In Pursuit of the Essex

by Hughes, Ben;

  The stranger’s audacity gave Porter pause to doubt. With his crew distributed amongst the prizes, the Essex could barely muster 200 men. Nevertheless, she was more than a match for any ship that the British had in the Pacific. Ordering his gun crews to their stations and the marines to the tops, Porter brought the Essex broadside-on, hoisted British colours and hailed the stranger through his speaking trumpet, inviting her captain to come on board. He duly complied. Introducing himself as Obed Wyer, he identified his ship as the Atlantic, a vessel belonging to the London firm of Enderby and Sons. Just then a second sail was sighted. Lieutenant McKnight was given command of the prize and Porter set sail northwest in pursuit. The Atlantic proved a fine sailer. Despite having no studding sails bent, she kept pace with the Essex and shortly after dark, guided by their night-glasses, Porter and Downes closed to within striking distance of the stranger. She proved to be the Greenwich, also owned by Enderby and Sons and armed with ten guns. Firing a shot across her bows, Porter forced her to heave to. Her captain, John Shuttleworth, having been drinking heavily throughout the pursuit, was reluctant to go on board the frigate without knowing her identity, but a second shot, fired between his masts and the threat of a broadside to follow convinced him.27

  One hundred miles to the east, Downes was similarly engaged off James’ Island. Recognising the Georgiana as a fellow British whaler, Captain Charles Hamon of the Catherine and Captain Monroe of the Rose, eight-gun whaling ships of 270 and 220 tons respectively, approached without suspicion. By the time they realised their mistake, Downes had sent two boats to board them and took both prizes without a shot being fired. The Hector, a French-built ship of 270 tons, eleven guns and a crew of twenty-five which Downes spotted later that afternoon, put up more resistance. Coming up after dark, Downes hesitated before attacking: the Hector had a ‘warlike attitude’, which had initially made the Americans think that she might be a Spanish sloop of war; and, having dispatched a proportion of his men to man his prizes, the lieutenant only had twenty ‘men and boys’ on board the Georgiana. Nevertheless, he trusted in his men’s ‘bravery’ and, heaving to in a raking position off the Hector’s stern, demanded her surrender. Joseph Richards, her captain, responded by clearing for action, prompting Downes to fire a single 18-pounder. Punching through the Hector’s stern in a shower of razor-sharp splinters, the ball crashed along her gun deck and when Richards tried to flee, Downes fired five raking broadsides in quick succession. Two of the Hector’s twenty-five crew were killed and four others were wounded. The whaler’s standing and running rigging were cut to shreds and the main topmast crashed down onto the deck. Richards struck his colours and Downes took his third prize of the day.28

  On Sunday 30 May Porter redistributed his men. Of the 319 sailors who had left the Delaware River seven months before, seven had died and sixty-three had been sent home as prize crews on the HMP Nocton, the Elizabeth brig and USS Georgiana. Two had deserted at Saint Catherine’s and one had been left at Valparaiso. Fifty-two new crewmembers had been recruited from the whaling ships the Essex had intercepted or captured, giving Porter a total of 298 men to divide between six ships. Two hundred and forty-five remained on the Essex, Midshipman Odenheimer stayed in command of the Montezuma with ten men, Feltus and six others stayed with Captain Gardner on the Barclay and Midshipman Cowan and his crew of ten remained on the Policy. Lieutenant McKnight was given a crew of twelve for the Atlantic and Lieutenant Gamble was put in charge of the Greenwich. Although Porter had confidence in the marine’s resolve and his ability to enforce discipline, due to Gamble’s lack of nautical knowledge, he was assigned two reliable old salts as mates amongst his crew of fourteen.29

  The Atlantic and Greenwich proved fine additions to the fleet. The former had been constructed in France, was a fast sailer with sleek lines and, at 350 tons, was the largest ship the Americans had taken so far. The Greenwich had been built on the River Thames in 1799. Both had holds full of whale oil, over 800 giant tortoises gathered at James’ Island and abundant supplies of cordage, canvas, paint, tar and slops. Most importantly, the Atlantic had 20,000 gallons of water. Combined with the supplies acquired at Charles’ Island, Porter now had enough to last 100 days. Less welcome was the ever-growing number of prisoners. With the capture of the Greenwich and Atlantic their numbers had swelled to eighty men. In exchange for full provisions, some agreed to serve as sailors on the understanding that they would not take part in combat and would later be discharged as prisoners of war. The rest were kept confined and placed on reduced rations. The captains of the Atlantic and Greenwich, Obed Wyer and John Shuttleworth, would prove particularly troublesome ‘guests’.30

