On the same day, Porter received a communication from the governor of Tumbes indicating that his superior, the governor of Guayaquil, would not approve of Porter’s remaining in the river, and that he should depart as soon as possible. Porter thought this was a demand for more money, a demand he would not meet. But it was also obvious that he was in hostile territory and should leave as soon as he had collected sufficient supplies.
The next day, Lieutenant Downes and the Georgiana finally appeared with two prizes and a story to tell. Downes had captured three whalers off James Island in the Galapagos—the 11-gun Hector (270 tons), the 8-gun Rose (220 tons), and the 8-gun Catharine (270 tons). The Hector had a crew of twenty-five, the Rose twenty-one, and the Catharine twenty-nine. Downes had no trouble capturing the Catharine and the Rose. Their captains had assumed the Georgiana was a British ship and drove right up alongside her.
The Hector was another matter. She gave Downes plenty of trouble. He had spotted her one afternoon and did not catch up with her until late at night. He ran alongside and shouted for her to strike her colors, but the Hector’s skipper cleared for action instead. Downes had only twenty men and boys; the others were on the prizes Catharine and Rose. Thinking he’d better act fast, Downes fired a shot that smashed into the Hector’s stern, and crashed through the interior of the ship, doing considerable damage. He then called for a surrender, but the Hector got on more sail and tried to get away, whereupon Downes poured one broadside after another into her, killing two men and wounding six. After receiving five rounds at point-blank range, the Hector’s main topmast was down as was most of her standing and running rigging. With his ship a wreck, the Hector’s plucky skipper finally struck his colors.
Downes now had seventy-five prisoners—too many to manage safely. He put all of them in the Rose—the poorest of the three ships—and sent them on parole to St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic. The British captain pledged that he would take them there and not serve against the United States until regularly exchanged. Downes thought the man would be as good as his word and gave him a passport to St. Helena. Before Downes let the Rose go, he transferred her sperm oil to the Georgiana and had all her guns thrown overboard.
Before leaving the Gulf of Guayaquil, Porter reorganized his fleet. He converted the Atlantic, the best of his captures, into a 20-gun cruiser with Downes in command and christened her Essex Junior. Since several more good men from the prizes had volunteered to serve in the American navy, Porter was able to put sixty men aboard her with Midshipman Richard Dashiell as sailing master. The contemporary anti-American British naval historian, William James, claimed that Porter had, with empty promises, enticed His Majesty’s innocent seamen out of the prizes to serve on the Atlantic. The Admiralty and Parliament thought the same. They would never admit that the principal reason so many of their seamen deserted was the brutal conditions aboard their warships. For a large portion of every British crew, life aboard a man-of-war could be a brutal, dangerous existence. The food was unhealthy and the pay abysmal; threats of cruel, sometimes fatal beatings were routinely used to obtain obedience, and leave was never granted if it was thought the recipient would run away. The torment was unending. Seamen were required to serve for the duration of the war with France, which by 1813 had been going on for twenty years. The problem of desertion in the Royal Navy was endemic. It could never be solved as long as upper-class Britons refused to recognize the tyranny aboard their warships. For ordinary seamen, escape was the only way out, the only way to survive. Thousands ran away, many to the more benign ships of the United States. The Admiralty and its numerous supporters in Parliament refused to admit the obvious.
Those prisoners who did not want to join the American navy had repeatedly asked to be put on shore, and Porter decided that he would be better off without them. He gave them three boats, all of their possessions, and set them free, including the obnoxious captains Weir and Shuttleworth.
Porter next appointed Mr. Adams to be skipper of the Georgiana and converted the Greenwich into a storeship, putting the extra provisions from all the ships into her, along with twenty guns. He estimated that he had enough supplies for all his ships to last seven months. At the same time he gave command of the prize ship Montezuma to Midshipman Feltus, who could not have been happier.
