CHAPTER VII.
After balancing gains and losses, the result of the campaign favored Great Britain by the amount of plunder which the navy obtained in Alexandria, and by the posts which Governor Sherbrooke occupied between the Penobscot and the Passamaquoddy in Maine. Considering the effort made and the waste of money, the result was a total disappointment to the British people; but even these advantages on land could not be regarded as secure until the British navy and mercantile marine had summed up their profits and losses on the ocean.
At the beginning of the year 1814 the American navy had almost disappeared. Porter in the “Essex” still annoyed British interests in the Pacific; but of the five large frigates only the “President” was at sea. January 1 the “Constitution,” Captain Charles Stewart, left Boston and cruised southward, making a few prizes and destroying a British fourteen-gun schooner, but fighting no battle and effecting no object equivalent to her cost. In returning to Boston, April 3, she narrowly escaped capture by the two British frigates blockading the port, and with difficulty got into Marblehead harbor. The “Constitution” did not again go to sea until December 17. During her cruise of three months, from January 1 to April 3, she made four prizes.
The “President” regained New York February 18, and was blockaded during the rest of the year. The “United States” and “Macedonian” remained blockaded at New London. The “Constellation” remained blockaded at Norfolk. The corvette “Adams,” twenty-eight guns, ran the blockade of Chesapeake Bay January 18, and cruised until August 17, making nine prizes and several narrow escapes before striking on the Isle of Haut and taking refuge in the Penobscot as the British forces occupied Castine. The story of her destruction has been told. Her fate was the same she would have met had she remained in Washington, where a week earlier the new forty-four-gun frigate “Columbia” and the new twenty-two-gun sloop-of-war “Argus” were burned to prevent them from falling prize to the British army.
This short abstract accounted for all the frigates except the “Essex,” whose fortune was no happier than that of the larger ships. October 27, 1812, the “Essex,” Captain David Porter, left the Delaware, intending to meet Bainbridge and form part of a squadron under his command. Failing to meet Bainbridge, though constantly near him, Porter at last decided to sail southward; and when Bainbridge in the “Constitution” reached Boston February 27, 1813, the “Essex” had already passed Cape Horn, and was running up the western coast of South America to Valparaiso.
At Valparaiso Porter arrived March 14, 1813, to the consternation of commerce. Chili had recently asserted independence of Spain, and as yet no English war-vessels were stationed in the Pacific. The chief British interest was the whale fishery which centred in the Galapagos Islands,—a group lying under the equator, about a thousand miles from Panama. Although the influence of England was supreme, on account of her naval power, her commerce, and her political alliance with the Spanish people, and although Porter had neither a harbor of his own, nor the support of a diplomatic officer on the Pacific, he had nothing to fear. He was well received at Valparaiso, where since 1811 J. R. Poinsett had held the post of United States Consul-General for Buenos Ayres, Chili, and Peru; but the “Essex” tarried only for supplies, and soon sailed for the Galapagos Islands. There she arrived in April, 1813, and in the course of the summer captured all the British whalers known to be in those seas. These were twelve in number, and after sending some of them away, Porter still had a fleet of five armed ships besides his own, and nothing more to do.
The “Essex” had then been a year at sea, and needed repairs. Porter determined to take his entire fleet of six vessels about three thousand miles to the Marquesas Islands,—as though to make a voyage of discovery, or to emulate the mutineers of the “Bounty.” The squadron sailed three weeks over the southern seas, until, October 23, the Marquesas Islands were sighted. There Porter remained seven weeks, amusing himself and his crew by intervention in native Marquesan politics, ending in his conquest of the principal tribes, and taking possession of the chief island in the name of his Government. That he should have brought away his whole crew after such relaxation, without desertion, was surprising. The men were for a time in a state of mutiny on being ordered to sea; but they did not desert, and the squadron sailed, Dec. 12, 1813, for Valparaiso.
Porter would have done better to sail for the China seas or the Indian Ocean. He knew that British war-vessels were searching for him, and that Valparaiso was the spot where he would be directly in their way. He arrived February 3, and five days afterward two British vessels of war sailed into the harbor, making directly for the “Essex” with the appearance of intending to attack and board her. The crew of the “Essex” stood at quarters ready to fire as the larger ship ran close alongside, until her yards crossed those of the “Essex,” and Porter probably regretted to the end of his life that he did not seize the opportunity his enemy gave him; but the British captain, from his quarter-deck only a few feet away, protested that the closeness of his approach was an accident, and that he intended no attack. The moment quickly passed, and then Porter found himself overmatched.
The British frigate “Phœbe,” thirty-six guns, had sailed from England in March, 1813, under secret orders to break up the United States fur-establishment on the Columbia River.[288] At Rio Janeiro the “Phœbe” was joined by the “Cherub,” a sloop-of-war rated at eighteen guns, and both sailed in search of the “Essex.” The “Phœbe” was one hundred and forty-three and three quarters feet in length, by thirty-eight and a quarter in breadth; the “Essex” was one hundred and thirty-eight and a half feet in length, and thirty-seven and a quarter in breadth. The “Phœbe” carried a crew of three hundred men and boys; the “Essex” carried two hundred and fifty-five. The “Essex” was the better sailer, and the result of an action depended on her ability to use this advantage. The broadside of the “Essex” consisted of seventeen thirty-two-pound carronades and six long twelve-pounders; the “Phœbe” showed only eight carronades, but had thirteen long eighteen-pounders, one long twelve-pounder, and one long nine-pounder. At close range, Porter’s battery would overpower the “Phœbe’s” long guns, but the “Phœbe’s” thirteen long-range eighteen-pounders could destroy her enemy without receiving a shot in return. Porter knew all this, and knew also that he could not depend on Chilian protection. No British captain in such a situation could afford to be delicate in regard to the neutrality of Chili, which was not even a recognized nation. At most Porter could hope for immunity only in the port of Valparaiso.
Captain Hillyar of the “Phœbe” made no mistakes. During an entire month he blockaded the “Essex” with his two vessels, acting with extreme caution. At last Porter determined to run out, trusting to a chase to separate the blockading cruisers; and March 28, 1814, with a strong southerly wind, he got under way. As he rounded the outermost point a violent squall carried away his maintopmast. The loss threw on Porter a sudden emergency and a difficult, instantaneous decision. He decided to return to harbor. A young midshipman, David Farragut, who made his first cruise in the “Essex,” gave his high authority in after years to the opinion that Porter’s decision was wrong. “Being greatly superior in sailing powers,” said Farragut, “we should have borne up, and run before the wind.” The chance of outsailing the “Phœbe,” or separating her from her consort, was better than that of regaining the anchorage.