by Robert Booth
Those on board the Essex had been in hell. They had died by the dozens in the rigging or been blown apart while manning the guns or drowned in the water alongside. More than 200 cannonballs had struck the hull of their vessel, and many more had bounced off, hit their cannon, smashed spars and rigging, and skidded lethally across the decks. The men died singly and in groups, almost all of them heroic in their devotion to duty and to each other. As they lay dying, they had cheered for their ship, and they had cheered for the captain who had led them on a very long cruise into this last cove, and they had urged him to fight on.
Captain James Hillyar had carried out his mission without ever striving for personal fame or risky heroics or anything like glory. For nearly a year, since Phoebe had left Rio, he had tried without much hope to find his old friend and create the right conditions for victory. He sailed with a sense of duty and humility, carrying out assignments given by his superiors, avoiding any temptation to play the charismatic or the martyr. He had confronted his limitations many times along the way, and he felt truly blessed by God to have had the chance to fight and win. The consequences, otherwise, would have been too terrible to consider. Like all captains of British ships, he well knew that the Royal Navy had hanged one of its admirals for failing to perform to expectations. At their last meeting, when Porter said he could never approve of Hillyar’s decision to attack a crippled opponent in neutral waters, tears came to Hillyar’s eyes, and he took the American’s hand. “My dear Porter,” he said, “you know not the responsibility that hung over me with respect to your ship—perhaps my life depended on my taking her.’”
Hillyar was not aware that Porter, in his own long, scurrilous report, would accuse him of cowardice and cold-blooded murder and even of refusing to rescue the men who had fallen from the maintop. Later, Hillyar would assert that Porter could not claim the protection of a neutral coast when he himself had violated the neutrality of Chilean waters on several occasions, as when he had burned the Hector in those very waters, and when he had sent out a flotilla of armed boats from the harbor to take the Phoebe by stealth, and when he had fired three shots at the Phoebe from a position much closer to the common anchorage than the one he had chosen in the cove. Finally, Porter had passed the Point of Angels into the open sea in his botched attempt to escape, and thereby had forfeited any claim to the protection of the Chileans.* Predictably, Hillyar was magnanimous in victory. He could afford to be; the defeat of Porter cleared the way for British domination of western South America and the Pacific, just as Hillyar’s superiors had intended. He agreed to almost everything that Porter proposed. Porter and his officers and men could sail on board the Essex Junior as an unarmed cartel to New York, on parole, or word of honor, not to fight again until exchanged for British prisoners of equal rank. Hillyar would give them a passport so that any British vessel would recognize their right to enter an American port. Because they sailed on parole, they were not prisoners of war but trusted free agents. In his report to the British Admiralty, Hillyar made a point of lauding Porter. “The defense of the Essex,” he wrote, “taking into account our superiority of force, the very discouraging circumstances of her having lost her main top-mast and being twice on fire, did honour to her brave defenders, and most fully evinced the courage of Captain Porter and those under his command. Her colours were not struck until the loss in killed and wounded was so awfully great, and her shattered condition so seriously bad, as to render further resistance unavailing.”
Poinsett too felt the devastation of their loss. Having spent two years helping to create and fight for a republic in Chile, he had given all he had for the cause, and he was willing to give more. He had received word that the Carreras had escaped and might be headed for Santiago. On April 11, 1814, he wrote Porter a secret letter in which it appears that, “in the event of the defeat of the last forlorn hope of this country,” he and Porter planned to go over the cordillera to the United Provinces. “I have mules and everything ready,” wrote the consul, “with the determination that, if things remain in this hopeless state until you sailed, of accepting your offer of a passage to the U.S.; but if things take a favourable turn my intention was to remain a few months until I could once more leave everything settled usefully for the U.S.”