  Born in 1769 in Nantucket, Wyer was one of dozens of islanders who chose to work for the British. Having left his wife Anna and three children in Nantucket, he had emigrated to England where his whaling experience on board the Fame between 1804 and 1806 had secured him the captain’s birth on the Atlantic. Sailing from Portsmouth on 12 November 1812 in company with the ill-fated HMS Java, Wyer had narrowly missed an early encounter with the Essex at Porto Praya in December, before parting company with HMS Java shortly after crossing the line. While the frigate had gone on to meet Commodore Bainbridge’s USS Constitution off Salvador on 28 December 1812, Wyer had rounded the Horn alone. Stopping at Concepción to refit, the Atlantic had sailed north to the Galapagos where she had been busy whaling and gathering tortoises until Wyer had had the ill-fortune to run in with Porter while making his way to Banks’ Bay. As Porter had been flying British colours, the Nantucketer was only too happy to provide his host with all the intelligence he had at his disposal. Porter was outraged. How could a fellow American possess such a ‘corrupt heart’? Introduced to the captains of Porter’s other prizes, Wyer was soon ‘undeceived’ as to which nation had captured him. He ‘gave full vent to [his] anger and indulged in the most abusive language’, Porter recalled, ‘lavishing … the most scurrilous epithets and giving me appellations that would have suited a buccaneer’. Captain Shuttleworth proved equally insulting and Porter decided to punish both men. Although his memoirs do not reveal his exact methods, the whalers were so humbled as a consequence that Porter boasted that they ‘would have licked the dust from [his] feet, had it been required for them to do so’.31

  Freed of his obligation to secure fresh water supplies, Porter decided to continue cruising the Galapagos. With the Montezuma towed by the Essex, the Barclay by the Greenwich and the Policy by the Atlantic, on 31 May, the flotilla beat southwards out of Banks’ Bay. Contrary currents made rounding the southernmost point of Albemarle impossible, despite the wind being consistently in their favour and on 4 June, Porter was obliged to tack to the northwards. Two days later the fleet sailed past Narborough once more. At 1 p.m. the crew of the Barclay hooked a large loggerhead turtle. Two hours later a volcano on Albemarle threw up a dense column of smoke and after nightfall, as a sulphurous stench spread across the ocean, the sky was lit up by an eruption. The next morning a breeze sprung up from the southeast. Sick of battling the currents, Porter changed his mind once again and decided to set sail for the coast of Peru. That afternoon the flotilla passed to the north of Abington Island, one of the smallest of the archipelago. Setting a course due east, by the morning of 8 June the Americans had left the Galapagos behind them.32

  The flotilla took six days to reach the mainland. Porter conducted as wide a sweep as possible, but no more prizes were found. As the six ships neared the coast on 13 June, the skies clouded over and in the morning the lookouts sighted land on the weather bow. On the 16th they reached the Island of La Plata, a desolate pirates’ haunt said to have played host to Francis Drake’s Golden Hind. Porter was disappointed. ‘On every part [it] was perpendicular and inaccessible’, he recalled, ‘[and] the surf [was] beating with great violence on the south and west sides.’ Running along the shore, ‘innumerable shoals of … whales’, were sighted, ‘all going with great rapidity to the northwest’. Even the most experienced whalers on board ‘[
had] never before … seen them in such numbers’. The next morning Porter ran in and hove to. Signalling his two fastest prizes, the Atlantic and Greenwich, to chase a stranger spotted to the east, he took two whaleboats in to reconnoitre the island. ‘No animals or their traces were discovered’, Porter recalled, ‘and the whole island was the most desolate imaginable.’ After leaving a message in a bottle on the offchance that Downes would pass by, Porter returned to the Essex to find the Greenwich and Atlantic at anchor with the other prizes. The chase had proved to be a Spanish brig from Panama.33