With these matters tended to, Porter, on the morning of June 30, made the signal to his fleet—including the ships in Downes’s squadron—to get underway. On July 1, they stood out from the Gulf of Guayaquil, sailing west for the easterly trade winds, which Porter expected to pick up three or four hundred miles offshore. While the fleet sailed west, carpenters and other skilled men worked hard on Essex Junior, building up her breast-works and making other alterations to strengthen her as a fighting ship. On July 4, Porter stopped to commemorate Independence Day. Essex, Essex Junior, and Georgiana fired seventeen-gun salutes, and Porter ordered a double ration of grog for all the crews on the nine ships. The rum came from the prizes and was doubly welcome, since the Essex men, for some time, had had none at all.
Porter was celebrating more than the national holiday. He was also celebrating the incredible success they had had against the British whale fishery. He was so enthusiastic about their achievements that his horizon broadened, and he changed his mind about remaining on the hunt along the coasts of Peru and Chile. Instead of doing that, he contemplated sailing his whole fleet to Polynesia. His dreams of going there were of long standing. He had mentioned them to the crew before, while they were in the Atlantic standing toward Cape Horn. He had no idea at the time if what he promised would ever come to pass, but now there was every reason to believe that he could finally do what he had been fantasizing about all these years.
To begin with, he decided to divide his fleet and send Downes to Valparaiso while he went back to the Galapagos Islands. He anticipated that Downes would join him there a short time later. More importantly, Porter decided that, after he and Downes met up again, his fleet would travel to the Marquesas Islands, the archipelago in Polynesia. There they would experience the legendary delights offered by the women of these exotic islands. Porter also thought that, while enjoying the extraordinary female companionship, he could make necessary repairs on the ships, particularly the Essex.
Four days later, Downes departed for Valparaiso. The prize ships Hector, Catharine, Policy, and Montezuma accompanied him, along with the Barclay. Porter instructed Downes to leave the Barclay at Valparaiso and sell the other ships, if possible. The Policy was loaded with sperm oil. The oil from all the ships had been divided between the Policy and the Georgiana. Prices for oil at Valparaiso were so low, however, that Porter gave Downes the option of sending Policy to the United States, where the oil would bring a much higher price. If she went to America, she was to approach the northern coast in the dead of winter, when severe weather impeded the British blockade.
While Downes was in Valparaiso, Porter expected him to obtain the latest intelligence on any British warships hunting the Essex. Porter was certain there would be at least one, and more likely two or more. Porter also gave Downes three letters addressed to Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton, dated July 2, 1813. Downes was to give them to Joel Poinsett for transmittal to Washington. Poinsett would undoubtedly do his best to get them there any way he could, by land or sea via Thomas Sumter in Rio, but how long it would take, or even if they would get there at all, was uncertain. Porter had no way of knowing that Hamilton was no longer in charge of the Navy Department. President Madison had finally asked for his resignation in December 1812, replacing him with William Jones of Philadelphia, a respected merchant and banker with a long record of accomplishment.
Porter knew that Washington would be wondering what had happened to him. He had no idea if his brief letter to Bainbridge in March had reached its destination. He also wanted his wife and family to know that he and Farragut were faring well. And he was proud of his accomplishments; he wanted the navy and, he hoped, the whole country to know about them. He told
the secretary of the navy,
Indeed sir, when I compare my present situation with what it was when I doubled Cape Horn I cannot but esteem myself fortunate in an extraordinary degree—then my ship was shattered by tempestuous weather and destitute of everything, my officers and crew half starved, naked and worn out with fatigue—Now sir, my ship is in prime order abundantly supplied with everything necessary for her. I have a noble ship for a consort of twenty-guns and well-manned, a store ship of twenty guns well supplied with everything we may want, and prizes which would be worth in England two million dollars, and what renders the comparison more pleasing, the enemy has furnished all——.
Porter also wanted the navy to know how well Lieutenant John Downes was performing. In a separate letter to the secretary of the navy, Porter wrote, “If any officer deserves in an extraordinary degree the attention of the department Lt. Downes certainly does.”
