CHAPTER XVIII. NAVAL BATTLES OF 1814.
Porter's Cruise in the Essex—His Campaign Against the Typees—Destruction of the British Whaling Interest in the Pacific—Battle with the Phoebe and the Cherub—The Peacock and the Epervier—The Wasp and the Reindeer—The Wasp and the Avon—Destruction of the General Armstrong—Loss of the President—The Constitution Captures the Cyane and the Levant—The Hornet and the Penguin.
The naval contests of 1814 and the winter of 1815 repeated and emphasized the lesson of the first year of the war; they were all, with but two exceptions, American victories.
The remarkable cruise of the Essex, commanded by Captain David Porter, begun late in 1812, extended along the coast of South America, around Cape Horn, and throughout almost the entire eastern half of the Pacific, ending in a bloody battle in the harbor of Valparaiso, in March, 1814. The prizes taken in the Atlantic were of little value, except one. The packet ship Nocton, captured just south of the equator, had $55,000 in specie, on board, with which Porter subsequently paid off his men. She was put in charge of a prize crew, and sailed for the United States, but was recaptured on the way by a British frigate.
Porter had sailed under orders to meet Commodore Bainbridge, who had gone to sea with the Constitution and the Hornet. But after failing to find either of those vessels at three successive rendezvous, he determined to carry out a plan which he had submitted to the Secretary of the Navy some time before, for a cruise against the British whalers in the Pacific. After the usual stormy passage, he doubled Cape Horn in February, 1813. His description of one of the gales shows us that the greatest dangers undergone by a man-of-war are not always from the guns of the enemy.
"It was with no little joy we now saw ourselves fairly in the Pacific Ocean, calculating on a speedy end to all our sufferings. We began also to form our projects for annoying the enemy, and had already equipped, in imagination, one of their vessels of fourteen or sixteen guns, and manned her from the Essex, to cruise against their commerce. Indeed, various were the schemes we formed at this time, and had in fancy immense wealth to return with to our country. But the wind freshened up to a gale, and by noon had reduced us to our storm stay-sail and close-reefed main-top-sail. In the afternoon it hauled around to the westward, and blew with a fury far exceeding anything we had yet experienced, bringing with it such a tremendous sea as to threaten us every moment with destruction, and appalled the stoutest heart on board. Our sails, our standing and running rigging, from the succession of bad weather, had become so damaged as to be no longer trustworthy; we took, however, the best means in our power to render everything secure, and carried as heavy a press of sail as the ship would bear, to keep her from drifting on the coast of Patagonia, which we had reason to believe was not far distant.
"From the excessive violence with which the wind blew, we had strong hopes that it would be of short continuance; until, worn out with fatigue and anxiety, greatly alarmed with the terrors of a lee shore, and in momentary expectation of the loss of our masts and bowsprit, we almost considered our situation hopeless. To add to our distress, our pumps had become choked by the shingle ballast, which, from the violent rolling of the ship, had got into them, and the sea had increased to such a height as to threaten to swallow us at every instant. The whole ocean was one continual foam of breakers, and the heaviest squall that I ever experienced had not equalled in violence the most moderate intervals of this tremendous hurricane. We had, however, done all that lay in our power to preserve the ship, and turned our attention to our pumps, which we were enabled to clear, and to keep the ship from drifting on shore, by getting on the most advantageous tack. We were enabled to wear but once; for the violence of the wind and sea was such as afterward to render it impossible to attempt it, without hazarding the destruction of the ship and the loss of every life on board. Our fatigue had been constant and excessive; many had been severely bruised by being thrown, by the violent jerks of the ship, down the hatchways, and I was particularly unfortunate in receiving three severe falls, which at length disabled me from going on deck.
"We had shipped several heavy seas, that would have proved destructive to almost any other ship. About three o'clock of the morning of the 3d, the watch only being on deck, an enormous sea broke over the ship, and for an instant destroyed every hope. Our gun-deck ports were burst in, both boats on the quarter stove, our spare spars washed from the chains, our head-rails washed away, and hammock stanchions burst in, and the ship perfectly deluged and water-logged. Immediately after this tremendous shock, which threw the crew into consternation, the gale began to abate, and in the morning we were enabled to set our reefed foresail. In the height of the gale, Lewis Price, a marine, who had long been confined with a pulmonary complaint, departed this life, and was in the morning committed to the deep; but the violence of the sea was such that the crew could not be permitted to come on deck to attend the ceremony of his burial, as their weight would have strained and endangered the safety of the ship.