The Shining Sea (29 page)

The
Sir Andrew Hammond
was loaded with fresh provisions and an abundance of strong Jamaica rum, which Porter distributed liberally to the
Essex
's crew. The men had not had any since their July 4th celebration. They joyfully swilled all they were allowed. Porter had misjudged how potent the rum was, however, and before long, he had a ship full of drunks. He managed to keep matters under control, however, and passed it all off as harmless, except for one man who got completely out of control—James Rynard, a quartermaster who had been a clever troublemaker for some time.

Porter saw Rynard as a potential leader of a mutiny. When complaints were made, Rynard was habitually in the forefront. The
Essex
was filled with men whose terms of enlistment had expired, or were nearing that point, and Porter had given no evidence that he planned to return to America any time soon. It was conceivable that Rynard might use this to stir up discontent. Porter felt that he needed to make an example of him. To begin with, he confined Rynard in irons and then discharged him, having the purser make out his accounts. He then put him on the
Seringapatam
until they reached a place where he could be put on shore. Treating Rynard in this manner had the virtue of getting rid of a potential mutineer while giving pause to any like-minded hands.

Rynard did not go away so easily, however. He wrote a penitent letter to Porter begging him to overlook his past conduct and asking to be reinstated in the
Essex
. Porter refused, but Lieutenant Downes (after his return from Valparaiso) agreed to accept Rynard in the capacity of a seaman in
Essex Junior
, provided he behaved himself and gave no further cause for complaint. Rynard happily agreed, and the matter was settled.

P
ORTER EXPECTED
D
OWNES TO ARRIVE ANY DAY NOW; HE WAS
anxious to hear the news he would bring. Lookouts were posted on the high ground north of the port on Narborough. A flagstaff was erected on the hill, and signals were arranged so that
Essex Junior
could see them from either Elizabeth Bay or Banks Bay. As anxious as Porter was to see Downes, however, he was still determined to stand out for the Marquesas no later than October 2.

While Porter waited, he brought the
New Zealander
and
Sir Andrew Hammond
into Port Rendezvous on Albermarle, where he could make repairs and otherwise put the ships in good order. Time passed slowly. Lookouts kept a sharp watch, and then, at noon on September 30 a ship appeared in Elizabeth Bay. A signal shot up to the top of the new flagpole. Porter felt certain that this was
Essex Junior
. His guess was soon confirmed, and by three in the afternoon she was anchored beside the
Essex
. When Downes came aboard with the prize masters and officers who had accompanied him to Valparaiso (including David Farragut), the crew gave a rousing cheer. Needless to say, Porter was overjoyed to see them, and more anxious than anyone to hear the news they brought.

Downes reported that he had sent the
Policy
and her load of sperm oil to the United States because of the low prices in Valparaiso. (Unfortunately, before
Policy
could reach America the British privateer
Loire
captured her.) So far as the
Montezuma, Hector
, and
Catharine
were concerned, Downes moored them in Valparaiso, waiting for either a better market or for Porter to decide where to send them. According to Downes, the Chileans had been as friendly and cooperative as they had been before, even though the country was embroiled in a deadly fight with Peru.

The rest of the news from Downes was far more exciting. President Madison had been reelected, and Downes confirmed what Porter had learned earlier, that the American navy, in the first seven months of the war, had indeed won a string of amazing victories (including the
Essex
's over the
Alert
) in one-on-one battles with the British navy. As encouraging as this news was, Porter was even more interested in the intelligence provided by the American consul at Buenos Aires. The consul informed him that on July 5, 1813, the 36-gun British frigate
Phoebe
(Captain James Hillyar), accompanied by the 24-gun
Cherub
(Captain Thomas Tucker), the 26-gun
Racoon
(Captain William Black), and the 20-gun storeship
Isaac Todd
, had departed Rio de Janeiro with orders, it was rumored, to sail around Cape Horn and into the Pacific. Porter assumed they were coming after him, and nothing could have pleased him more.

