In Pursuit of the Essex

by Hughes, Ben;

  In mid-December 1814, John Stavers visited the Phoebe. The former captain of the Seringapatam had spent the best part of the last twenty-one months at sea. As a prisoner on USS Georgiana, he had sailed from the Galapagos on 25 July 1813 for the United States only to be liberated on 28 November by HMS Barossa in the Caribbean. Stavers had then made his way back to England, still piqued by the fact that at least five of his crew of thirty-one had joined the Essex within days of his surrender despite his promise that he would have them prosecuted for treason. Sixteen months later in Plymouth, as he looked through the Phoebe’s muster roll, one name stood out. When Able Seaman John Swayne was summoned to Hillyar’s Great Cabin, Stavers recognised the Scot immediately. ‘After looking at him, [he] asked [Swayne] if he knew him … [Swayne] replied, yes … [Stavers] then added, that he was come to be as good as his word.’8

  On 19 December, while Stavers began the long process of putting his case against Swayne to the Admiralty, the Essex was condemned as unfit for further service despite the time and money spent on her repair. ‘She was therefore sent to Ham[o]aze’, the Royal Dockyard at Plymouth, ‘where she was constantly visited by carpenters and draftsmen … endeavouring to procure her model.’ This was another part of the Admiralty’s attempt to deal with the threat posed by the United States Navy. As well as initiating both short and long-term modification and building programmes specifically aimed at countering the 44s, the Admiralty systematically examined the US warships the Royal Navy had captured. Although they considered the Essex strong, weatherly, capacious and an easy seaboat, the draftsmen concluded, however, that little could be learnt that was applicable to the particular limitations of Royal Navy frigate design.9

  On 27 December Corporal William Morgan’s Royal Marine career came to a close. After serving on HMS Phoebe for eight years, ten months and seven days, the ‘Methodist Preacher’ was dismissed as ‘unserviceable’ due to ‘wounded thighs’.10

  By the end of 1814 the war with America was drawing to a close. Although negotiations, held in Ghent since August, had initially made little progress, both sides had since dropped all problematic stipulations and the talks were showing signs of bearing fruit. The United States had been economically crippled by the war. The Royal Navy blockade had resulted in the capture of 20,000 American seaman and 1,407 merchant ships and had driven insurance premiums to unmanageable levels; amphibious raids in Chesapeake Bay and up the Penobscot and Connecticut Rivers had resulted in the occupation of large swathes of north-eastern Maine, the destruction of several smuggling towns and the burning of Washington D.C. In the Federalist states of New England there were calls for secession. Many US merchants were happy to supply the Royal Navy with provisions; traitors helped the British select targets for raids; while in Nantucket, whalers begged to be allowed to make an independent peace. The land war in Canada had ground to a stalemate and, after the glory days of 1812 and the first half of 1813, even the naval war had soured for the Americans. USS Essex, Argus, Frolic, Syren and Rattlesnake had all been captured and the majority of the remaining warships were bottled up in their home ports.

  The British public, exhausted by twenty-two years of conflict with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, was equally tired of war. Overconfidence resulting from the easily-won victory at Washington led the British to defeat at Baltimore, where Major-General Sir Robert Ross was killed and his troops pushed back in disarray by determined US resistance. Despite the success of the convoy system, American privateers were taking a heavy toll on British merchantmen, especially in the economically vital area of the West Indies whose vociferous merchant class and their allies in Parliament, the sugar lobby, brought their political influence to bear in the push for peace. There was also a need to refocus on Europe. With Napoleon exiled in Elba, the priority was to secure a favourable Continental peace. The American war was a drain on Britain’s financial and military resources at a time when her efforts needed to be directed towards the Congress of Vienna. Accordingly, on 24 December peace was secured. The Treaty of Ghent restored relations between the two nations to the status quo ante bellum. The US had failed to achieve any of its stated reasons for going to war.

