THE LAST CRUISE OF THE ESSEX
The last cruise of the Essex frigate, although an ill-fated one, makes a story far less mournful than that of the President. She was the first man-of-war to display the American flag in the wide waters of the Pacific. Her long and venturesome voyage is still regarded as one of the finest achievements of the navy, and it made secure the fame of Captain David Porter. The Essex has a peculiar right to be held in affectionate memory, apart from the very gallant manner of her ending, because into her very timbers were builded the faith and patriotism of the people of the New England seaport which had framed and launched her as a loan to the nation in an earlier time of stress.
At the end of the eighteenth century France had been the maritime enemy more hotly detested than England, and unofficial war existed with the "Terrible Republic." This situation was foreshadowed as early as 1798 by James McHenry, Secretary of War, when he indignantly announced to Congress: "To forbear under such circumstances from taking naval and military measures to secure our trade, defend our territories in case of invasion, and to prevent or suppress domestic insurrection would be to offer up the United States a certain prey to France and exhibit to the world a sad spectacle of national degradation and imbecility."
Congress thereupon resolved to build two dozen ships which should teach France to mend her manners on the high seas, but the Treasury was too poor to pay the million dollars which this modest navy was to cost. Subscription lists were therefore opened in several shipping towns, and private capital advanced the funds to put the needed frigates afloat. The Essex was promptly contributed by Salem, and the advertisement of the master builder is brave and resonant reading:
To Sons of Freedom! All true lovers of Liberty of your Country! Step forth and give your assistance in building the frigate to oppose French insolence and piracy. Let every man in possession of a white oak tree be ambitious to be foremost in hurrying down the timber to Salem where the noble structure is to be fabricated to maintain your rights upon the seas and make the name of America respected among the nations of the world. Your largest and longest trees are wanted, and the arms of them for knees and rising timber. Four trees are wanted for the keel which altogether will measure 146 feet in length and hew sixteen inches square.
The story of the building of the Essex is that of an aroused and reliant people. The great timbers were cut in the wood lots of the towns near by and were hauled through the snowy streets of Salem on ox-sleds while the people cheered them as they passed. The Essex was a Salem ship from keel to truck. Her cordage was made in three ropewalks. Captain Jonathan Haraden, the most famous Salem privateersman of the Revolution, made the rigging for the mainmast in his loft. The sails were cut from duck woven for the purpose in the mill on Broad Street and the ironwork was forged by Salem shipsmiths. When the huge hempen cables were ready to be conveyed to the frigate, the workmen hoisted them upon their shoulders and in procession marched to the music of fife and drum. In 1799, six months after the oak timbers had been standing trees, the Essex slid from the stocks into the harbor of old Salem. She was the handsomest and fastest American frigate of her day and when turned over to the Government, she cost what seemed at that day the very considerable amount of seventy-five thousand dollars.
Peace was patched up with France, however, and the Essex was compelled to pursue more humdrum paths, now in the Indian Ocean and again with the Mediterranean squadron, until war with England began in 1812. It was intended that Captain Porter should rendezvous with the Constitution and the Hornet in South American waters for a well-planned cruise against British commerce, but other engagements detained Bainbridge, notably his encounter with the Java, and so they missed each other by a thousand miles or so. Since he had no means of communication, it was characteristic of Porter to conclude to strike out for himself instead of wandering about in an uncertain search for his friends.
Porter conceived the bold plan of rounding the Horn and playing havoc with the British whaling fleet. This adventure would take him ten thousand miles from the nearest American port, but he reckoned that he could capture provisions enough to feed his crew and supplies to refit the ship. As a raid there was nothing to match this cruise until the Alabama ran amuck among the Yankee clippers and whaling barks half a century later. It was the wrong time of year to brave the foul weather of Cape Horn, however, and the Essex was battered and swept by one furious gale after another. But at last she won through, stout ship that she was, and her weary sailors found brief respite in the harbor of Valparaiso on March 14, 1813. Thence Porter headed up the coast, disguising the trim frigate so that she looked like a lubberly, high-pooped Spanish merchantman.
The luck of the navy was with the American captain for, as he went poking about the Galapagos Islands, he surprised three fine, large British whaling ships, all carrying guns and too useful to destroy. To one of them, the Georgiana, he shifted more guns, put a crew of forty men aboard under Lieutenant John Downes, ran up the American flag, and commissioned his prize as a cruiser. The other two he also manned—and now behold him, if you please, sailing the Pacific with a squadron of four good ships! Soon he ran down and captured two British letter-of-marque vessels, well armed and in fighting trim, and in a trice he had not a squadron but a fleet under his command, seven ships in all, mounting eighty guns and carrying three hundred and forty men and eighty prisoners. Two of these prizes he discovered to be crammed to the hatches with cordage, paint, tar, canvas, and fresh provisions. The list could not have been more acceptable if Captain David Porter himself had signed the requisition in the New York Navy Yard.