The letters reached Secretary Jones in December 1813, and they caused a sensation. News about Porter and the Essex had been scarce since they left. Reports popped up from time to time, always mixing accurate and inaccurate information, but there had been nothing official. The nation wanted to know what had happened to Porter. Now there was confirmation that he and the Essex were not only in the Pacific, as had been suspected, but they were doing brilliantly.
No one was happier with Porter’s report than President Madison, who needed cheering up. The war was going poorly for the United States in 1813. The president had renewed his attack on Canada without success, except for the victories of Oliver Hazard Perry on Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, and of William Henry Harrison and Perry at the Battle of the Thames in Lower Canada a short time later. Moreover, Great Britain and her allies had defeated Napoleon decisively at the Battle of Leipzig, throwing him back into France, where his days were numbered. The British would soon be able to turn their whole military might against the United States. From Madison’s point of view the future looked bleak. Defeatism was spreading across the country. He was in desperate need of good news—and of heroes. Porter supplied both. The president immediately released Porter’s report, and newspapers around the country printed it, boosting morale everywhere.
Secretary Jones lost no time passing the report on to Evelina Porter. She had been writing to him, inquiring about her husband, but he had had nothing to tell her. Now he did. On December 14, 1813, he sent a message to Green Bank:
I have the pleasure to enclose a letter this day received under cover of a very interesting and highly satisfactory dispatch from Captain Porter, dated July 2 last near the Equator on the west coast of South America.
Himself, officers and crew were in [an excellent] degree of health and spirits, abundantly provided with everything necessary for their comfort for eight months in advance, and their success had equaled the most sanguine expectations.
Evelina was filled with joy and relief. He was safe, and more than that, a hero—what he had always strived for. Of course, David wasn’t home yet, but, even so, this was wonderful news, considering all the horrible things she feared might have happened to him.
CARRYING PORTER’S LETTERS TO THE NAVY SECRETARY, DOWNES and his fleet set off for Valparaiso on July 8. One of the fleet now had a noteworthy new skipper. In one of his stranger decisions, Porter had given his “de facto son,” David Farragut, now age twelve, command of the Barclay for her trip to Valparaiso. And to make the assignment even more bizarre, Captain Gideon Randall and his chief mate were left on board to navigate. Porter doesn’t mention this unusual arrangement in his journal—as if it were inconsequential. For Farragut, however, it was the major event of his young life. Randall was a fiercely independent old cuss, who wanted his ship back so that he could resume whaling. Instead, he was ordered to navigate the Barclay to Valparaiso, and submit to the orders of a twelve-year-old. He was understandably furious, and from the beginning of the voyage he made it plain that he was determined to take back his ship.
As soon as the Barclay separated from the Essex and stood south with Downes’s convoy, Randall made his move. He shouted at Farragut in a voice that was heard throughout the ship, “You’ll find yourself off New Zealand in the morning.”
At that moment, Farragut recalled,
we were lying still while the other ships were fast disappearing from view; the Commodore going north, and the Essex Junior, with her convoy, steering south for Valparaiso. I considered that my day of trial had arrived (for I was a little afraid of the old fellow, as everyone else was). But the time had come for me, at least, to play the man; so I mustered up courage and informed the captain that I desired the main topsail filled away, in order that we might close up with the Essex Junior. He replied that he would shoot any man who dared to touch a rope without his orders, he “would go his own course,” he shouted, “and had no idea of trusting himself with a damned nutshell,” and then he went below for his pistols.
While Randall stomped away, Farragut summoned his “right-hand man of the crew” and explained the situation. He then ordered him in a loud voice to “fill the main topsail.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Farragut’s man shouted. The message to the rest of the crew was clear: Farragut was in charge.
“From that moment I became master of the vessel,” Farragut wrote, “and immediately gave all necessary orders for making sail.”
