by Hughes, Ben;
For the Phoebes the days passed in a dreary routine. Most mornings, weather permitting, the newly-raised men were exercised at the great guns. Overseen by Captain Hillyar, Lieutenants Ingram, Charles Pearson and Nathaniel Jago and the frigate’s six midshipmen, they underwent ‘dry-firing’ practice to preserve gunpowder and shot. Opening the ports, the crews hauled on the gun tackle to run out the frigate’s 18-pounders, the gun captains ‘fired’ them with their lanyards, the barrels were sponged out, loaded with cartridge and shot which were rammed home and the guns run out once more as the ropes squealed through the tackles and the carriages rumbled across the deck. Small arms practice was also routine, while the Sabbath was a day of rest and meditation. Fresh supplies were brought on board and minor repairs undertaken. On 22 February Boatswain Pomfrey condemned the main mast, braces and luff tackle pulls as ‘worn and unfit for proper use’. Later that evening, wine barrel 968 was opened, Purser Surflen noting that it held 67 gallons and on 23 February Pomfrey received ‘sundry’ supplies, ropes, needles, knives, sailcloth and timber. All was inventoried and locked in his storeroom on the orlop deck. The next morning John Curlin received twenty-four lashes for insolence and Able Seaman Matthew Scott, a 28-year-old from Newcastle who had been wounded at Tamatave, got twelve lashes for drunkenness on duty. Violent squalls that evening necessitated the taking down of the topgallant masts. All the provisions were loaded and by the 28 February the Phoebe was supplied with six months’ worth of salt meat and hard biscuit and three months’ of beer, butter and cheese.24
In the interim, the North West Company employees had finally arrived. In charge was Donald McTavish, a 31-year-old fur trader from Strath Errick who had risen to the rank of company partner. His second was John McDonald, a raucous Scot whose withered right arm had seen him nicknamed ‘Le Bras Croche’ and prevented him from following in the family tradition of joining the army. Having been involved in the planning stages of the mission undertaken at the Admiralty in London, both were fully aware of all details and their ultimate destination. On boarding the Isaac Todd, McTavish and McDonald found things far from their liking. The latter thought Captain Smith ‘a miserable commander’. He had not even started to stow provisions, the ship was overloaded with guns and ammunition and the crew were ‘as mongrel and rascally a mixture … as ever was on board a ship’. As well as a Sandwich Islander who was to serve as a pilot when they reached the Columbia River and three different breeds of dog, there were a dozen Canadian voyageurs on board. McDonald allowed the latter to take shore leave, but soon came to regret his decision. After a night in which they ‘had all made a little free with wine and women’, a Royal Navy midshipman pressed two of the Canadians and sent them on board HMS Mars. Fortunately, McDonald had excellent contacts and was able to secure their release.25
On board HMS Phoebe the routine ground on. On 28 February Midshipman Jose S. Rickard, a Cornishman who at twenty-one was the oldest of his rank on board, was made Master’s Mate. The promotion saw his pay increase by 12 shillings a month. Three days later 110lbs of sugar and 303lbs of cheese were loaded. The latter was stacked by Purser’s Steward Higgins in specially-designed racks in his storeroom on the orlop deck, a cramped space packed with dried provisions which had led to his being nicknamed ‘Jack-in-the-dust’. The next morning dawned bright and clear. Five of the ship’s marines were exchanged for a new draft from Portsmouth Barracks, while the crew scrubbed and aired their clothes and hammocks. On 3 March the prize money for the Hunter was paid, prompting a fresh round of purchases from the bumboats. The following day the newly raised men were trained ‘in going aloft and losing the rigging’, while Ordinary Seaman Robert Hughes, a 28-year-old from Teddington, Gloucestershire who had volunteered in 1804 and served at Trafalgar, was discharged into HMS Gladiator for harbour duty on account of several old injuries.26
On 10 March the West India convoy sailed. Three days later Hillyar wrote to Secretary Croker to inform him that his mission had already been delayed. ‘The … [Isaac Todd] will not be ready for sea before Monday’, he explained, ‘having only begun to take in provisions this afternoon [and] the charts [for the South Atlantic and Pacific Ocean] are not yet arrived.’ A second letter followed on the 16th with which Hillyar enclosed a missive from Captain Smith blaming his tardiness on the fact that he had to stow extra supplies for his frigate escort ‘tween decks’. There was also one final addition to the Isaac Todd’s complement. Jane Barnes, a ‘lively’, ‘flaxen-haired, blue-eyed’ maid who worked the bar at McDonald’s Portsmouth hotel had consented to become his ‘compagnon du voyage’. On 18 March the eight East Indiamen under convoy of HMS Porcupine and Doris set sail and Michael Lane, a fourteen-year-old Midshipman Ordinary from Sandwich who had graduated from the Royal Naval College, was promoted to Midshipman. That evening he sewed the white shoulder patches to his dark-blue coat with pride.27
The newspapers of 20 March brought bad news. ‘Another frigate has fallen into the hands of the enemy!’ announced the barely credulous Naval Chronicle. As Hillyar and his men learnt, on 29 December 1812, while cruising off Salvador de Bahia in the coastal waters of Brazil, Captain William Bainbridge’s USS Constitution had defeated HMS Java, the third British frigate to fall to the Americans so far. The Times also carried a report stating that no less than 500 British merchantmen had been captured by US cruisers and privateers. ‘Can these statements be true …?’ asked the editor.
