by Hughes, Ben;
Despite flying under the flags of warring nations, the Nantucketers had chosen to help one another. They were islanders first. Whether or not they sailed in US or British bottoms came a distant second. Worth had also heard that several English whalers were cruising the Galapagos Islands and the coast of Peru. The news was all the incentive Porter needed. He gave the order to weigh and at 1 p.m., ‘with a fresh breeze from the southward’, the Essex stood out of the bay. By nightfall, as a thick fog descended, Valparaiso had disappeared from view.36
At dawn on 25 March a sail was spotted on the weather bow. The Essex gave chase and by 7 a.m. the stranger was boarded. ‘She proved to be the American whale-ship Charles.’ Having left New England thirteen months before, her captain, Grafton Gardner, one of a long line of whalers operating out of Nantucket since the seventeenth century, had rounded Cape Horn only to be captured by a Peruvian privateer and sent into Callao for adjudication. Deemed an unlawful prize by Don Joshua Pasqual de Vivero, the Captain of the Marine Department, the Charles had been allowed to continue after paying legal costs and in March 1813, learning of the American declaration of war against Britain, had joined up with two other American whalers – the Barclay, a vessel one and half years out of Bedford, Massachusetts with an almost entirely black crew and the Walker commanded by captain Stephen West, yet another Nantucketer. The ships had made several kills and were on the point of returning to the United States when they had been chased on 23 March 1813 off Coquimbo. Their assailants were the Nimrod, a heavily-armed British whaler captured from the French in 1803 whose captain, William Perry, carried a letter of marque and the Nereyda, a 15-gun Peruvian privateer, which had been granted a five-month license by Viceroy Abascal to capture vessels engaged in contraband on the Chilean coast. The Charles had escaped by piling on all sail. Gardener’s compatriots had not been so fortunate.37
Knowing the privateers had a significant head start, Porter acted swiftly. At 8 a.m., after taking the Charles’ Second Mate on board as a pilot, he ordered Gardner to follow his lead and made all sail in pursuit. Thirty minutes later a stranger was spotted. By noon Porter could make out that the chase was a ship-of-war mounting whaleboats on her quarters by means of disguise. At 1 p.m. he fired a gun to attract her attention and hoisted British colours. The Charles followed suit and the stranger hoisted Spanish colours in reply, tacked and fired a gun to leeward. One hour later she fired a gun across the Essex’s bows. Angered by the stranger’s presumption, Porter toyed with the idea of firing a broadside into his hull, ‘but … contented … [him]self with firing [six] shot over him to bring him down’. Suitably chastened, the stranger hove to and sent a lieutenant on board the Essex. She proved to be the Nereyda, which had captured the Barclay and Walker but had since lost the latter to the Nimrod. Maintaining the pretence that the Essex was a British ship-of-war, Porter ordered the lieutenant to bring some of the prisoners he had taken from the Barclay and Walker on board. Captain West and the Barclay’s First Mate, Isaac Bly, arrived soon after. Assured they were on board an American frigate, they informed Porter that the Spaniards had stripped their ships of cordage, boats and provisions, robbed the men and even taken the officers’ clothes.38
With the Nereyda close under the Essex’s carronades, Porter hoisted American colours and ordered the Spaniards to strike. The Nereydas were confined on board the Essex while Acting Fifth Lieutenant McKnight took possession. The next morning Porter brought the other American prisoners on board and had the privateer’s cannon, ammunition and small arms thrown into the sea. ‘Leaving her only her topsails and courses … I … sent back all the Spaniards [on board her] and directed [them] … to proceed to Lima.’ Porter also presumed to address a haughty letter to Viceroy Abascal: ‘Your Excellency … [having been] informed by [the] … officers [of the Nereyda] that they were cruising, as the allies of Great Britain, to capture and send in for adjudication all American vessels they should meet … I have … determined to prevent in future such vexatious and piratical conduct … and have sent her to Lima in order that her commander may meet with such punishment … as his offence may deserve.’39
At noon, as the Nereyda limped away to the north, the Essex and Charles ran up to Coquimbo. At 6 p.m., off a line of rocks called the Chinques, Porter hove to and sent Lieutenant Downes, Captain West and four men to perform a night-time reconnaissance of the bay in one of the Charles’ whaleboats. Finding no sign of the Nimrod, Barclay or Walker and with the shore battery alarmed and firing cannon into the night, Downes returned at midnight and the Essex and Charles stood out to sea. On the morning of March 27 Porter sailed north in search of the Nimrod. Before parting company, captains West and Gardner provided a list of twenty-three American and ten British whalers in the South Pacific. ‘They both agreed that the Gallipagos was the most likely place to find them’ and assured Porter that there were at least ten more British vessels in the area that they couldn’t name. ‘All [were] fine ships of not less than four hundred tons … [and] their cargoes would be worth two hundred thousand dollars each.’ Porter offered the former American prisoners a choice. They could go with West and Gardner into Coquimbo on the Charles or join the Essex. Nine, including Isaac Bly, took up the challenge. At noon the two ships set sail on opposite tacks and by 2 p.m. had lost sight of each other.40