Farragut warned Randall that if he came on deck with his pistols he would have him thrown overboard. Farragut felt that he “would have had very little trouble in having such an order obeyed.” That ended the matter. When Farragut, with Randall in tow, made a report of the incident to Downes, he got firm support. Chastened, Randall pretended that he had not meant what he said. He told Downes that he was only trying to frighten Farragut. Randall and the young skipper then returned to the Barclay and “everything went on amicably,” Farragut recalled.
While Downes was leading his squadron to Valparaiso, Porter shaped a course back to the Galapagos in search of British whalers. He had been told that three were fishing there and that they were armed and looking for the Essex. Porter hoped they were. He did not intend to tarry long in the Galapagos searching for the whalers, however. If he found them right away, fine; but if not, he intended to sail on to the little-frequented Marquesas Islands. The storeship Greenwich and the Georgiana remained with the Essex. When the time was right, Porter intended to send the Georgiana to the United States to sell her cargo of sperm oil. He planned to time her departure so that she would have a good chance of arriving along the northeast coast in the dead of winter.
With the prevailing winds and current carrying the Essex, Porter easily raised Charles Island on July 12. Recent volcanic eruptions had changed the face of the island, as they had Albemarle and Narborough. The first thing Porter did was send a boat to Hathaway’s Post Office, where he found evidence that one British ship, at least, had been there recently. He left a note for Downes and buried it in a bottle at the foot of the post office and then sailed for Albemarle, arriving in Banks Bay at midnight, where he dropped his hook. At daylight he steered to the northward, and at eleven o’clock lookouts caught sight of three large vessels, sailing some distance apart from each other. Porter was ready. He raced after the one in the center, while the others, instead of coming to her aid, fled, or appeared to. That did not surprise him, but he worried that one or both might attempt to take the Greenwich and Georgiana, who were trailing a considerable distance behind the Essex. As he raced toward his prey, one of the strangers did tack to windward of the Essex and steer toward the prizes. The Greenwich was alert to the danger and hove to, waiting for the Georgiana to come up. When the two met, the Greenwich took some men from the Georgiana and raced after the vessel that was supposedly in pursuit, while the Georgiana ran for the Essex.
Porter made quick work of the vessel he was chasing—the Charlton, a 10-gun English whaler. He then sped after the Greenwich, which was now in a gunfight with the ship she had been chasing—the 14-gun Seringapatam, a far stronger opponent th
an the Charlton. The Seringapatam had a crew of forty and was a fine warship, built for that purpose and converted to a whaler. Her captain had no intention of doing any fishing; he was out to capture American whalers. With the Essex gaining ground, the British ship pretended to strike her colors, but then tried to steal away, hoping that darkness would cover her. The Greenwich kept after her, however, and with the Essex now having come up, the Seringapatam was forced to surrender. Immediately, Porter flew after the third vessel and caught her in an hour as darkness was approaching. She turned out to be the New Zealander of eight guns.
The Seringapatam’s captain, William Stavers, had no papers proving he had a privateer’s commission from his government authorizing him to seize enemy vessels. If he could not produce one, he was legally a pirate and could be brought to an admiralty court, convicted, and hung. Porter considered him an outlaw. Unlike his handling of the other enemy skippers, he put Stavers in irons. This did not apply to his crew, however. They received excellent treatment. In doing so, Porter was returning a favor. He had learned that earlier, when Stavers had captured an American whaler, he had treated her crew well—unlike other British captains. Putting Stavers in irons after he had been so decent to the American whalers might seem like an odd decision, but Porter considered him an able leader, and did not want him leading a prisoner uprising.
The number of prisoners had become a problem. On July 19 Porter dispatched the slow-sailing Charlton to Rio under her captain with forty-eight prisoners on parole. The British tars were quick to protest, however; they wanted no part of Rio, where they stood a good chance of being pressed into a man-of-war. Every one of them volunteered for the American service, but Porter, although sympathetic, had enough men, and reluctantly forced them to go.
The Shining Sea Page 18