Any one who had predicted such a result of an American war, this time last year, would have been treated as a madman or a traitor. He would have been told, if his opponents had condescended to argue with him, that long ere seven months had elapsed, the American flag would be swept from the seas, the contemptible navy of the United States annihilated and their maritime arsenals rendered a heap of ruins. Yet down to this moment, not a single American frigate has struck her flag … They leave their ports when they please and return to them when it suits their convenience; they traverse the Atlantic; they beset the West India Islands; they advance to the very chops of the Channel; they parade along the coasts of South America; nothing chases, nothing intercepts, nothing engages them but to yield triumph.
Some publications excused the defeats by stressing that the American ships outgunned their opponents. Others pointed to the fact that the enemy also enjoyed superior gunnery due to regular practice with live ammunition, a lesson Hillyar would take on board. The Royal Navy’s pride had been bruised. Humiliated and humbled, the country’s senior service longed for revenge.28
On 25 March the Isaac Todd was finally ready for sea. Hillyar signalled all crewmembers to repair on board and at 10 a.m. the Phoebe unmoored. By 4 p.m. all the officers had returned. The forecastlemen, led by John Newbury, raised the small bower while Acting Master Miller ordered the topmen to make sail. Shuffling along the footropes, they spread along the yards. Leaning their weight against the spars to free their hands, they removed the gaskets that held the sails in place and overhauled the buff-coloured clewlines and bluntlines through the blocks. Meanwhile, the afterguard on the deck below pulled on the sheets to stretch the sails taught. With fresh breezes and fine weather, the Phoebe sailed serenely out of the bay with the Isaac Todd and forty other sail, ‘bound for all parts of the world’, in company.29
Overladen with supplies and top-heavy with cannon, the Todd soon proved an extremely dull sailer. By 5 p.m. she was lagging behind. The Phoebes hoisted a yellow and red-striped tricolour above a plain signal flag at the foretopmast head to indicate that she should close up, but at 5.30 p.m. Hillyar was forced to heave to and allow her to catch up. The next four days saw the convoy make slow progress down the Channel, averaging just over thirty miles every twenty-four hours. On 26 March, they passed Portland Bill. The following morning, with seven sail including the Isaac Todd in company, Hillyar exercised the great guns. That afternoon, the crew washed their clothes and hammocks and hung them up to dry from the standing rigging, the black ropes that supported the masts and yards, giving the ship the appe
arance of a floating laundry. The morning and afternoon of Sunday 28 March were marked by divine service and on 29 March, as a thick fog descended obscuring the English shore, the carpenters repaired the ship’s boats and the newly-raised landsmen were exercised at the 18-pounders on the gundeck once more.30
On 30 March, Gardiner noted in his journal, ‘fortune … smile[d]’ on Hillyar and his crew. At noon, while Acting Master Miller was instructing the midshipmen how to take accurate latitude readings with their sextants on the quarterdeck, two strange sails were spotted on the leeward tack. Hillyar bore up to reconnoitre. The lead sail was a French corvette fleeing for the port of Saint Malo on the Brittany coast. Her pursuer was a British frigate, HMS Unicorn. Eager to share the spoils, Hillyar gave the order to make all sail in chase. At 1 p.m. HMS Stag, another frigate patrolling the Channel, joined the hunt and she and the Unicorn opened fire on the chase ten minutes later. The corvette hoisted French colours before striking at 2.30 p.m. A few minutes later, the Phoebe hove to and began exchanging signals with the Stag and Unicorn. The prize proved to be the Miquelonnaise, a handsome, copper-bottomed French privateer pierced for twenty guns yet mounting eighteen, with a crew of 130 men. Having left Brest four days previously, she had captured the Alexander, a small brig from London, which had been bound for Wellington’s troops in Portugal with a cargo of tin and iron. The French had set fire to her and left her to burn into the sea. After making a formal claim for a share in the prize money, Hillyar made sail, but with the Todd wallowing behind, at 5 p.m. he was forced to heave to yet again.31
