by Hughes, Ben;
At 6 p.m. that evening, Richard Mclean, one of the men imprisoned on the Essex Junior for the Nuka Hiva poison plot, freed himself from his irons. Dashing up to the waist, he leapt overboard and swam towards the Cherub. Captain Tucker had a boat lowered and sent to his aid. Downes responded in kind, but the British proved quicker. Mclean was soon safely on board the Cherub and that night was entered onto her muster roll. Stories of Mclean’s treatment at the hands of Porter and Gamble soon spread to the Phoebe, prompting Hillyar to write to Porter that evening: ‘Captain Tucker has been informed’, he began, ‘that nine of our countrymen are suffering the miseries of close confinement … under your orders … aggravated by their being kept in irons. As this mode of treatment is so contrary to … the usages of honourable warfare, may I beg … that you will do me the favour to interest yourself in their behalf.’23
That night the rival crews once again exchanged insults across the water. ‘You Rascals, we’ve found you at last’, yelled a Cherub. ‘Yes’, an Essex Junior replied, ‘you have found the worst job you’ve had to do since you left England, we will give you [HMS] Java’s time for it.’ ‘The Yankees then struck up a Song’, Thornton recalled, ‘[entitled] Let Britain no longer lay claim to the Seas’, which ‘was … answered by Rule Britannia which the whole crews of the Cherub & Phoebe … joined in’. As the night wore on, the singing grew more inventive. ‘Some of [the songs] … were of their own composition’, Porter recalled. ‘Those … from the Cherub were better sung, but those of the Essex were more witty and more to the point. The national tune of the yankee doodle was the vehicle through which the crew … in full chorus, conveyed their … sarcasms; while “the sweet little Cherub that sits up aloft”, was … selected by their rivals.’ The locals were much amused. Eugenio Santos, a young boy at the time, understood little of what he heard, but as an old man would still remember the nightly choruses of the summer of 1814.24
On 10 February while the British boats carried oxen, vegetables and water out to the roads, Hillyar wrote to the Admiralty with barely disguised glee. Several other Phoebes took advantage of the imminent departure of a postal dispatch rider for Buenos Ayres to write to their families, but Lieutenant Ingram decided against it. Despite not having had an opportunity to address a letter home since leaving Rio, the 27-year-old thought he would wait until the battle had been fought so as not to unduly worry his mother, Anne. That afternoon Porter penned a reply to Hillyar’s letter of 9 February, justifying his treatment of his prisoners by referencing their attempt to poison his men. The Essexes spent the day unloading the sandalwood and livestock in the frigate’s hold onto one of the prizes and at 10 p.m. it was discovered that Lieutenant John Belcher, the Cherub’s junior commissioned officer, had escaped from close confinement. A search turned up a note explaining that he ‘[had] commit[ted] himself to the waves’.25
The next day passed peacefully. In the morning the Phoebes washed their hammocks and clothes. The Essexes continued unloading Porter’s stocks of sandalwood and hoisted several small guns up onto the booms; while the Cherubs painted their carronades and the Phoebe took on 340 bags of bread. William Kirby, an eighteen-year-old midshipman who had been under Hillyar’s command since 1812, was transferred to the Cherub as Captain Tucker’s acting Second Lieutenant to replace Belcher, now listed ‘missing presumed drowned’ and Samuel Thornton Junior was promoted to midshipman in Kirby’s stead. The next morning a white flag was hoisted from the Essex’s mizzen top. Since his meeting with Hillyar, Porter had ‘secretly resolved to take every means of provoking’ his opponent to a single-ship duel and the new banner, emblazoned with the motto ‘God, Our Country and Liberty, Tyrants Offend Them’, was his latest attempt to circumvent the Englishman’s icy resolve. The Phoebes responded with three cheers, promptly returned by the Essex.26