Lieutenant Downes was now sent off cruising by himself, and so well did he profit by his captain's example and precepts that in a little while he had bagged a squadron of his own, three ships with twenty-seven guns and seventy-five men. When he rejoined the flagship in a harbor of the mainland, Porter rewarded him by calling his cruiser the Essex, Junior, promoting him to the rank of commander, and increasing his armament. They then resumed cruising in two squadrons, finding more British ships and sending them into the neutral harbor of Valparaiso or home to the United States with precious cargoes of whale oil and bone. Within a few months he swept the Southern Pacific almost clean of British merchantmen, whalers, and privateers. Winter coming on, Porter then sailed to the pleasant Marquesas Islands and laid the Essex up for a thorough overhauling. The enemy had furnished all needful supplies and even the money to pay the wages of the officers and crew.
Fit for sea again, the Essex and the Essex, Junior, betook themselves to Valparaiso where they received information that the thirty-six-gun frigate Phoebe of the British navy was earnestly looking for them. She had been sent out from England to proceed to the northwest American coast and destroy the fur station at the mouth of the Columbia River. At Rio de Janeiro Captain Hillyar had heard reports of the ravages of the Essex and he considered it his business to hunt down this defiant Yankee. To make sure of success, he took the sloop-of-war Cherub along with him and, doubling the Horn, they made straight for Valparaiso. David Porter got wind of the pursuit but assumed that the Phoebe was alone. He made no attempt to avoid a meeting but on the contrary rather courted a fight with his old friend Hillyar, whom he had known socially on the Mediterranean station. For an officer of Porter's temper and training the capture of British whalers was a useful but by no means glorious employment. He believed the real vocation of a frigate of the American navy was to engage the enemy.
The Phoebe and the Cherub sailed into the Chilean roadstead in February, 1814, and found the Essex there. As Captain Hillyar was passing in to seek an anchorage, the mate of a British merchantman climbed aboard to tell him that the Essex was unprepared for attack and could be taken with ease. Her officers had given a ball the night before in honor of the Spanish dignitaries of Valparaiso, and the decks were still covered with awnings and gay with bunting and flags. Reluctant to forego such a tempting opportunity, Captain Hillyar ran in and luffed his frigate within a few yards of the Essex. To his disappointed surprise, the American fighting ship was ready for action on the instant. Though the punctilious restraints of a neutral port should have compelled them to delay battle, Porter was vigilant and took no chances. The liberty parties had been recalled from shore, the decks had been cleared, the gunners were sent to quarters with matches lighted, and the boarders were standing by the hammock nettings with cutlasses gripped. Making the best of this unexpected turn of events, the English captain shouted a greeting to David Porter and politely conveyed his compliments, adding that his own ship was also ready for action. So close were the two frigates at this moment that the jib-boom of the Phoebe hung over the bulwarks of the Essex, and Porter called out sharply that if so much as a rope was touched he would reply with a broadside. The urbane Captain Hillyar, perceiving his disadvantage, exclaimed, "I had no intention of coming so near you. I am very sorry indeed." With that he moved his ship to a respectful distance. Later he had a chat with Captain Porter ashore and, when asked if he intended to maintain the neutrality of the port, made haste to protest, "Sir, you have been so careful to observe the rules that I feel myself bound in honor to do the same."
After a few days the Phoebe and the Cherub left the harbor and watchfully waited outside, enforcing a strict blockade and determined to render the Essex harmless unless she should choose to sally out and fight. David Porter was an intrepid but not a reckless sailor. He had the faster frigate but he had unluckily changed her battery from the long guns to the more numerous but shorter range carronades. He was not afraid to risk a duel with the Phoebe even with this handicap in armament, but the sloop-of-war Cherub was a formidable vessel for her size and the Essex, Junior, which was only a converted merchantman, was of small account in a hammer-and-tongs action between naval ships.
For his part, Captain Hillyar had no intention of letting the Yankee frigate escape him. "He was an old disciple of Nelson," observes Mahan, "fully imbued with the teaching that the achievement of success and not personal glory must dictate action. Having a well established reputation for courage and conduct, he intended to leave nothing to the chances of fortune which might decide a combat between equals. He therefore would accept no provocation to fight without the Cherub. His duty was to destroy the Essex with the least possible loss."