The next morning Hillyar opened his second packet of orders. ‘We were directed to steer for the Island of Teneriffee’, Gardiner recalled, ‘there to complete our water and from thence to proceed to Rio de Janiero, where we should open our final orders.’ The news sent a buzz of excitement round the ship and that afternoon a strong gale blowing out of the northeast propelled the convoy swiftly across the Bay of Biscay. At 5.30 p.m. a strange sail was sighted and at 6 p.m. Hillyar gave the order to clear for action. At 9 p.m., with the men ready at the guns and the tension building, lantern signals were exchanged revealing the stranger to be HMS Orestes, a 16-gun brig-sloop commanded by William Richard Smith. With a mixture of relief and disappointment, the Phoebes stood down.32
The next three days were an exercise in frustration. With a steady breeze from the northeast and fine weather, the Phoebe could have reached Tenerife within a week. Instead, with the Isaac Todd in company, the crew was constantly obliged to heave to, tack and take in sail. Nevertheless, they covered 126 miles on 1 April, 103 miles on the 2nd and 99 miles on the 3rd. The following morning brought strong gales and a high sea. At morning divine service the men struggled to maintain their footing on the rolling deck. All sails were taken in at noon and the frigate ploughed on under bare poles with the ‘Isaac Todd sailing very ill’. At 4 p.m. the Phoebe yawed to slow her progress and at sunset, the crew were mustered for divine service once more. The next morning, with the gales continuing and rain falling in torrents, ‘a very heavy sea struck the ship on the starboard beam and carried away the gangway stanchions, rails and hammock cloth’, but by the morning of 6 April the storm had abated. Warmed by the southern sun, the carpenter and his five-man crew, repaired the hammock rails, while the armourer and his mate took their portable forge up on deck to repair the stanchions and at 6 p.m. the gun crews were exercised at the 18-pounders. All the while the Phoebe made a steady 7 to 8 knots cutting ever southwards and by sundown had covered over 180 miles in a single day.33
On 8 April Third Lieutenant Nathaniel Jago wrote his will. A reverend’s son from Tavistock, Jago was a deeply religious young man, who had reached his current rank on 18 February 1812 after passing his lieutenant’s exam. Witnessed by his messmates, First Lieutenant Ingram and Lieutenant Burrow of the Royal Marines, Jago’s will bequeathed £100 to each of his elder sisters, Catherine and Anne and £50 to Mary, his youngest. His prize agents, Messrs John and Thomas March, were directed to divide any outstanding money equally between the three sisters. His clothes, watch, globes, sextant, charts, sword and fowling piece were promised to his father, along with a modest collection of books, with the exception of two volumes of David Hume’s Moral and Political Essays, which were bequeathed to Lieutenant Burrow and a book on theology which was to be given to Captain Hillyar in the event of Jago’s death.34
On 9 April the Isaac Todd raised a signal flag requesting to send a boat on board the Phoebe. Moments later, Mr Heatherly, the Todd’s first mate, was rowed across with a sullen-looking seaman named William Austen. The Todds had been making mutinous rumblings. Fearing outright rebellion had he punished Austen himself, Smith thought it wiser to request Hillyar to do so instead. The Englishman duly obliged. Tied to the grating at the frigate’s waist, Austen was given twelve lashes.35
That evening the convoy fell in with the Trade Winds and was swept swiftly along to the southwest. The next day the marines exercised their small arms. Tying marks to the rigging, they loaded and fired their muskets throughout the afternoon. At daylight on the morning of 11 April, after divine service, six strange sail were sighted and that afternoon the cloud-capped, snow-covered peaks of the rugged, volcanic Island of Tenerife rose up ahead. Gazing at the 3,718-metre high Pico de Teide, known to the English as the Peak of Tenerife, Gardiner was inspired to historical musings. ‘Had the island been as well known to the ancients as the neighbouring coast’, he opined, ‘Atlas no doubt would have long since been eased of his ponderous burden.’ At 4 p.m., in brilliant sunshine and under azure-blue skies, the Phoebe swept round Point Nago and the port of Santa Cruz, infamous with the Royal Navy as the scene of Nelson’s 1797 reverse, hove into view. Two forts crowned the headlands and the whitewashed towers of two large churches, San Francisco and Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, dominated the centre of town. Over fifty ships were in the roads. As well as the ten East Indiamen escorted by the frigate HMS Doris and the 22-gun HMS Porcupine that the Phoebes had sighted at Portsmouth, there were several Spanish merchantmen and a large convoy bound for Brazil. At 4.50 p.m. the topmen shortened sail, the Phoebe glided into the outer anchorage, one mile from the shore and came to at sunset with the main bower in fifty fathoms.36