At some point during the next two days Hillyar was rowed ashore. His first order of business was to set up a signal station on one of the hills to allow regular reports on the enemy’s movements to be broadcast out into the bay. Later, Hillyar met with a number of Britons living in Valparaiso: Thomas Crompton, the merchant who had taken passage in the Phoebe from Callao; George Cood, a native of Donegal who had been resident since August 1813 and was a supercargo for the Good Friends; Andrew Blest, an Irish doctor and Protestant minister who had arrived in 1812 with a consignment of scriptures supplied by the Bible Society in London; and Andrew Munro, a Scottish merchant with a financial interest in the Emily. All were concerned by the turbulent political situation in Chile. Forced to remain in port by government order as a means of lessening their risk of capture by American cruisers and Peruvian privateers, the merchants worried that their goods would spoil and wanted Governor Lastra to pay compensation. Having promised to look into the issue, Hillyar proceeded to Blanco’s house for another meeting with Porter. The Bostonian asked permission to send his prisoners to England on one of his prizes ‘with a passport to secure her from capture; there to take in an equal number of American prisoners and proceed with them to the United States’. Hillyar refused. Besides being contrary to the norms of war, the proposition was entirely in Porter’s favour. Not only would it release him from the responsibility of guarding his prisoners, it would also ensure that they could not be released if the cartel was recaptured by the British on the high seas.27
During the days that the Royal Navy ships spent in the roads, several of Hillyar’s and Porter’s junior officers fraternised on shore. A few even struck up lasting friendships. The young British midshipman, Samuel Thornton Junior, and the Essex’s schoolmaster-cum-chaplain, David Phineas Adams, realised they had a mutual interest in anthropology and Adams presented Thornton with several of the ‘Indian curiosities’ he had acquired while at Nuka Hiva. Porter claimed that the frigates’ rival boats’ crews also mixed in an amicable manner, although Farragut stated ‘they invariably fought’. Several were old acquaintances. Jeremiah Ryan, who joined the Phoebe at Callao, had served on the Greenwich with Lewis Earle, Peter Ripple and John Deacon, all of whom had signed up on the Essex; James Tucker and Daniel Smith had served together on the New Zealander; and Thomas James of the Phoebe and John Powell and Robert Brown of the Essex had all sailed on the Montezuma. As she was on her way back to England when captured, they must have lived together for at least two years!28
On 14 February Hillyar completed his supplies. Purser Nickenson purchased 120lbs of white rope which was sent across to the Cherub along with barrels of cocoa, dried beef and flour, bags of bread, fresh vegetables and several live oxen. That afternoon Porter promoted John M. Maury, the midshipman who had joined the Essex at Nuka Hiva, to acting lieutenant and sent him on board the Essex Junior to reinforce Lieutenant Downes. At dawn on the 15th a lookout on the Essex observed the local telegraph station signalling a strange sail off shore. ‘The morning being calm’, Porter decided to test his opponents’ readiness. Sending his boats across to the Essex Junior, he had the sloop towed out of the bay to reconnoitre. The British failed to react until 9 a.m., when an offshore breeze allowed the Phoebe and Cherub to set sail in pursuit. Rather than directly following Downes’ line, Hillyar set a course which would bring him wide round Angels Point allowing him to pursue the Essex Junior while also keeping the Essex in sight. By this stage Downes had intercepted the stranger. She proved to be the Vulture, the Peruvian privateer which had taken the Boriska and Hunter to Callao. Downes then tacked and raced back to the bay with the Phoebe and Cherub coming out into open sea three miles off his larboard bow. Hauling in for the land, Downes passed tight round Angels Point a pistol shot from the rocks. Hillyar signalled Captain Tucker to pursue the American, while he sailed on to investigate the stranger. Tucker tacked and piled on all sail, but the Essex Junior slipped back into the roads before the Cherub could get within cannon shot. Porter was delighted. If Downes could outrun the British ships, then so could he.29
That afternoon, the Phoebe and Cherub reunited at the mouth of the bay where one of the Emily’s boats came out to meet th
em. On board were six new recruits. Five, including George O’Brien, the former Royal Navy lieutenant, temporarily joined the Phoebe from the Emily. The sixth was Landsman Daniel Coleman, a deserter from the Essex who had been under Porter’s command since he had left the Delaware sixteen months before. Exactly how or why Coleman deserted is a matter of speculation. Porter fails to mention the incident. A member of the United States Navy willingly placing himself under British ‘tyranny’ did not fit the Bostonian’s view of the world. Gardiner, on the other hand, hints at an explanation. Coleman, like many ‘Americans’ in the US Navy, was most likely an Englishman who had once served in the Royal Navy. Having spent two days staring at Hillyar’s motto: ‘Traitors offend both God and Country’, he perhaps felt it time to throw himself on the mercy of his former employers. The alternative – capture after battle – would result in a court martial. Hanging from the yardarm was the punishment for men caught fighting their own side.30