With pleasant weather and fair winds, over the next week the Essex travelled over 700 miles. North of Coquimbo, the coastline became more arid as the scrub, scattered trees and thorn bushes of central Chile gave way to the Atacama Desert of southern Peru. Porter filled the time with routine repairs. At 9 a.m. on 28 March the main sail was brought down, the rigging reset and the ship disguised as a Spanish merchantman. A ‘broad yellow streak’ was painted round the hull ‘as far as the fore channels, false waist cloths’ while painted ports were rigged round the quarterdeck nettings and a fake poop was constructed. On 1 April the Essex crossed the Tropic of Capricorn amidst shoals of flying fish. The next day the guns were scoured and at 6 a.m. on the 3rd the island of San Gallan, a rocky outcrop home to a raucous sea lion colony and numerous Humboldt penguins 150 miles south of the Peruvian capital, was spotted on the starboard bow. Sailing Master Cowell set a course to the northwest ‘with a view of crossing the track of vessels bound to Callao’ and later that morning Feltus observed that the water had a strange red tint to it. The colouration was caused by thousands of tiny crayfish, ‘from one inch in length to one tenth that size’. Porter ordered a bucket pitched over the side and put ‘two of them … in a bottle of sea-water … On some crumbs of bread being thrown in, they seized and devoured them very ravenously’, he recalled.41
At 9 a.m. on 4 April, as the Essex stood in towards a series of high bluffs, the lookouts spotted a strange sail to leeward. Porter gave chase and over the next two hours two more ships were sighted to windward. Concentrating on the vessel closest to Callao, by midday Porter was convinced he was pursuing the Barclay. With the light sails wet to increase the wind they could hold and the boats’ crews readied to make a dash, the Essex inched closer. At 1 p.m., as the chase came under the lee of barren dunes of the Island of San Lorenzo, which marked the outer limits of the bay of Callao, she was becalmed. Two and half miles to the south, with all sail crammed on, the Essex swept into the bay, coming to a halt as the breeze died just 100 yards shy of her quarry. Porter lowered the boats and within minutes they had overpowered the Spanish prize crew and were towing the Barclay back out of the bay. Porter noted there were ‘a great number of’ Spaniards and a single armed British vessel which did not match the Nimrod’s description under the guns of an imposing stone fort and two half-moon redoubts which covered the inner roads. Beyond, the church towers of Lima, some three leagues distant, could be made out. At 3 p.m. the second strange sail which the Essexes had spotted ran into Callao. Feltus recognised her as one of the Spanish merchant brigs they had seen at Valparaiso. Within an hour, working hard against the in-draught, the boats had towed the Barclay under the Essex’s carronades and her captai
n, Gideon Randall, was ushered on board.42
A ‘violent tempered’ 51-year-old father of five from Hanover, Massachusetts, Randall had been captain of the Barclay since 1801. As his former crewmembers, now with the Essex, refused to return and the only Americans left on board were sick with scurvy, Randall had little choice but to remain under Porter’s protection. ‘He … offered his services … in any way he could prove useful’, the Bostonian recalled, ‘giving me assurances that he could take me where the British whale-vessels most frequented, advising me … to proceed to the islands of Gallipagos … and on my way looking into Payta’, a Peruvian port 500 miles to the north. At 7 p.m., as the mortally-wounded Quarter-Gunner Spafford finally expired, John S. Cowan, a 21-year-old from Baltimore who had been made midshipman in December 1810, took command of the Barclay with the aid of Captain Randall and six men and the Essex set sail west-northwest. A blue light burning at the frigate’s mizzen peak guided the Barclay out of the bay.43
On 5 April, after an inquiry had cleared Lieutenant McKnight of blame for his death, Spafford’s body was committed to the deep. ‘He had distinguished himself by his moral and correct conduct’, Porter noted by way of an epitaph, ‘and I had intended promoting him … so soon as circumstances would admit.’ At 2 p.m. the man at the masthead decried a sail. The Essex stood towards it, but it was discovered to be the Rock of Pelado, a barren islet 100 miles to the north of Callao stained white with the guano of the cormorants, blue-footed boobies and pelicans that nested there. Two hours later another sail was spotted. The Essex gave chase and at sundown brought the stranger too by firing across her bows. She proved to be a Spanish brig from Callao carrying salt.
