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Decatur (STEPHEN an American naval)

STEPHEN, an American naval officer; born in Sinnepuxent, Md., Jan. 5, 1779. He was of French descent, and obtained a midshipman's warrant in 1798. He saw some service against the French, and was commissioned lieutenant in the following year; and at the close of the French war in DECAZES 1801 he was one of the 36 officers of rank retained in the reduced strength of the navy. In the war with 1801-1805), his brilliant achievement of boarding and burning the captured "Philadelphia" tured "Philadelphia" in the harbor of and then escaping under the fire of 141 guns, Nelson pronounced act of the age." For this he received his commission as captain in 1804; in 1810 he was appointed commodore. In the war with England in 1812 he captured the frigate obliged to surrender, after a resistance " "Macedonian," but in 1814 he was but in 1814 hẹ STEPHEN DECATUR that cost him a fourth of his crew, to four British frigates. In 1815 he chas- Algerines for their piracy, and obtained indemnities from the Bey of Tunis and the Pasha of Tripoli. He was appointed a Navy Commissioner in 1816, and was killed in a duel by Com- James Barron, near Bladensburg, Md ., March 22, 1820.

DECAZES (de-kāz'), ELIE, DUKE, in St. Martin de Laye, Gironde, an advo- French minister, born Sept. 28, 1780, cate in Libourne; became in 1805 judge the Seine Tribunal, and in 1806 was called by King Louis to the Hague, Holwas adviser for Bonaparte's mother, land. Later he returned to France and and in the Supreme Court of the French Empire. When Bonaparte fell he turned Court of the French his allegiance to the Bourbons. He beand in 1815 Minister of Police in the came the Prefect of Police for Paris, Cabinet, and was made Count. He married the ried the rich heiress of Sainte-Aulaire DECCAN and was made at that time Duke of Glücksbjerg by the King of Denmark.

He turned Louis XVIII. into more liberal courses and was the active member of Dessoles' moderate-Liberal Ministry of 1918, having himself the Ministry of the Interior. The ultraroyalists accused him of complicity in the murder of the Duke de Berry, and forced his dismissal in 1820. The King made him Duke, however, and he retired to found the great coal and iron works of Decazeville. He died Oct. 24, 1860.