The Phoebe and Cherub spent the next six weeks blockading the Americans. By tacking and wearing dozens of times a day, an exhausting undertaking which First Lieutenant Ingram sarcastically dubbed ‘delightful work’, they would attempt to maintain a position one to three miles northwest of Angels Point. In theory this would enable Hillyar to keep the Essex in sight while also being able to intercept any vessels entering or leaving the bay. In practice blockading was not an exact science, as Gardiner explained, ‘we were frequently becalmed and drifted a long way from shore … on the other hand, it sometimes blew so strong that it was with great difficulty, by carrying a press of sail, we could keep to windward of the port’. The worst case scenario was shipwreck off Angels Point. Able seamen were constantly employed sounding to ensure the British did not meet such a fate.31
On 16 February the Phoebes ‘agreed to share prize money with the officers and Crew of the Cherub during the time both ships remained westward [of] Cape Horn’. That afternoon a Spanish boat, possibly sent by Governor Lastra, warned Hillyar that the Essex was preparing to get under weigh. The Phoebes were beat to quarters, but it proved a false alarm. At 2 a.m. on the 19th, Boatswain John Pomfrey, whom Hillyar had ‘begged’ the Admiralty to appoint an onshore role at Plymouth due to his age and ill-health, ‘departed this life’. His body was committed to the deep at 2 o’clock that afternoon. Four hours later the Phoebes and Cherubs exercised their great guns and small arms, an event which would become a daily fixture from then on. On 22 February Captain Tucker sent his boatswain, William Forder, to replace Pomfrey, while John Gillespie, a 41-year-old Phoebe and veteran of Trafalgar was appointed to fill Forder’s berth.32
That afternoon, while Hillyar and Tucker oversaw gun drill two miles off Angels Point, Porter began to make preparations to put to sea, ‘to know the sailing of my ship and that of the enemy’. Two days before he had sent 150 men on board the Essex Junior, a fact reported to Hillyar by the crew of the Emily and that afternoon Porter took to the hills to study the movements of the British ships and determine the best means of eluding them. The resident British merchants took careful note of Porter’s movements. When he moved to a four-gun battery on a bluff to the north of the bay, they grew convinced that he was intending to run for the open sea. At 8.30 p.m. their suspicions seemed to be confirmed. Two blue lights – the signal used to indicate that a ship was about to leave port – were spotted burning on shore.33
The Phoebe’s and Cherub’s lookouts also saw the lights and the ships cleared for action. As the gun crews rushed to their stations and the partitions were stowed, Hillyar flashed a lantern signal to Tucker ordering him to stand close inshore. Both crews passed the hours of darkness in a state of nervous tension. While the topmen tacked again and again to maintain their ships’ positions, the gun crews remained below decks, expecting the Americans to slide out of the darkness, their carronades blazing or attempt to elude them by sailing close along the shore. Dawn brought a mixture of relief and frustration. The Essex and Essex Junior remained at anchor in the roads.34
Porter spent the morning of Thursday 23 February paying his debts in town. That afternoon he re-climbed the path to the battery on the bluff, prompting Thomas Crompton to write a letter urging Hillyar to remain on guard. ‘I think … [Porter] intends to weigh out with his parachutes’, the merchant warned. ‘The governor says he may get out with a strong north wind. If you want anything whatever drop me a line.’ At 10 a.m. Crompton sent the note to sea on one of the Emily’s boats just as a sudden squall ripped across the bay. With the Phoebe and Cherub blown six miles out to sea, Porter made his move. The Essex’s cable, taken from a prize, was cut and by 10.20 a.m. the American frigate was under weigh. Several miles beyond Angels Point, Hillyar spotted the move, piled on as much sail as he dared and attempted to tack back into the bay. The Phoebes and Cherubs were beat to quarters and the gun deck cleared for action for the second time that day. Porter was delighted. ‘I … ascertained that … [we] had greatly the advantage and consequently believed I could, at almost any time, make my escape’. Nevertheless, the Bostonian chose to remain. There was still hope that he might provoke Hillyar into accepting a challenge and win everlasting fame. With the Phoebe’s mizzen top and fore topsails being torn to shreds by the squall, the Essex tacked and returned to the anchorage.35
