| Chapter 1: | Educating Stockton |
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On May 9, Stockton was transferred to the fourteen-gun schooner USS Spitfire, where he became its first lieutenant under Alexander J. Dallas. On the eighteenth, Commodore Stephen Decatur sailed for the Mediterranean with a squadron composed of the frigates USS Guerriere (the flagship,) USS Macedonian, and USS Constitution; sloop-of-war USS Ontario; the brigs USS Epervier, USS Firefly, USS Flambeau, and USS Spark; and the schooners USS Spitfire and USS Torch.
The squadron had been but a few days in the Mediterranean when, on June 17, the USS Guerriere, in company with the squadron including USS Spitfire, sighted an Algerian frigate, Mashouda (see figure 7). During this engagement, Stockton recklessly exhibited a bit of his daring:
Two days later, June 19, the American squadron discovered an Algerian brig, the twenty-two-gun cruiser Estedio, and chased it into the shallows along Spain's coast, where the Estedio grounded. Since the water depth surrounding the Algerian brig was quite shallow, only the schooners of the squadron could approach her (see figure 8). Thus USS Spitfire was among the first to engage the brig, but while the action was raging, some of the other vessels of the American squadron got in between Spitfire and the enemy vessel. Lieutenant Stockton quickly asked permission from Dallas to take the schooner's boats in, board the brig, and take her as a prize. Granted permission, Stockton put off. When the other ships in the squadron saw what was happening, they too put off in their own boats, hoping to be the first aboard and have the glory of claiming the brig as