Three Spanish ships were getting under way, and Captain Porter understood that he might miss many a rich prize if he allowed the crews of those vessels to know who we were and why we had come.
Therefore it was that three boats' crews were called away to pull the ship's head around beyond the point, where she might catch so much of a breeze as was stirring outside, and in less than two hours we were beyond sight of the city.
Phil and I mourned the necessity of being forced to leave port so soon, when we might have met countrymen who could give us later news from home than we had; but Master Hackett did much toward consoling us when he said:—
"Take my words for it, lads, we'll be in the harbor of Valparaiso before you're very much older. The captain didn't count on lettin' the Spaniards find out who we are, thus puttin' the Britishers on their guard."
The old man was in the right, as was usually the case, for on the next day we ran into port; and our anchors were hardly down when we heard important news.
Chili had just gained her independence from the Spaniards, and was more than ready to welcome us as friends; but it was reported that the Viceroy of Peru was fitting out armed cruisers to prey upon the American shipping in the Pacific.
Of a verity we had arrived in the nick of time, and there was great rejoicing fore and aft because of such fact. So long as we could keep secret from the British government the fact of our whereabouts, we might work the enemy great damage at the same time we protected Yankee vessels; and even after it was known that we had ventured so far from home, there was fair opportunity of taking many a prize before being overhauled by a British squadron.
Well, the people of Valparaiso gave us a royal welcome. The forts saluted the stars and stripes with twenty-one guns; nine shots were fired by the armed brig, and we replied to them all, as a matter of course, until it was as if everybody was celebrating the Fourth of July.
The American Consul General came down from Santiago to greet us; the Chilians strove to show how friendly they felt toward the United States, and there was a great time, in which the officers gathered most of the fun, for ordinary seamen are not counted in at such affairs.