Poinsett was in “daily expectation of a decisive action” by the rebels, and so had not returned to Valparaiso from Santiago and environs. He told Porter that he could put “excellent guides and mules at your service to Mendoza, where you will meet with Captain Monson to accompany you to Buenos Aires.” Hillyar was evidently willing to allow Porter to take this overland route—“Captain Hillyar can give you a letter to the Commander in the River” at Buenos Aires—as better than a sea voyage, for “the Cape at this season in a crowded ship will be very unpleasant.” Poinsett was deeply concerned about the Carreras, captive at Chillan: “I confess to you that after all my labour it annoys me to run away, and leave all my projects defeated. The idea too of leaving my friends in prison with no one interested in their release distresses me.” Yet he desperately wanted to return to America, and he had arranged for his vice consul, Blanco, “to deliver to you ten boticas of wine” to be drunk by Porter on his passage around the Cape, or, if they went together, “on our passage from Rio” home. Finally, Poinsett asked a favor: “[I]f you do not go in the ship, I wish you would send me the little singing bird, for a fair friend of mine, who is bird mad. I have been foolish enough to speak much in its praise. . .”
To the navy secretary, William Jones, Porter made his own lengthy report, full of the self-righteous rhetoric of one who was already planning to address the public directly through friendly newspapers that might soon be promoting his book. He discussed the condition of the ships, claiming that he had badly damaged the British vessels and inflicted much loss of life. Phoebe and Essex, he wrote, were both in a sinking condition, and he doubted that either could ever be repaired to make the trip around the Horn. None of his statements was true, and his prediction was no better. The three ships would get to England in good shape, and the Essex would join the Royal Navy as a forty-two-gun frigate.
Once, when the war was new, Porter had written his confidant, “I know this: I can never survive the disgrace of striking the colors of the Essex.” Now the survivor could report to Navy Secretary Jones that “We have been unfortunate but not disgraced. The defense of the Essex has not been less honorable to her officers and crew than the capture of an equal force, and I now consider my situation less unpleasant than that of Commodore Hillyar, who, in violation of every principle of honor and generosity, and regardless of the rights of nations, attacked the Essex in her crippled state within pistol shot of a neutral shore, when for six weeks I daily offered him fair and honorable combat on terms greatly to his advantage. The blood of the slain must be on his head, and he has yet to reconcile his conduct to heaven, to his conscience, and to the world.”
It was a striking piece of propaganda and a shocking disavowal of responsibility by a navy captain, even one who had gone rogue. As commander of the Essex, Porter was at least obliged to take the blame for the loss of the ship. This he would not do. He blamed Hillyar for cheating, and he blamed Hillyar for the deaths of so many men. After the first half hour of the battle, when Hillyar had ceased fire and drawn away, Porter could have surrendered; instead, for every minute of the next two hours, he had allowed the slaughter to continue.* But Hillyar was not the only one Porter faulted. Navy Secretary Hamilton, a man Porter had secretly and repeatedly vilified, had never approved or even been aware of Porter’s Pacific intentions, was also disparaged. “If the Essex has been lost for want of suitable armament,” contended Porter, “I am not to blame. Myself and officers applied to Paul Hamilton Esq. for a greater proportion of long guns which were refused us; and I now venture to declare that, if she had been armed in the manner I wished, she would not have been taken by the Phoebe and Cherub. With our six twelve-pounders only, we fought this action; our carronades were useless. What might not [
we] have done had we been permitted to take on board a few long eighteens?” In fact, the carronades had done much damage in the first half hour; in fact, Porter had chosen to position the Essex so that her broadside guns could hardly be used; in fact, Hamilton had authorized the transfer of a few long eighteens, which Porter had failed to procure. Far more damning, Porter had, during his long renegade rampage, captured twelve armed vessels that mounted more than one hundred guns. All of those cannon were in his possession for months before the showdown at Valparaiso, and at any time he could have re-armed the Essex in whatever configuration he might like. Once again, he had chosen to keep things exactly as they were.