  As the treaty was not ratified by the Senate until 18 February 1815, further humiliations resulted on both sides. On 8 January an army of British veterans fresh from victory in Europe was decimated by a ramshackle force led by future US President Andrew Jackson at New Orleans. One week later USS President, one of the original six frigates commanded by the darling of the US Navy, Commodore Stephen Decatur, was taken off New York.11

  Back in Plymouth, the Phoebe was also called into action. Following a report that the only two American frigates still eluding the Royal Navy, USS Constitution and Congress, were patrolling the English Channel, Hillyar set sail in pursuit on 26 January alongside the 74-gun HMS Centaur, the Hyperion frigate and several sloops of war. Although no sign was seen of the enemy, on the Phoebe’s return the first distribution of the prize money due for the capture of the Essex was paid. As captain, Hillyar was entitled to £619 17s; Lieutenants Pearson and Price received £132 15s 6d; Lieutenants Burrow and Sampson of the marines, Surgeon Smith and Gunner Lawson were paid £61 19s 2d; the midshipmen and petty officers got just over £23 per man; while the ordinary and able seaman were paid £7 13s 6d. While Hillyar’s share was equivalent to roughly three years’ salary, the £5 2s 4d paid to the landsmen was only a little over four months’ pay.12

  In February 1815 Napoleon escaped from exile on Elba. HMS Phoebe, back in home waters following a dash to Bermuda in hunt of US privateers, played a minor role in the drama that ensued. On 17 June, as Wellington prepared to take on Napoleon at Waterloo, Hillyar sailed from Plymouth with twenty French Royalist officers and 8,000 pairs of shoes. After landing her cargo in France, the Phoebe helped blockade the coastline. Napoleon was still at large and in early July Hillyar was ordered to search all American vessels as intelligence had been received that the former Emperor was planning to escape to the United States. Napoleon’s plans were thwarted, however and on 15 July he surrendered. Taken to Plymouth aboard HMS Bellerophon, he went into exile on Saint Helena.13

  By 5 August HMS Phoebe was back at Plymouth. With rumours abounding that the crew would be paid off, there was a celebratory mood. The Phoebes spent the next two weeks stripping the ship to her bare bones. The guns were hoisted out along with the contents of the warrant officers’ store rooms; the rigging was dismantled and the masts and bowsprit lifted out by sheer hulk; hundreds of barrels of provisions were removed along with bags of bread and coal and tons of foul-smelling shingle ballast. On 28 August, once the crew had washed the decks one final time, a Royal Navy commissioner came on board with clerks from the Treasury and Navy Board carrying chests of notes and coins. The men were mustered and called forward one by one, cap in hand, to be awarded their back pay. Afterwards, they were free to leave. Having endured the discipline and tedium of shipboard life for up to a decade, most were delighted. The ship’s commissioned officers, on the other hand, had mixed feelings. With the inevitable downsizing of the armed forces, many faced an uncertain future on half pay. Lieutenant Charles Sampson hoped to gain a commission in the Royal Artillery, but admitted his chances were slim. That evening, Hillyar closed the ship’s log and the commissioning pennant was hauled down from the jackstaff at the stern. After twenty years’ near-continuous service, the Phoebe was no longer a man-of-war.14

  Nearly 3,500 miles across the Atlantic, on 29 August Lieutenant John Gamble arrived home. The odyssey the 24-year-old New Yorker and the twenty-eight men under his command had endured had all the hallmarks of a nightmarish Pacific adventure. Within two hours of the Essex and Essex Junior disappearing round the headland of Port Anna Maria on 13 December 1813, Gamble’s situation on Nuka Hiva had deteriorated. First, the Taeehs began pilfering small items from the village stores. His attention occupied transferring the whale oil from the Seringaptam and Greenwich to the New Zealander in preparation for her departure to the U
nited States, Gamble did not react until 15 December when he ordered a musket volley fired over the heads of a group of natives who had set fire to some grassland close to the camp. Three days later, when squalls resulted in two of Gamble’s ships parting their cables, the lieutenant had six of the Seringapatam’s cannon mounted behind the breastwork of Fort Madison.

  That afternoon, Tameoy, the Tahitian who had gone overboard from the Essex, stumbled into camp. After falling into the water, he had been drawn under the keel and by the time he had surfaced the Essex had disappeared. Striking out for shore, he had been washed up on the beach two days later. The Taeehs, meanwhile, were growing increasingly aggressive. On 22 December a group descended from the mountains to raid the Americans’ stores. Forty hogs were killed and several others were stolen. Gattanewa, the Taeehs’ ageing chieftain, was sympathetic to Gamble’s plight, but had little control over the rebels and the lieutenant’s threats met with a contemptuous response. The time for pre-emptive action had arrived.

