Loss of the Intrepid

4 September 1804, Mouth of Tripoli harbour

Failure; Intrepid blew up before reaching the Tripolitan ships

As a last blow, Preble had Intrepid packed with 100 barrels of powder and some 150 shells, to be sailed into the harbour among the Tripolitan ships and blown up. Lieutenant Richard Somers volunteered to take her in with twelve men, among them Lieutenants Henry Wadsworth and Joseph Israel. On the night of 4 September she was seen to enter the harbour, and then blew up with a great explosion short of her targets, killing everyone aboard. Whether a Tripolitan shot set her off, or Somers fired her himself to keep her from being taken, has never been known.