  The flotilla reached the Bay of Guayaquil on 19 June. Passing the Island of Santa Clara or Dead Man’s Island, they swept on to the mouth of the River Tumbez, a whalers’ rendezvous on the southern extremity of the bay. A mile offshore, the Essex anchored in five and half fathoms at 8 p.m. In contrast to the desolate aspect of the Galapagos and La Plata, the bay was teeming with life. Deer and wild turkey inhabited the thickly-wooded shoreline. Sharks, fish, water snakes, giant oysters and alligators measuring up to sixteen feet in length populated the muddy waters. The whole was alive with the buzz of mosquitoes and a variety of brightly plumaged birdlife. Porter was reminded of the Mississippi. Having spent the years of 1808 to 1810 chasing French, Spanish and American smugglers through the fever-ridden creeks and bayous as the commander of the naval station at New Orleans, it was an area he knew well. That night, as bumboats swarmed around the American ships, another accident occurred. While furling the mainsail, a 32-year-old quarter gunner, John Rodgers, ‘the best seamen in … the ship’ despite his ‘great … fondness for rum’, fell to the deck, shattering his skull on the very spot where Samuel Groce had split his head open five months before. Rodgers died instantly and was buried in a simple grave the next morning.

  Anxious that the local Spanish governor, resident several miles up the river at the town of Tumbez, might react badly to his arrival, Porter asked Captain Randall of the Barclay to act as his ambassador. Furnished with a ‘handsome present’ and an invitation for the governor to dine on board the Essex as an honoured guest, Randall set out at first light on 20 June. Although hazardous, the bar of the Tumbez River proved passable at low tide and by 1 p.m. Randall was heading upriver. Porter sent another boat 120 miles to the northeast to Guayaquil to find purchasers for his prizes. On board were the Spaniards who had been taken prisoner out of the Barclay off Callao. Not wishing to complicate matters during his negotiations with the governor of Tumbez, Porter felt it was better to ‘get … them out of the way’. While awaiting Randall’s return, the Essexes wooded and watered the ships. Several boats were swamped crossing the bar and a number of rafts were broken up and the water casks they were carrying lost, but not a single man was drowned. Feltus spent the afternoon gathering oysters on the river bank and Porter and Farragut went alligator hunting. Singling out a fifteen-foot giant, ‘nearly as large around as a flour-barrel’ and ‘of the most hideous appearance’, Porter shot it through the hip joint of its fore leg. ‘The ball … penetrated [its] heart’ and killed the beast instantly.34

  On 22 June Randall returned. From the Essex’s quarterdeck, Porter observed four strangers alongside the whaling captain, one of whom was dressed in uniform. To a nine-gun salute, which startled the roosting birdlife, the governor, his godfather, his son and the local collector of customs, were welcomed on board. ‘Although the appearance of the whole was as wretched as can … be imagined, policy induced … [Porter] to show them every attention’. For the next nineteen hours, much to the crew’s amusement, the Spaniards were treated as honoured guests. Gifts worth $100 were presented, Porter accepted an invitation to visit the governor’s house and, in exchange for a commission of $200 per ship, the custom’s collector agreed to travel to Guayaquil to broker the sale of the prizes. ‘The prospect … kept the poor man restless the whole time he was on board’, Porter recalled.35

  The next day, the governor returned to Tumbez. Leaving Lieutenant James Wilson in charge of the Essex, Porter followed at daybreak the next morning accompanied by Randall, Purser Shaw and several heavily-armed men. Frequently stopping to avoid half-submerged logs, the journey took five hours. The humidity was appalling and the mosquitoes a constant annoyance. The land on either bank was low, muddy and ‘covered with rushes, reeds and mangroves’. The town, built six miles upriver, consisted of seventy reed huts constructed atop four foot high stilts. At the governor’s house, distinguished only by its white-painted interior, his mulatto wife was preparing a meal. ‘[It was a] wretched place’, Porter recalled, ‘[but,] the inhabitants gave me the most friendly reception, every where [they] invited me into their huts, where hogs, dogs, fowls, jackasses, men, women and children, were grouped together and from whence … I was always glad to make my escape, on the account of the innumerable swarms of fleas with which they were infested.’ Having distributed a number of silk shawls as presents and received ‘a pair of fowls, a half dozen … eggs, a few oranges, watermelons, [and] goats’ in return, Porter was rowed back downriver. Although the Bostonian had felt distinctly uneasy in Tumbez and was concerned that the governor might attempt to detain him, he left Purser Shaw to ‘procure a supply of fruit and vegetables for the crew’.36