In fact, in March 1813, the Admiralty, which had not yet heard of Porter's rampage in the Pacific, had sent Hillyar and the
Phoebe
on a secret mission to what is now Oregon. There they were to capture Astoria, John Jacob Astor's trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River.
Hillyar's orders were “to destroy, and if possible totally annihilate any settlements which the Americans may have formed on the Columbia River or on the neighboring Coasts.”
The Canadian Northwest Company, operating from their base in Montreal, wanted to eliminate Astor's settlement and set up their own base. The prime minister, Lord Liverpool, had much greater ambitions, however. He was laying the groundwork for a major expansion of British territory in the Pacific Northwest. He wanted to secure Britain's claims to this vast area, claims that were originally established by the exploratory voyages of Cook and Vancouver, and by the remarkable overland explorations of Alexander Mackenzie when he reached the Pacific in 1793, ten years before Lewis and Clark.
The large storeship
Isaac Todd,
which belonged to the Northwest Company, accompanied the
Phoebe
. She was to carry on trade with China after Hillyar seized Astor's settlement.

Liverpool had chosen for the mission one of the Royal Navy's premier captains. James Hillyar was an experienced officer with a distinguished fighting record. Born in 1769, he had served in the Royal Navy since the age of ten. He had been on HMS
Chatham
when she captured a French man-of-war off Boston in 1781. In 1783, when he was only fourteen years old, he was promoted to lieutenant. He remained in the navy, serving in various capacities until Britain's wars with France began again in February 1793. He was then stationed in the Mediterranean for a long period, becoming a protégé of Britain's most famous seaman, Admiral Horatio Nelson, who had notably high standards for the officers he favored. Hillyar drew Nelson's attention during the latter's famous defeat of the French fleet in Aboukir Bay near Alexandria in 1798, and on September 3, 1800, when Hillyar led boats from the
Minotaur
and
Niger
in a daring cutting out of two Spanish corvettes in the well-defended harbor of Barcelona. At the time, thirty-one-year old Commander Hillyar was first officer aboard the 32-gun
Niger
. He drew Nelson's attention again in 1803, when he turned down an appointment that would have made him a post captain and guaranteed his future promotion to admiral—if he lived that long. Promotions from post captain to admiral were based strictly on seniority. Hillyar was the sole support of his mother and sisters, and the promotion would have meant an interruption in his pay for an uncertain period of time. After hearing what Hillyar did, Nelson, as a mark of his favor, invited
him to dinner, and on January 20, 1804 he wrote to the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Jervis, the 1st Earl of St. Vincent, that “Captain Hillyar is most deserving of all your Lordship can do for him.”

Appointed to the
Phoebe
in 1809, Hillyar assisted in the successful British invasion of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius in December 1810. France had held Mauritius since 1715, calling it Île de France. Success, in fact, had marked Hillyar's entire career. He arrived in Rio on June 10, 1813, much annoyed at the slow sailing of the cumbersome
Isaac Todd
. Admiral Dixon already knew the
Phoebe
was coming. The merchant brig
John
had spoken the
Phoebe
during her passage to Rio and reported to Dixon that she was en route. Dixon welcomed this news since he was about to dispatch one of his scarce warships, the
Cherub
, to guard a convoy of merchantmen sailing to England.

At the last minute, Dixon held the
Cherub
back and waited for the arrival of the
Phoebe
. Embarrassed by Porter's unopposed attacks, Dixon thought he could now send the
Cherub
and the
Racoon
to accompany the
Phoebe
and hunt down the
Essex
. Until this point, he had been utterly frustrated at not being able to go after her—and particularly so since the Admiralty on February 12, 1813, had sent him a message, which he received on April 29, to send at least one warship into the eastern Pacific to protect British commerce, and particularly the whale fishery. At the time, Whitehall did not know about the rampaging
Essex
. Instead the Admiralty was focused on the general collapse of Spanish power in the eastern Pacific and the resultant threat to British ships, as well as the opportunity to expand British interests.

When their Lordships found out about the
Essex
, they did not understand why Dixon had not sent the
Cherub
and
Racoon
after the American frigate long before now. Dixon for his part felt that he did not have enough warships to both go after Porter and continue to protect Britain's burgeoning trade along the east coast of South America.