  On the morning of 24 December the opportunity arose. Learning that several armed tribesmen had gathered on a hill overlooking the camp, Gamble stationed three men on board the ships with directions to fire their cannon when indicated. Arming the rest of his men, he sallied out. ‘When we had arrived within a quarter of a mile [of the hill]’, Gamble recalled, ‘a signal [was] made for the artillery to be discharged. The shot tore up the earth near where the savages had taken a stand … and … so terrified them that … they fled to the mountains.’ Following up their initial success, the Americans took the rebels’ base and recovered a number of stolen hogs. Gamble also secured several hostages whom he confined on the ships and a promise of future tribute was extracted. Two days later, her hold filled with 1,950 barrels of whale oil, the New Zealander set sail for the United States commanded by Master’s Mate John J. King.

  Revolting natives were just one of the problems Gamble faced. The longer he remained on Nuka Hiva the harder it became to keep his men in check; the six prisoners Porter had left behind proved particularly difficult; Wilson, the British beachcomber-cum-interpreter, was believed to be passing information to the natives; salt provisions were running low; fresh food was becoming more difficult to procure from the tribesmen; and the gardens planted by Porter had been invaded by ravenous ants. Gamble’s response was to impose an ever more draconian regime. The lash was frequently employed and a sunset curfew was strictly adhered to. January brought heavy rain and electrical storms. Two men caught sleeping on watch were flogged and deprived of their rum ration and on 22 January 1814, during a surprise inspection, Midshipmen Feltus and Clapp discovered a number of women on board the Seringapatam. Gamble was furious. The men and three of the women were flogged and cast onshore. The next day the grog ran out.

  On 7 February Gamble took the Sir Andrew Hammond on a tour of the windward islands of the Marquesas in search of food. Leaving Feltus and Clapp in command at Fort Madison, he procured forty hogs, six dozen fowls, ‘a quantity of fine bread-fruit, two bushels of sweet potatoes and many other articles’ at the island of Dominica and on his return to Port Anna Maria on 16 February, was delighted to find that all was well. The first lettuces were being harvested, while the melon and cucumber crops promised to offer up ‘a profusion … in the course of two or three weeks’. The good atmosphere continued for twelve days. The Americans busied themselves on shore, wooding the ships and knotting yarns to make ropes for the rigging, but on 28 February John Witter, a marine private from Germany, was caught by a heavy surf and drowned. Witter had been reliable and trustworthy and Gamble felt as if ‘one of his main supports had fallen from him’.

  On 6 March Isaac Coffin deserted. Forming a search party, Gamble found him dozing in a Happah hut, had him clapped in irons and given a brutal sixty lashes the next morning. Appalled, a group of nearby natives ‘gave evident signs of their conviction, that such conduct … was illiberal and unjust’. Over the next two weeks Gamble’s problems intensified. With provisions strictly rationed, Able Seaman John Robertson was punished for stealing. The crew were growing increasingly embittered and the situation reached boiling point on 18 March. Given first watch on the Greenwich, at 12.30 a.m. Able Seaman Thomas Welch released Coffin and Robertson from their irons, loaded one of the ship’s boats with arms, ammunition and supplies and rowed across to the Seringapatam where he was joined by Private Peter Swook. The mutineers then scuttled the ‘fastest pulling’ of the ship’s boats to prevent pursuit and rowed off into the night. Gamble did not note their absence until 2.30 a.m. With no way of knowing the direction they had taken, he was unable to pursue.

  In late March, forced to countenance the thought of Porter failing to return, Gamble ordered the ships readied for sea. By the end of April his preparations were coming to a close, but the men’s discontent had reached fever-pitch. On 3 May Gamble discovered that a boat-sail had been stolen from the stores and the next day learnt that thirteen men intended to desert. Inspired by one or two old hands and six of the prisoners from the Sir Andrew Hammond, they planned to sail for the British colony of Australia. All were British and their ringleader, Boatswain’s Mate Thomas Belcher, was considered a ‘consummate villain’. Gamble had the small arms gathered and stored on board the Greenwich in response, but by 6 May ‘matters wore an alarming aspect’. The ‘sudden change in the countenances of the men, plainly indicated, that an awful explosion was soon to take place’.