At the funeral of Lieutenant William Ingram, conducted with military honors, the American crewmen joined the British and the local citizenry in paying their respects. Valparaiso’s officials showed a cold contempt for Porter and his men, but “the neglect of the governor and his officers was fully compensated by the kind attention of the good citizens,” wrote Porter. “When my wounded companions were brought on shore, they were borne to the place selected by me for a hospital by the kind Chileans. The ladies of Valparaiso took upon themselves the task of providing for their necessities and administering to the alleviation of their sufferings. At all times, women of the most respectable appearance attended at the hospital, who tendered their services gratuitously, to take care of the wounded. Without their aid, I have no doubt, many would have died, who now live to thank them.”
As the lone officer among the wounded, Cowell had become the idol of Valparaiso, visited at the hospital by all the most gallant gentlemen and their beautiful ladies and by well-wishing sailors and marines of both sides. He was also remembered in family prayers and formal religious services, and attended around the clock by the “gentle humanity” of the nurses and by Glasgow Farragut. Infection set in early, but Cowell fought it with all his diminished strength, thinking of his wife and two small children at home in old Marblehead. Twenty days after the battle, he took a bad turn. Farragut stayed by his side, and the boy was there when, on April 18, “life went out, like a candle.” Thus “died one of the best officers as well as the bravest of men,” wrote Farragut, who had seen enough of death. The people of the city gave Cowell a hero’s funeral, with orations and lamentations and the firing of minute guns, and a black parade of thousands following the cortege up the hill to the cathedral, where his remains were interred in view of the sea.
The Essex Junior sailed from Valparaiso on April 27, 1814. On board were 130 Essex sailors in cramped quarters, many still recovering, all thinking of lost shipmates. Barnewall and Johnston had survived and took their places on board. Johnston spoke for many when he wrote, “I shall only observe that this massacre of American heroes, under the guns of a battery which ought to have maintained its neutrality by chastising those who violated it, took place in consequence of the imbecility of Lastra” and his tool, Formas.
Porter had gone alone into the Pacific with dreams of Anson-like glory. Now he was coming out alone, without his prizes, money, or victory, guilty of the bizarre and bloody annexation of Nukuhiva and the loss of his ship in a protracted suicidal battle. He had run off with a battleship and 300 men, taken from a navy that could not spare a rowboat, and had spent fifteen months away from the theater of war, tying up government assets and pursuing his own interests. In the end he had given the enemy a new frigate and had caused the deaths of many brave men, including ninety of his own in battle, several Royal Navy sailors, two whalemen, and scores if not hundreds of Enana men and boys.
Twice, Porter had been poised to win the day and end his cruise in triumph. The first time was a matter of fate, in the proximity of an angry cannoneer holding a lighted match and a zealous young lieutenant who prevented the broadside that would have shattered the Phoebe. The historian Henry Adams wrote that “Porter probably regretted to the end of his life that he did not seize the opportunity his enemy gave him.” In the second instance, Porter committed an error of seamanship and sailed too close to the Point of Angels, cutting off the frigate’s wind, then emerging from its lee into the full force of a squall powerful enough to carry away the topmast. And even then he could have made choices giving him an excellent chance of escape or even victory over his pursuers. After all of his cruising and all of his hunger for fame, he had failed when it counted, and he never acknowledged it.
Behind him in Valparaiso, Porter would leave Consul General Poinsett with his “projects defeated,” a man without a country to influence. Hillyar, in revenge for Poinsett’s success in anti-British activities, had denied him a berth on the Essex Junior. In June 1814, Supreme Director Lastra, intimidated by a “violent letter” from the British high command at Rio, would summon Poinsett and inform him that he was an enemy of Chile and must depart immediately.
Behind him, too, Porter left twenty wandering crewmen, including a few who had already gone into the Chilean army* and two more lying in the hospital, unable to make the long passage around the Horn. One would soon die, and the other, William Call, who had lost a leg, would recover. Visiting on the eve of departure, Porter told Call that Consul Poinsett was still in town, and Lieutenant Gamble was due in from Nooaheevah in a month or two, and together they ought to scrape up a crew to continue the fight in the Pacific.