Needless to say, Dixon was very happy to see Hillyar and the
Phoebe
. He was not privy to Hillyar's secret orders, directing him to seize the American trading post at Astoria. Dixon would have to wait and see what Hillyar's orders were before making a final decision about sending him after the
Essex
. And Hillyar for his part would have to decide whether or not to show his orders to Dixon, since they were so sensitive. At length,
he had to disclose them, because stopping the
Essex
had become such a high priority.

Dixon did not know Porter's exact whereabouts. He did know that Porter had been to Valparaiso and had left, and that he had seized at least one Peruvian vessel, but he did not know where Porter had gone after that. He was told that the
Essex
might have headed west with the intent of sailing into the Indian Ocean and joining other American warships like the
Constitution
and the
Hornet
. He was also told that the
Essex
might be sailing back around the Horn, touch at the mouth of the River Plate, and then go home. The Galapagos were also a possibility. Dixon thought it was possible, even likely, that Porter would continue in the eastern Pacific for a time, and be back in Valparaiso sooner or later for supplies and recreation. Neither Dixon nor any of his captains thought the
Essex
would make for the Marquesas Islands.

When Hillyar arrived in Rio on June 10, widespread discontent aboard the
Isaac Todd
was reported to Dixon. Hillyar had had to punish some of her crew during the voyage. Immediately on entering port, two mates had left her and seven seamen deserted, stealing one of her boats and disappearing during a dark night. Dixon found that the ship was badly stowed, had heavy masts and rigging, and far too many guns on her deck. Many crewmembers, including most of her officers, thought the
Isaac Todd
was not safe to sail in, especially around the Horn. None of this fazed Dixon; he got right to work fixing her, and had her repaired and ready to go in short order.

Nearly a month went by, however, before Hillyar and the
Phoebe
departed Rio on July 6, accompanied by the
Cherub, Racoon
, and
Isaac Todd
. Although aware of the importance of destroying the
Essex
, Hillyar intended to follow his secret orders and capture Astor's settlement on the Columbia River first. The passage around Cape Horn was predictably difficult. The struggling
Isaac Todd
failed to keep up and got separated from the others. Hillyar thought she had foundered. Nonetheless, after doubling the Horn, he waited a decent amount of time for her, and when she failed to appear, he moved on, setting a course north for the Columbia River. When he was at latitude 4° 33' south and longitude 82° 20' west, he received news from a passing British vessel that the
Essex
had captured the
Isaac Todd
, which, of course, was not true, but he decided at that point to depart from
his orders and send the
Racoon
to the Columbia River alone, while he took the
Phoebe
and the
Cherub
and went after the
Essex
. He was supported in this decision by John McDonald, the representative of the Northwest Company on the
Phoebe
. Hillyar did not anticipate that it would take long to find the
Essex
. (The
Isaac Todd
in fact had not foundered, as Hillyar thought, or been captured. It had doubled the Horn and eventually made it all the way to the mouth of the Columbia River, where, after extensive repairs, she began trading Indian furs with China for the Northwest Company.)

Hillyar's expectations about finding the
Essex
quickly turned out to be unfounded. His search for her went on week after anxious week along the coasts of Chile and Peru with no result. Porter had seemingly vanished. Hillyar was frustrated, but no more so than Admiral Dixon and their Lordships at the Admiralty who were hearing alarming reports of all the prizes Porter was taking, and his devastating impact on the British whale fishery. Wherever the
Essex
was, however, Hillyar was confident that she would eventually return to Valparaiso.

Meanwhile, Captain Black sailed the
Racoon
to the Columbia River, arriving on November 30, 1813. There he found, to his great surprise, that the Northwest Company had already taken possession of Astoria, had renamed the fort Fort George, and now flew the British flag over the outpost. No Americans were there. As far as he could tell, their party was completely broken up; they had no settlement on the river or on the coast. He reported that while his provisions lasted, he would endeavor to find what remained of their party and destroy them.