  At 2 p.m. the next day, having gone on board the Seringapatam to oversee the stowage of the oil tanks, Gamble, Clapp and Feltus were set upon by ‘six or seven’ men. Knocked down, their hands and legs were bound and they were thrown down to the berth deck. The scuttle was nailed shut and two armed guards placed over them. The mutineers hoisted the British flag, spiked several of the Greenwich’s and Sir Andrew Hammond’s guns as well as those remaining in the fort and took all the powder and small arms on board the Seringapatam. At 6 p.m., once Robert White, the man Porter had expelled from the Essex on 13 December, had been brought on board increasing their numbers to fourteen, the mutineers began working their way out of the bay.

  At 8 p.m. a shot was heard from the birth-deck. Either ‘by accident or design’, Lewis Ronsford, one of the former prisoners of war, had shot Gamble through his left heel. One hour later the worst of the ship’s boats was lowered and Gamble, Feltus and Clapp bundled on board along with William Worth and Richard Sansbury, two seamen who had remained loyal. They were given two muskets and a keg of cartridges before being turned loose three miles out to sea. The pull back to the bay proved exhausting. With the boat slowly filling with water, ‘Midshipman Clapp was employed incessantly in bailing’ and Gamble, ‘weakened by loss of blood’, was obliged to steer, while Feltus and the others ‘exerted themselves at the oars’. After two hours they reached the Greenwich where they passed an anxious night.

  Gamble and his men spent the next day ferrying supplies from the Greenwich to the Sir Andrew Hammond. The lieutenant proposed setting sail for the Sandwich Islands with the northerly trades before they were overrun by the natives, but Feltus and four others had learnt that Wilson had been plotting against them and wanted to search his hut to see what supplies they could secure. At 11.30 a.m., with the Sir Andrew Hammond moored in deep water, Feltus’s party went ashore. One hour later, Gamble spotted their boat surrounded by natives in the surf and began firing the ship’s cannon at the village to provide a distraction. Moments later, two Americans were seen swimming towards the ship. Taking the remaining four men in a boat to pick them up, Clapp left Gamble alone on the Sir Andrew Hammond. In his haste, the young midshipman had failed to notice two native war canoes bearing down on his boat. ‘At this critical moment’, Gamble recalled, ‘I went on one foot from gun to gun, moving each, so as to bear upon the canoes, which were several times driven back to the shore.’ Aided by the covering fire, Clapp rescued the swimmers. ‘One of the[m] … was … almost senseless’, Gamble recalled, ‘having had his skull fractured by a blow with a war club.’ The
other was exhausted after spending ‘some time’ in the water, while Feltus and two others had been bludgeoned to death on the beach. At sundown, having set the Greenwich on fire, Gamble had the Sir Andrew Hammond’s cable cut and the eight survivors, six of whom were sick or wounded, stood out of the bay.

  Over the next two weeks, the Sir Andrew Hammond stood northwards with the trade winds and on the 23 May, to Gamble’s ‘great joy’, made the island of Owhyhee of the Sandwich group. After receiving supplies from the natives and aid from several American merchant vessels around the archipelago, on 13 June Gamble’s luck ran out. Following a brief chase, the Sir Andrew Hammond was captured by HMS Cherub, which Hillyar had dispatched to Nuka Hiva two months before and on 22 June was dispatched with a prize crew to Rio along with the Charon, another American prize Tucker had taken in the islands. Midshipman Clapp sailed in the Sir Andrew Hammond ‘for the purpose of condemning her in the vice-admiralty court’, but Gamble was kept on board the Cherub. Tucker then cruised the Sandwich Islands until 16 July, after which he sailed round the Society Islands for several weeks, before heading for Valparaiso. On the Cherub’s arrival on 23 September, Gamble found that about twenty Essexes were still in town, presumably the remains of those who had abandoned the frigate shortly before Porter’s surrender. Several others had enlisted in the patriot army at Santiago.

  Chile was in turmoil once again. The truce that Hillyar had negotiated had not been ratified by Abascal; the Royalists and Patriots were skirmishing in the south; and Valparaiso was alive with intrigue. ‘So awful, indeed, had the crisis become’, Porter later learnt, ‘that lieut. Gamble was earnestly advised to repair on board the Cherub, for the sake of ensuring the safety of his person.’ In early October news reached town of a Patriot reversal. The Royalists were on the verge of capturing Santiago and a new Spanish governor arrived in Valparaiso soon afterwards.