Supposing the Essex to be … [British, the captain] informed me that an English frigate had been for some time expected at Callao from Cadiz, for the purpose of taking in money … that an English armed ship had put in there a few days since … [and] that two English whale-ships had sailed from thence … [in the last few days] … they [also] informed me that … [British] vessels [were] treated with great civility, in consequence of being the allies of Spain; but that … [those of the United States] were held in very little estimation … that the Americans were notorious … contrabandistas … and neither received nor expected much civility.44
With the Essex and Barclay coming together at nightfall and parting to signalling distance at daylight to maximise their sweep, over the next few days Porter worked his way up the coast. Two sperm whales were spotted on the morning of 9 April and that afternoon one of the Essexes harpooned a four-foot fur seal as they passed the islands of Lobos de Afuera and Lobos de Tierra off the Peruvian coast. The next day, off Punta Aguja, shoals of fish were forced to the surface by the meeting of the cold waters of the Humboldt Current from the south and the tropical Equatorial Current from the north. The boiling bait-ball was attacked by tuna, seal, dolphin and whales from below while seabirds dived in from above.45
On the 11th the Essex and Barclay stood into Payta Bay. As the men admired the Saddle of Payta, ‘a remarkably irregular mountain’ which rose out of the otherwise featureless desert, two sails emerged out of the morning haze. Both were six-man catamarans constructed from eight 30-foot logs lashed together with a single mast and a large cotton lug sail. Shocked that they would venture so far from shore, Porter hove to. ‘I learnt, to my astonishment, that they were from Guayaquil [a port 300 miles to the north], with cargoes of cocoa, bound … to leeward of Lima and had already been out thirty days. They were destitute of water and had no other provisions … than a few rotten plantains … and [a number of] pieces of fish.’ Learning that there were no ships at anchor in Payta, Porter decided to waste no more time on the coast of South America. Steering west-northwest, the Essex headed for the Galapagos Islands instead.46
Chapter 5
From Tenerife to Rio: HMS Phoebe, 12 April 1813 – 9 July 1813
On 12 April 1813 HMS Phoebe fired a nineteen-gun salute in honour of the three forts at Santa Cruz, Tenerife. The Spanish guns, which sixteen years earlier had repulsed Nelson’s landing with a storm of roundshot and grape, returned the courtesy while the bulk of Hillyar’s crew rotated the provisions in the hold to make room for resupply. That afternoon the men were issued half a pint of rum, a boat crew rowed across the bay to assist the ever-struggling Isaac Todd and Midshipman Gardiner strolled the main deck, taking in the view under an awning rigged to provide shade from the sun. Over fifty sail were riding on the swell whipped up by a wind blowing from the south. Pounded by the breakers was a large, stone pier known as the mole. Beyond stood the castle of San Cristobal. In its shadow was a large marble column intricately carved with human figures and a number of ‘low, ill-built and irregular’ one- and two-storey houses dominated by three whitewashed churches. The whole was dwarfed by the lower slopes of the Anaga Mountains whose rocky foothills were planted with corn, grapes and figs in narrow rows.1
On the 13th Purser Surflen went ashore to purchase provisions. The water casks were refilled and 6,030 gallons of wine, 400lbs of fresh vegetables, 200 lemons and a single ox were hoisted on board with a rig strung from the spars. The crew stowed the hold under the watchful eye of Acting-Master Miller, while Gardiner visited the Church of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción where he saw two ‘English Jacks … preserved as trophy’s of war’. With the roads accommodating the East Indian fleet as well as a number of British merchantmen bound for Brazil and their accompanying escorts, Santa Cruz had the atmosphere of a prosperous, British seaside town. The Phoebe’s officers’ stay was ‘very pleasant [indeed]’. For the Isaac Todd’s French Canadian voyageurs, on the other hand, it proved a painful visit. When soldiers from the local Spanish garrison mistook them for escaped French prisoners ‘a scuffle ensued’. Half ‘were wounded and locked up, but were soon after released’. Another member of Hillyar’s command, Able Seaman Ligorio Philips, was also having a difficult time. A native of Santa Cruz, Philips had served nineteen years with the Royal Navy without visiting his home town. ‘Immediately on our arrival … he asked permission to go on shore’, Gardiner recalled, ‘[but] returned on board the same evening … His parents who were both living when he left … had long since paid the debt of nature, all his friends had left … nor could he hear any account of the remainder of his unfortunate family.’2
