The President lost three killed and nineteen wounded, and was considerably cut up aloft. The Belvidera lost two killed and twenty-two wounded, Captain Byron being among the number. His rigging was also cut up somewhat, but he made such a good running fight of it that a painting, by a British artist, was made of the scene, that, according to Allen’s history, is preserved to this day.

As for the American squadron, it vainly followed the Jamaica fleet to within less than a day’s sail of the English Channel, and returned home by the way of the Madeiras and Azores, reaching Boston after a cruise of sixty-nine days, in which nothing had been accomplished, save only that seven merchantmen were taken and an American ship recaptured.

CHAPTER III
THE FIRST EXHIBIT OF YANKEE METTLE

CAPTAIN DAVID PORTER’S IDEAS ABOUT TRAINING SEAMEN—THE GUNS OF THE ESSEX—TAKING A TRANSPORT OUT OF A CONVOY AT NIGHT—A BRITISH FRIGATE CAPTAIN WHO WAS CALLED A COWARD BY HIS COUNTRYMEN—CAPTAIN LAUGHARNE’S MISTAKE—A FIGHT THAT BEGAN WITH CHEERS AND ENDED IN DISMAY FOR WHICH THERE WAS GOOD CAUSE—WORK THAT WAS DONE BY YANKEE GUNNERS IN EIGHT MINUTES—WHEN FARRAGUT SAVED THE SHIP—AN ATTACK ON A FIFTY-GUN SHIP PLANNED.

During the time that Commodore Rodgers was making what was practically a fruitless cruise with his squadron, Captain David Porter was doing somewhat better with the little frigate Essex. Rarely has a naval man had the benefit of such experiences as those through which Captain Porter had passed. At the age of sixteen (1796), while in the West Indies on the merchant-schooner Eliza, of which his father was commander, he had stood at the rail with the rest of the crew and fought off a British press-gang in such a determined assault that several men were killed and wounded on both sides. A year later he was twice impressed into the British navy, but escaped both times. Then he joined the American navy as a midshipman, and, as already told, showed himself a hero in helping to hold the prisoners on a captured French frigate for three days, although they were in overwhelming numbers, and he had to watch them during all the time without a moment’s sleep. In a pilot-boat called the Amphitrite, that mounted but five one-pounder swivels and carried fifteen men, he attacked a French privateer armed with a long twelve-pounder and a number of swivels, and carrying forty men. Moreover, the Frenchman was supported by a barge armed with swivels and carrying thirty men. Such odds had rarely been taken, but the impetuous onslaught of the Yankees carried the privateer after a bloody resistance. She had lost seven killed and fifteen wounded, more than half her crew, when she surrendered. Porter did not lose a man. The barge escaped, but a merchant-prize they had captured was retaken. After a variety of exploits only less daring than this, he was sent to the Mediterranean Sea, and there continued to gain knowledge, skill, and reputation until, by the grounding of the Philadelphia, he became a prisoner to the Tripolitans.

When war was declared in 1812 he was in the Essex. She was undergoing repairs in New York Harbor. It was fortunate for Porter that she was not ready to sail with Rodgers, for the delay enabled him to make a cruise alone. And this cruise, because of what it shows about the American armament and American seamen, is worth describing in detail.

David Porter.

From an engraving by Edwin of the portrait by Wood.

The Essex was rated as a thirty-two-gun frigate, but she carried forty-six carriage-guns all told. As to her numbers of guns she was greatly underrated, but as to the effectiveness of her armament she was the most overrated ship in the little navy. She had originally mounted twenty-six long twelve-pounders on her main deck, while her forecastle and poop carried sixteen twenty-four-pounder carronades, “but official wisdom changed all this.” The Navy Department took out twenty-four of her main deck long twelves and put thirty-two-pounder carronades there instead. Then the poop and forecastle were swept clear of the twenty-four-pounder carronades and four long twelves and sixteen thirty-two-pounder carronades were mounted there. Porter protested over and again, but in vain.