BUILT the USS Philadelphia, in addition
to their craft skills, demonstrated an extraordinary capacity, for
alcohol. The project overseer, a Thomas FitzSimons, noted in his
expense accounts that he had purchased 110 gallons of rum a month for
thirty carpenters. Sober math reveals that each man working six days a
week consumed about a pint of ruin a day.
The stout frigate showed no ungainly lines. The carpenters, sharpening
their adzes hourly, had hewed the live oak floated north from
Georgia into a 147-foot keel; they had pocked each sid ... read full excerpt from Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 ebook
