"He arrived in the ship's launch dressed in full uniform, sitting stiffly in the stern sheets- The novel then explains when the U.S. captured the Macedonian during the War of 1812, transforming the great ship from the HMS Macedonian to the USS Macedonian. De Kay describes the battle between the two ships, the American Essex, and the elegant and beautiful British Macedonian in disgusting detail. "The battle gave each man his own unique death. The boatswain's head was smashed in by a ball while he attempted to trim sail. The ward-room steward was run through by a four-foot splinter of oak." He tells of many other deaths in the same revolting detail. De Kay then switches to the United States side, and writes of the reactions and feelings from the Americans. Stephen Decatur, the capturer of the Macedonian, "was determined to get the Macedonian into an American port in one piece." De Kay describes the people's feelings so vividly and in so much detail, that one may have thought that he knew the person personally. De Kay then goes off and explains the prize money that Decatur received for capturing such a magnificent frigate, which, although only a small loss to the British, was a huge gain to the U.S. Navy, increasing America's seapower by about eighteen percent. Decatur received the full thirty thousand dollar prize money (equal to about $600,000 in America today) The first captain of the USS Macedonian, Jacob Jones, with the help of Decatur, planned to bring her into action against the British fleet, but as they grew stronger with each passsing month, Jones and Decatur ended up dismasting the Macedonian and United States and leaving Biddle, New London, departing for places with more "promising theaters of war." The event that ended up making the Macedonian most significant to the U.S. took place on July 26, 1815 in Tunis (on North Africa's coast). The U.S. forced the largely feared Barbary pirates, who, for centuries had been attacking ships, to refrain from striking any more U.