Chapter 4
Into the Pacific: USS Essex, 26 January 1813 – 11 April 1813
By dawn on 26 January 1813 the Essex had left Saint Catherine’s Island far behind her. ‘The whole of the [day] … we had fresh gales … which I took advantage of to get a good offing’, Captain Porter recalled. The next morning the wind turned to the east and a ‘heavy head sea’ pummelled the frigate’s bow. The topmen were ordered to take in the sails and it wasn’t until that afternoon that the royals could be unfurled and the ship began to make headway. Meanwhile, ‘an alarming disease’ had broken out and ten to fifteen of the crew were ‘suddenly attacked by violent pains in the stomach’. Surgeon Miller, who had considerable first-hand experience, blamed the bad rum procured at Saint Catherine’s. His patients’ speedy recovery later disproved his diagnosis and Porter attributed the illness to the change from fresh to salt provisions.1
On the evening of the 28th, as the Essex took a wide-berth of the River Plate estuary, the weather worsened. ‘At nine P.M. the wind began to haul around to the southward … At midnight, after sharp lightening, [it] fixed itself at S. by E … [and] the cold … began to be sensibly felt.’ Donning woollen coats, the watch speculated about whether their captain was intending to take them round the Horn. The next morning heavy showers burst overhead. Porter ordered the topmen to unbend the light sails and stow them below, while Gunner Miller and his mates, James Spafford and George Martin, lashed the carronades into place on the gun deck and stored the quarterdeck’s three long 12-pounders below.2
An eclipse of the sun on 1 February set some of the seamen to superstitious mutterings. Two days later the sun broke clear, drenching the deck in sharp sunlight and a fresh breeze sprung up from the northwest. The watch lieutenant ordered all s
ail set and the Essex cut through the waves two hundred miles off the shore of northern Patagonia at 9 knots. ‘Flatter[ing] … [him]self with the expectation of a speedy and pleasant run’, Porter took to his cabin in buoyant spirits to pen a note to the crew: ‘Sailors and Marines, a large increase of the enemy’s forces compels us to abandon a coast that will neither afford us security nor supplies … We will therefore proceed to annoy them, where we are least expected. What was never performed we will attempt. The Pacific Ocean affords us many friendly ports. The unprotected British commerce, on the coast of Chili, Peru and Mexico, will give you an abundant supply of wealth: and the girls of the Sandwich Islands, shall reward you for your sufferings … round Cape Horn.’ Pinned to the grating at the waist, the note ‘diffused a general joy’ throughout the ship.3
For the next nine days a ‘clear and cold’ wind blew in from the southwest. ‘Occasionally [it was] blowing so hard as to reduce us to our storm staysail’, Porter recalled, ‘[and was] attended generally with a very disagreeable cross sea’ which frequently broke over the deck. The topmen alternately set or reefed the top, mizzen and fore sails as the wind dictated while an able seaman sounded, registering from sixty to seventy-five fathoms with a bottom of fine grey sand. At one stage the sea burst in through the rudder coat, flooding the wardroom and the commissioned officers who messed there. Several whales spouted within a mile, sending up faint puffs of white, and huge rafts of kelp floated past, on which a few weary albatrosses had hitched a ride.4
At sunrise on 11 February, with the Essex somewhere between the Falkland Islands and the southern tip of South America, the wind died away. The air was frigid and the sea smooth. It was a beautiful, crisp Patagonian morning. While the rudder coat was repaired, Porter took to his cabin to determine his route round the Horn. After studying the accounts of Jean-François de La Pérouse, James Cook, George Anson and George Vancouver, he consulted the men on board who had previously made the voyage. Several ratings, including Tameoy, a native of Tahiti whose language skills would later prove invaluable, had served on South Sea whalers, but perhaps the most useful consultant was Sailing Master Cowell. In 1788, as an eleven-year-old volunteer, the father of two from Marblehead had sailed to the Pacific Northwest on a Bostonian merchantman, returning to the US three years later. By midday Porter had made his decision. ‘Apprehensive of some difficulties in going through the Streights of Le Marie’, he opted to take a longer yet less hazardous route ‘to the eastward of Staten Land’. That afternoon the breeze picked up and a thick haze descended. The lieutenant of the watch ordered the men to set the studding-sails and the Essex clipped on at 9 knots, foam breaking around her bow.5