At 9.30 a.m. on 15 April the Phoebe and Isaac Todd got under way with a light breeze from the northeast. Hillyar took two East Indiamen, the 532-ton Ocean, commanded by Captain Thomas MacTaggart and the larger Devaynes, under Captain John Short, under convoy. Left behind when their sister vessels had sailed that morning, both were carrying supplies, passengers and soldiers to Madras and Bengal. That evening the Phoebe’s officers gathered on deck to see the Peak of Tenerife, but ‘the darkness of the night concealed it from … view’. On Good Friday a barrel of cocoa was opened, Hillyar held extra divine service and the convoy covered 125 miles. The next morning brought fine weather and moderate breezes. The Phoebes washed their clothes and scrubbed their hammocks, hanging them from the rigging to dry. Steering south-southwest, Hillyar made for the Cape Verde Islands to catch up with the East India convoy and rid himself of the Ocean and Devaynes.3
April 19th brought a dead calm. For the next forty-eight hours the convoy idled under a burning sun and covered no more than six miles. At 11 a.m. Ordinary Seaman William Dougherty, a 23-year-old Tamatave veteran from Derry, was punished with eighteen lashes for swearing and disobedience of orders. That afternoon the sailroom was cleared and the spare courses aired on deck. On the 21st a breeze sprang up from the northeast and at daylight the Phoebe’s lookouts spotted a stranger on the weather beam. She proved to be a Spanish schooner from Majorca bound for Puerto Rico. On the 25th, as the Phoebe covered over 100 miles, Acting Sailing Master Miller steered south for the Cape Verde Islands. Gardiner sighted San Antonio the next morning: ‘As the weather was very hazy, the … barren summit … was all that we could … distinguish, rising … majestically above … mists which entirely conce
aled its base.’ Hoping the India fleet was astern, Hillyar ‘lay too till morning in expectation … that … [he] might resign [his] … charge’ and at noon lookouts spotted a strange sail approaching. She proved to be the John, a British merchant brig originally part of the convoy bound for Brazil that the Phoebes had seen at Tenerife. Having separated from his escorts, her captain was obliged to join Hillyar’s command.4
The next day the flotilla passed the tiny island of Brava, and then on the moonlit night of the 28th the night watch enjoyed spectacular views of the 2,829-metre high volcano rising from the island of Fogo. The 30th brought moderate breezes and cloudy weather. Scudding along at 7 knots, the convoy covered 145 miles. That afternoon Hillyar had Ordinary Seaman Thomas Staines promoted to Trumpeter. The post brought the 38-year-old from Donegal who had served on the frigate since February 1802 an extra ten shillings per month. The next morning the landsmen were exercised at the great guns and at 2 p.m. Hillyar backed the mizzen sail to allow the Devaynes to catch up. As the convoy neared the Equator, the humidity rose. Dark clouds gathered and on the evening of 4 May a thunderstorm broke out. The next morning Gardiner noticed a solitary swallow trailing the ship. ‘After flying [round] several times … as though unwilling to approach … it at length alighted’, he recalled, ‘and hopping about from one rope to the other, seemed to share in the general amusement [which its sudden appearance had caused] … under … mistaken notions of kindness … [the sailors] determined to catch this little wanderer following it from one place to another till at last weary of such inhospitable treatment … it left us as quickly as Noah’s dove when she found no rest for her foot.’ The incident left Gardiner in melancholy mood. ‘Such a … visit, so common in England, could not fail to present to a sea-green imagination, many of those rural and social scenes, kind friends and affectionate relations whose influence on the mind only increases as distance separates’, the young midshipman mused.5