Over the next two days several letters were exchanged between Hillyar and Porter concerning the latter’s prisoners and on the morning of 25 February they were released on parole. Hillyar, in return, promised to write to the Admiralty and request that the same number of US prisoners be granted liberty and restored to their homes. At 4 p.m., Porter attempted to provoke Hillyar into action once more. With the British maintaining their vigil three miles off Angels Point, the Essexes towed the Hector a mile from shore and set her alight. Her timbers impregnated with whale oil, the 270-ton prize burned for four and a half hours as she drifted across the bay. Blazing debris rained down over the port and she passed within a musket shot of the British and Spanish shipping in the roads. The British merchants were furious. Calling Porter’s act a ‘gross’ and ‘shameful’ violation of the port’s neutrality, they wrote to Hillyar assuring him that he would now be well within his rights to attack the Americans, whether they were within gunshot of the shore or not. Gardiner also felt that Porter had broken the law, while Governor Lastra was ‘indignant’ and went on board the Essex that afternoon ‘to let Captn. Porter know that he consider[ed] … the burning of the English prize … a complete violation’. At 9 p.m., with her blackened timbers still crackling, the Hector sank beneath the waves. Porter felt that his methods were entirely justified. He was convinced that he was beginning to work his way under Hillyar’s skin.36
At 7 a.m. on Sunday 27 February a dead calm fell over the bay. With the current setting off shore, the Phoebe and Cherub drifted out to sea and by 11 a.m., as Hillyar gathered his men for divine service, the British ships were fully six miles off Angels Point. At 2 p.m. a westerly breeze picked up. Shaking three reefs out of their topsails, the Phoebes managed to hold their position, but the Cherub drifted further northwest. By the middle of the afternoon six miles separated the British ships and at 5.30 p.m. Hillyar fired a gun and hoisted a signal ordering the Cherub to sail closer inshore. Misreading the separation as a deliberate act and interpreting the signal gun as a challenge, Porter assumed that Hillyar had finally taken the bait. He ordered the Essex and Essex Junior to slip their cables and hoisted his motto flags and a jack to all three mastheads. With the offshore breeze behind them, the American ships were soon racing out of the bay.
With the Cherub five miles to leeward, Hillyar was faced with a difficult decision. Even given a favourable change in the wind, Tucker could not possibly hope to come up within the next hour and half. This left two choices: either Hillyar could flee, thereby abandoning his mission or he could stand and fight. Despite being outgunned, the Englishman chose the latter. ‘We immediately prepared to receive them’, he recalled. ‘The colours were hoisted, the main topsail backed and the driver brailed u
p’. As the ship was cleared for action, Hillyar took to the gundeck, ‘read prayers … adapted to the occasion … [and] admonished the … [men] to be calm & steady’. He was answered with three cheers. By 7 p.m. the Essex and Essex Junior were closing rapidly, the frigate racing ahead. Not wanting to give Porter the choice of both ‘distance’ and ‘situation’, Hillyar wore to bring his starboard broadside to bear on the Essex’s bow. With the helm hard over, the Phoebe turned away from the wind. A mile to the eastward, Porter interpreted the movement as an attempt to run down towards the Cherub and directed two shot to be fired ahead of the Phoebe to bring her to. Hillyar continued wearing, his gun crews rushing across to man the starboard broadside, but before the Phoebe’s stern could be brought round into the wind, Porter hauled onto the larboard tack and headed back to port. Hillyar stood after him, but at 8 p.m. the American reached the safety of the anchorage before the Phoebe’s shot ‘could be expected to produce any material effect’.