Captain Porter was ordered to sail around South America into the Pacific Ocean to warn American crews that there was a war going on between the United States and Great Britain. He was also to capture British ships as prizes. Over one of these ships he placed in command David Farragut—then a boy of twelve. When Davy ordered the British sailors to “fill away the maintopsail,” the former captain of the ship was angry. It was bad enough to be captured and have his ship taken into a South American port as a prize; but to have his crew ordered about by an American boy of twelve seemed too much for an English captain to bear.
Shouting that he would shoot any Englishman who dared to touch a rope without his orders, the former captain went below to get his pistols to carry out his threat. Captain Farragut sent one of his men to follow the swearing captain down and tell him that if he came back on deck with a pistol in his hand he would himself be shot and pitched overboard. The man decided not to come back. Young David brought the British ship into port and reported to his proud foster-father what he had done.
The Essex fought a great battle with two British warships, and Farragut himself has left a description of the sights in his first great sea fight:
“I shall never forget the horrid impression made upon me at the sight of the first man I had ever seen killed. It staggered me at first, but they soon began to fall so fast that it all appeared like a dream, and produced no effect on my nerves.
“Some gun-primers [for loading the cannon] were wanted and I was sent after them. In going below, while I was on the ward-room ladder, the captain of the gun directly opposite the hatchway was struck full in the face by an eighteen-pound shot, and fell back on me. We tumbled down the hatch together.
“I lay for some moments stunned by the blow, but soon recovered consciousness enough to rush up on deck. The captain, seeing me covered with blood, asked if I were wounded; to which I replied, ‘I believe not, sir.’
“ ‘Then,’ said he, ‘where are the primers?’ This brought me to my senses, and I ran below again and brought up the primers.”
After being powder boy and doing all sorts of service on a man-of-war, the little middy was taken prisoner, but was released at the close of the war.
When Farragut was fifteen he went on a cruise in the Washington to watch for pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. While anchored off Naples he witnessed an eruption of the great volcano, Vesuvius. A naval chaplain, then American consul at Tunis, begged to have the Farragut youth stay with him, and study French, Italian, literature, and mathematics. While on a horseback journey to the Desert of Sahara, David suffered a sunstroke, which hurt his eyes so that he was unable to read much afterwards.
On his return home, Farragut passed the necessary examinations and at eighteen received the rank of lieutenant in the navy. Then he went to New Orleans and found that his father was dead and that his own sister did not know him. Here he was exposed to yellow fever and was very ill of it in a hospital after his return to Washington.