We were sent below once more, and Phil and I felt well content, for by the captain's ruling we could not be sent home in the oil-laden craft.
CHAPTER VII. AN ISLAND PORT.
The Georgiana left us next morning, carrying a sorrowful-looking crew, as can well be imagined, for every man jack of them felt as if he might be accused of cowardice in leaving the Essex at a time when there was good reason to expect she would meet with a superior force.
I fail to understand yet why it had come into the minds of all that we would never double Cape Horn in the old frigate. No one put such a belief into words, and yet I knew full well it was looked upon as a fact, because of certain remarks let drop now and then when was being discussed the question of seeing the friends at home.
It had really come to be the belief of us all, although carefully kept in the background, that the time must come when we would meet with such a force of Britishers as could put an end to the "luck of the Essex."
And it is little wonder that our crew, even counting the boys, should have considered it as inevitable that the dear old frigate would come to an end of her cruising before many months had passed, for we knew full well the English people must soon demand that we who had done so much mischief be put out of the way of working yet further damage.
Consider well what had been done, and then it may be seen that the British navy would speedily come after us with a heavy force. Here is the situation as it was defined by a member of the United States Navy, he looking at the matter a few weeks after the Georgiana had sailed, and we were in an island port refitting and overhauling the fleet:—
"The situation of the Essex was sufficiently remarkable, at this moment, to merit a brief notice. She had been the first American to carry the pennant of a man-of-war round the Cape of Good Hope, and now she had been the first to bring it into the distant ocean. More than ten thousand miles from home, without colonies, stations, or even a friendly port to repair to, short of stores, without a consort, and otherwise in possession of none of the required means of subsistence and efficiency, she had boldly steered into this distant region, where she had found all that she required, through her own activity; and having swept the seas of her enemies, she had now retired to these little-frequented islands to refit, with the security of a ship at home. It is due to the officer who so promptly adopted and so successfully executed this plan, to add, that his enterprise, self-reliance, and skill indicated a man of bold and masculine courage; qualities that are indispensable in forming a naval captain.