Porter endured this vexatious situation for six weeks and then, learning that other British frigates were on his trail, determined to escape to the open sea. This decision involved waiting for the most favorable moment of wind and weather, but Porter found his hand forced on the 28th of March by a violent southerly gale which swept over the exposed bay of Valparaiso and dragged the Essex from her anchorage. One of her cables parted while the crew struggled to get sail on her. As she drifted seaward, Porter decided to seize the emergency and take the long chance of running out to windward of the Phoebe and the Cherub. He therefore cut the other cable, and the Essex plunged into the wind under single-reefed topsails to claw past the headland. Just as she was about to clear it, a whistling squall carried away the maintopmast. This accident was a grave disaster, for the disabled frigate was now unable either to regain a refuge in the bay or to win her way past the British ship.
As a last resort Captain Porter turned and ran along the coast, within pistol shot of it, far inside the three-mile limit of neutral water, and came to an anchor about three miles north of the city. Captain Hillyar had no legal right to molest him, but in his opinion the end justified the means and he resolved to attack. Deliberately the Phoebe and Cherub selected their stations and, late in this stormy afternoon, bombarded the crippled Essex without mercy. Porter with his carronades was unable to repay the damage inflicted by the broadsides of the longer guns, nor could he handle his ship to close in and retrieve the day in the desperate game of boarding. He tried this ultimate venture, nevertheless, and let go his cables. But the ship refused to move ahead. Her sheets, tacks, and halliards had been shot away. The canvas was hanging loose.
Porter's guns were by no means silent, however, even in this hopeless situation, and few crews have died harder or fought more grimly than these seamen of the Essex. Among them was a little midshipman, wounded but still at his post, a mere child of thirteen years whose name was David Farragut. His fortune it was to link those early days of the American navy with a period half a century later when he won his renown as the greatest of American admirals.
In many a New England seaport were told the tales of this last fight of the Essex until they became almost legendary—of Seaman John Ripley, who cried, after losing his leg, "Farewell, boys, I can be of no more use to you," and thereupon flung himself overboard out of a bow port; of James Anderson, who died encouraging his comrades to fight bravely in defense of liberty; of Benjamin Hazen, who dressed himself in a clean shirt and jerkin, told his messmates that he could never submit to being taken prisoner by the English and forthwith leaped into the sea and was drowned. Such incidents help us to descry, amid the smoke and slaughter of that desperate encounter, the spirit of the gallant David Porter. Never was the saying, "It's not the ships but the men in them," better exemplified. To Porter was granted greatness in defeat, a lot that comes to few.
For two hours he and his men endured such dreadful punishment as not many ships have suffered. Again he attempted to work his way nearer the enemy, until he had not enough men left unhurt to serve the guns or to haul at the pitifully splintered spars. In the last extremity, Porter made an effort to destroy his vessel and to save her people from captivity by letting the Essex drive ashore. A kedge anchor was let go, and a dozen sailors tramped around the capstan while the chantey man piped up a tune, but again fortune seemed against him for the hawser snapped, and the wind began to blow the frigate into deeper water. What happened then is best recalled in the simple words of Captain David Porter himself:
I now sent for the officers of division to consult them and what was my surprise to find only acting Lieutenant Stephen Decatur M'Knight remaining. . . . I was informed that the cockpit, the steerage, the wardroom, and the berth deck could contain no more wounded, that the wounded were killed while the surgeons were dressing them, and that if something was not speedily done to prevent it, the ship would soon sink from the number of shot holes in her bottom. On sending for the carpenter he informed me that all his crew had been killed or wounded.
The enemy, from the impossibility of reaching him with our carronades and the little apprehension that was excited by our fire, which had now become much slackened, was enabled to take aim at us as at a target; his shot never missed our hull and my ship was cut up in a manner which was perhaps never before witnessed; in fine, I saw no hope of saving her, and at twenty minutes after 6 P.M. I gave the painful order to strike the colors. Seventy-five men including officers were all that remained of my whole crew after the action, many of them severely wounded, some of whom have since died.
The enemy still continued his fire and my brave, though unfortunate companions were still falling about me. I directed an opposite gun to be fired to show them we intended no further resistance but they did not desist. Four men were killed at my side and others at different parts of the ship. I now believed he intended to show us no quarter, that it would be as well to die with my flag flying as struck, and was on the point of again hoisting it when about ten minutes after hauling down the colors he ceased firing.
. . . 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 Captain 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 had daily offered him fair and honorable combat on terms greatly to his advantage.
The behavior of Captain Hillyar after the surrender, however, was most humane and courteous, and lapse of time has dispelled somewhat of the bitterness of the American opinion of him. If he was not as chivalrous as his Yankee foemen had expected, it must be remembered that there was a heavy grudge and a long score to pay in the havoc wrought among British merchantmen and whalers and that in those days the rights of South American neutrals were rather lightly regarded.