*Joseph Thomas, captain of the maintop, and Thomas Russell, seaman, were killed in action; Enoch Morgan Milay, quarter gunner, was badly wounded but would survive; carpenter’s yeoman Benjamin Wadden was slightly wounded.
*Despite many complaints and much anti-Hillyar propaganda in American newspapers, the U.S. government did not lodge a protest with the British government, nor with Chilean officials, over the issue of neutrality, which may be seen as a gentleman’s agreement—one that Porter, the chief beneficiary, was as willing to break as Hillyar. This was also the opinion of other captains of the U.S. Navy, none of whom seconded Porter’s complaints, and some of whom later spoke admiringly of Hillyar and befriended him.
*In his magisterial work on the War of 1812, in the multi-volume History of the United States of America During the Administrations of James Madison (published 1889-91) Henry Adams was the first historian to write objectively about the performance of the U.S. Navy, and he was highly critical of David Porter. Adams derided his Nukuhivan adventure as an excuse for “amusing himself,” “as though to make a voyage of discovery or to emulate the mutineers of the Bounty.” Of Porter’s decision to go for Valparaiso from Nukuhiva, Adams wrote, “Porter would have done better to sail for the China seas or Indian Ocean.” Regarding battle tactics at Valparaiso, Porter “might have tried to run out at night, or might have fought, even after the loss of his maintopmast, under less disadvantage.” Adams opined about the battle that “the carnage was frightful and useless” and “the loss of the Essex. . . was unnecessary.” About Porter’s allegations against Hillyar, Adams wrote scornfully that Porter knew “that he could not depend on Chilian protection,” and that Hillyar “made no mistakes” in his conduct, especially “in regard to the neutrality of Chili, which was not even a recognized nation.” Unlike many later writers, including those on naval matters, Henry Adams was neither an apologist nor a cheerleader in regard to American policy and performance in the War of 1812, and his works remain unsurpassed.
*In 1814, Porter listed thirty-one men, by name, as missing after the battle. Probably most of them drowned or were shot in the water. He went into the fight with 255 men on board; he sailed for home in the Essex Junior with 130 men. Of the other 125, probably 90 had died, and the rest remained in Chile, having served under Porter continuously for seventeen months. Most evidently stayed on at Valparaiso or went to Santiago to enlist as soldiers, for, although they are not mentioned in 1814 as being alive, Gamble refers to them in his account of events in Valparaiso after Porter’s departure.
Chapter Thirteen
Consequences
Among the American prisoners at Valparaiso, the hawk-eyed Samuel Johnston kept a lookout on the new politica
l landscape. “Shortly after the capture of the Essex,” he wrote, “Commodore Hillyar left Valparaiso and repaired to the capital in order to settle the affairs of Chile.” From there Hillyar went to Chillan to meet with the royalist General Gainza. “Nothing has yet transpired on the subject,” reported Johnston, but “many people of judgment, even of the Larrain family, begin to feel the effects of their bad policy in not affording protection to the Essex. Their eyes are now open, and they see a large English force that may be turned against them at any time; whereas, if they had afforded to the Americans that protection which both justice and their crippled state demanded, Commodore Hillyar would have been thwarted, and the people of Chile could have carried on their war unmolested by British interference.” It was galling to Johnston, a patriot of the republic, to realize that it was Hillyar, representing the policies and power of an imperial monarchy, who had made the difference in Chile.
Santiago had just learned that General Sir Arthur Wellesley (who was elevated from Marquess to Duke of Wellington in May 1814) had relinquished command in Spain to the adherents of Fernando VII. “This news,” noted Johnston, “has added greatly to the influence the British had already acquired” over Lastra’s “feeble government” and made it likely that “every plan proposed by Hillyar will be implicitly followed.” Although Hillyar’s negotiations had not yet produced results, Johnston foretold them: “Thus you see one of the finest countries on the globe, whose distance from the old world rendered it secure from conquest, invasion, or even the baneful influence of European power,” subjected “by its own internal differences, and an insignificant British force, to the arbitrary will of the Vice-King of Peru.”