  On his return, Porter found Lieutenant James Wilson hopelessly drunk. The lieutenant had been arrested on at least two previous occasions during the early part of the voyage for violent and offensive conduct, but had been forgiven due to his ‘many good qualities …, goodness of heart’ and the intercession of his fellow officers. This occasion, however, Porter judged to be different. Wilson had been drinking with Captain Shuttleworth of the Greenwich, a self-confessed enemy of the Americans. Wilson had also been acting as officer of the watch. On being informed he was under arrest, the lieutenant ‘sprung up’ from his cot and ‘seized a pistol’. Porter wrestled the weapon from his grasp, only for the lieutenant to grab another and threaten to blow his own brains out. Having disarmed him a second time, Porter had Wilson confined to his cabin. His sea chest was searched for further weapons and an armed marine placed outside his door. That afternoon Porter initiated a reshuffling of assignments. Lieutenant McKnight returned to the Essex and Sailing-Master Cowell and Midshipman Cowan were appointed acting Third and Fourth Lieutenants respectively. Midshipman Odenheimer re-joined the frigate as acting sailing master in Cowell’s stead, Chaplain Adams was appointed prize commander of the Atlantic to replace McKnight and Midshipmen Clarke, Ogden, Gray, Isaacs and Conover, boys of no more than twelve to fifteen years of age, were given command of the Montezuma and Policy supported by senior sailors ‘in whom [Porter] could confide’.37

  As the days passed with no word from Purser Shaw, Porter grew increasingly concerned. Although the Spanish had insufficient naval forces in the area to seriously trouble the Americans, men onshore made easy targets. One of Porter’s prisoners, a whaler’s mate, had already disappeared, presumably having fallen victim to local robbers, a loss which prompted Porter to order his boat parties to carry arms at all times and around the same time a letter of unmistakably threatening tone was received from Brigadier Juan Vasco y Pascual, the governor of Guayaquil. After dashing Porter’s hopes of selling his prizes, Pascual advised the Bostonian that the sooner his flotilla left Peruvian shores the better.38

  On 24 June three strange sails hove into the bay. In the aftermath of Pascual’s letter, the Americans were nervous and opinion as to the ships’ identity was divided. ‘As they approached with apparent caution’, Porter recalled, ‘many on board conjectured them to be enemies, [while] I believed it to be lieutenant Downes in the Georgiana, with two prizes.’ Porter was proved correct and the new arrivals ‘were greeted by three hearty cheers’. Since taking his prizes, Downes had decided to use the dullest sailer, the 220-ton Rose, as a cartel to rid himself of seventy-five prisoners. After her oil and guns had been thrown overboard, she had been dispatched to Saint Helena and Downes had proceeded with the Hector and the Catherine to Tumbez.39

  With nine ships now under his comma
nd, Porter decided to split his forces. The Essex would continue the hunt for British whalers, while the least seaworthy of the prizes would be sent to Valparaiso where Porter hoped they would find buyers willing to defy Viceroy Abascal of Peru. The new plan prompted yet more reshuffling of personnel. The Atlantic, which was both a faster sailer and a larger ship than USS Georgiana, was converted into Downes’ new cruiser. The First Lieutenant and his men spent the next few days shifting the cannon out of the latter into the former, which was renamed USS Essex Junior. By the time they had finished, she mounted twenty guns and Porter increased the crew to sixty men. Richard Dashiel, the oldest of Porter’s midshipmen, was made the Essex Junior’s acting sailing master and Downes was given William Kingsbury, the ‘trusty old son of Neptune’ who had acted so decisively during the storm of 3 March, as his acting boatswain. Chaplain Adams was given command of the Georgiana, which was converted into a twenty-gun store ship; Farragut was put in charge of the Barclay and Feltus was given command of the Montezuma.40