His gloomy isolation for a whole winter, with only a few devoted followers, reveals a fixedness of purpose and grandeur of character that no circumstances can affect. Inferior to the contagion of fear, unaffected by general discouragement, equal in himself to every emergency, he moves before us in this campaign the embodiment of the noblest qualities that distinguish the American race.
Jackson, with his undisciplined, mutinous, and starving army in the southern wilderness, does not seem to belong to the same race as Hull, Dearborn, Wilkinson and Izard on the northern frontier. Contrast the difficulties that surrounded him with those that embarrassed them, and how pitiful do their apologies and excuses sound. Had he been in Dearborn's place, the first campaign would have placed Canada in our possession.
CHAPTER II.
Cruise of Commodore Porter in the Essex — Arrival at Valparaiso — Capture of British whalers and letters of marque — Essex Junior — Marquesas Islands — Description of the natives — Madison Island — War with the Happahs — Invades the Typee territory — Tedious march — Beautiful prospect — Fights the natives and burns down their towns — Sails for Valparaiso — Blockaded by two English ships — Attempts to escape — Is attacked by both vessels — His gallant defence — His surrender — Returns home on parole — Insolence of an English Officer — Porter escapes in an open boat and lands on Long Island — Enthusiastic reception in New York.
An expedition similar in its unity to that of Jackson's, and hence requiring a connected narrative, was carried forward by Captain Porter during the year 1813 in the Pacific Ocean. When Commodore Bainbridge sailed from Boston with the Constitution and Hornet, Porter, then lying in the Delaware with the Essex, was ordered to join him at Port Praya in St. Jago, or at Fernando Noronha. Oct. 26, 1812. The capture of the Java by the Constitution, and of the Peacock by the Hornet, caused a change in the plans of Bainbridge, and Captain Porter, not finding him or the Hornet at either of the two places mentioned, or off Frio, a rendezvous afterwards designated by the Commodore, he was left to cruise where he thought best. Dec. 12. While searching for these vessels, he captured an English government packet with $55,000 in specie on board, and sent her home.
Jan. 1813.
At length, after revolving various schemes in his mind, he took the bold resolution to go alone into the Pacific, where we had not a depôt of any kind, or a place in which a disabled vessel could be refitted, while all the neutral ports were under the influence of our enemy, and make a dash at the British fishermen. The vessels employed in these fisheries he knew were invariably supplied with naval stores, etc., and he resolved to live on them. This original and daring cruise was no sooner decided upon than he turned his prow southward, and was soon wrapt in the storms that sweep Cape Horn. Jan. 28. Again and again beaten back, as if to deter him from his hazardous course, he still held on, and at length, after a most tempestuous and toilsome passage, took the breezes of the Pacific and stretched northward. March 5. His provisions getting short, and being in want of some new rigging, he determined to run into Valparaiso. On his arrival at that port he found, to his astonishment and delight, that Chili had declared herself free of Spain, and his reception was kind and courteous. Here he learned, also, that Peru had sent out cruisers against American shipping, which, together with British letters of marque, threatened to make destructive work with our whalers. He therefore remained only a week in port, and then steered northward. On the 25th he captured one of the Peruvian cruisers, which, with an English vessel, had seized two American whalers a few days before.[2] Four days after, he recaptured the Barclay, one of the American vessels taken by the Peruvians, and the British letter of marque. Looking into Callao to see if any thing had arrived from Valparaiso since he left, he cruised from island to island till the latter part of April without making any prizes. At length, on the morning of the 29th, three sail were discerned and chase was immediately made for the nearest, which soon struck. She was a British whaler with fourteen hundred barrels of oil on board. It having fallen calm when the Essex was yet eight miles distant from the other vessels, he was compelled to resort to his boats to effect their capture. One of these, the Georgiana, Captain Porter equipped as a cruiser, with sixteen guns, and put her under the command of Lieutenant Downes, who soon started on a cruise of his own.
June 24.
These two vessels joined company again at Tumbez, the Essex in the mean time having captured two large British vessels, and the Georgiana three. The Atlantic, one of those taken by Porter, being a much larger and faster ship than the Georgiana, Lieutenant Downes was transferred to her, and she was christened Essex Junior. On the last day of June this little fleet of nine sail put to sea, and on the 4th of July fired a general salute with the enemy's powder. A few days after, the Essex Junior parted company, steering for Valparaiso with all the prizes but two in company. Porter continued his cruise with the Georgiana and Greenwich, and on the 13th captured three more vessels. The Greenwich behaved gallantly in the action, closing courageously with the largest vessel, a cruiser, while the Essex was led away in chase of the first. Porter soon after captured another whaler, when, being joined by the Essex Junior, bringing information that the Chilian government was assuming a more unfriendly attitude towards the Americans, he resolved to proceed to the Marquesas to refit, and return home. Having made the vessels of the enemy answer for a naval depôt, he now sought the bay of an island inhabited by savages, where unseen he could prepare to retrace his voyage of ten thousand miles.