USS Essex

“ One hundred and ten years ago there was launched from a Salem shipyard a wooden sailing frigate called the Essex. She was the fastest and handsomest vessel of the United States navy and a dozen years after she first flew the flag of her country she won immortal renown under Captain David Porter. There is hardly a full-rigged sailing ship afloat to-day as small as the Essex, and in tonnage many modern three-masted coasting schooners can equal or surpass her. ”

“ The wind, which had started with a fresh breeze, grew stronger and stronger, and, the anchorage being hard ground, the Essex began to drag her anchors seaward. Suddenly her larboard cable parted, and she went, stern foremost, at a good rate of speed towards the harbor entrance. The adventure could be put off no longer. Trusting in the superior sailing of the Essex to be able to work to windward, Porter hoisted his topgallant-sails, braced around his yards, and came close upon the wind.
The British vessels, off to leeward, crowded on all sail. ”

“ The voyage of the Essex ended in disasters all around, due solely to the misfortune of losing a top-mast in a squall off the Point of Angels at52 Valparaiso. But she had captured twelve British ships, aggregating 3,369 tons, armed with one hundred and seven guns and carrying three hundred and two men. She had maintained herself for more than a year entirely from supplies captured from the enemy—she did not cost the national treasury a cent after her first outfit. A great fleet of British ships were sent at large expense to search for her. ”

“ The commander of the Essex gained his first experience in the navy on board the frigate Constellation, which vessel he entered as midshipman in 1798. Concerning him Lossing says that "he was in the action [Pg 11] between the Constellation and the L'Insurgente in February, 1799, when his gallantry was so conspicuous that he was immediately promoted to lieutenant. He accompanied the first United States squadron that ever sailed to the Mediterranean in 1803, and was on board the Philadelphia when she struck on the rock in the harbor of Tripoli. ”

“ The foe on field, the foe on deck to us is all the same;
With both the Flower of Essex has played a winning game;
We threw them on the village green, we cowed them in Algiers,
And ship to ship we shocked them in our first great naval years.
We rowed the Great Commander o'er the ice-bound Delaware,
When the Christmas snow was falling in the dark and wintry air;
And still the Flower of Essex, like the heroes gone before,
Where the tide of danger surges shall take the laboring oar. ”

“ For a year the Essex cruised up and down the coast of South America, extending her voyages far to the westward, to the various islands, which were visited then infrequently by traders and whaling vessels.
During this cruise she frightened British commerce entirely from these waters, and the strange spectacle of seeing one ship in control of a vast territory was presented to the eyes of the world. The British Admiralty were vexed and astounded beyond measure. Here one day and there the next, Porter appeared to be in command of a fleet instead of a single frigate. ”

“ Captain Watson of the Essex then appeared on board, with the Baron and Baroness von Hiller, and we all went in his launch to the outer harbor, which I had not yet seen—the view being completely [329] blocked by the Condé, which also hid the handsome Essex, really very near us. Oh, the glory and majesty and potency of the United States as there depicted! Great dreadnoughts, destroyers, torpedo-boats, every imaginable craft, nearly eighty of them—and for what? To pry a sagacious and strong old Indian out of a place and position that he has proved himself eminently well fitted to fill. ”

“ The Essex, a small frigate of thirty-two guns, chiefly carronades, and but little superior to a first-class sloop-of-war of the present day, with a crew of some three hundred men, had the honor to make this illustrious cruise. Leaving New York in June, soon after the declaration of war, and making some small captures, she ran up towards the Grand Banks, and in the night discovered a fleet steering north, all under easy sail and in open order, wide spaces being between the ships. ”

“ Throughout the war no ship was so desperately defended as the Essex, taking into account the frightful odds against which she fought, which always enhances the merit of a defence. The Lawrence, which suffered even more, was backed by a fleet; the Frolic was overcome by an equal foe; and the Reindeer fought at far less of a disadvantage, and suffered less. None of the frigates, British or American, were defended with any thing like the resolution she displayed. ”

“ We have been unfortunate but not disgraced—the defense of the Essex has not been less honorable to her officers and crew than the capture of an equal force; and I now consider my situation less unpleasant than that of Captain Hillyar, who in violation of every principle of honor and generosity, and regardless of the rights of nations, attacked the Essex in her crippled state within pistol shot of a neutral shore, when for six weeks I had daily offered him fair and honorable combat on terms greatly to his advantage. ”

“ Up came the Essex, pretending to be a merchant ship and with the British flag flying. That is one of the tricks which naval officers play. They think it right to cheat an enemy. The stranger came bowling down under full sail and fired a gun as a hint for the supposed merchantman to stop. So the Essex backed her sails and hove to until the stranger had passed her stern.
Porter was now where he had wanted to get. He had the advantage of the wind—what sailors call the "weather-gage." ”

“ Rarely in the history of the world has a fight been maintained against such odds as these. The Englishmen did, indeed, draw in closer at one time of the battle, but it was for only a brief time. The short guns of the Essex soon made them withdraw to a safer distance.
When the first gun was fired at 3.54 P.M., Porter had not yet been able to get a spring on his cable and could not bring a gun to bear on either ship. For five minutes the Essex lay as an idle target. ”

“ In reply to their motto, I wrote at my mizzen: ‘God and Our Country; Tyrants Offend Them.’”
Alongside the Essex lay the Essex, Junior, an armed prize which carried twenty guns and sixty men. For six weeks the two American vessels lay in harbor while the British squadron cruised off shore to blockade them, “during which time, I endeavored to provoke a challenge,” explained Captain Porter, “and frequently but ineffectually to bring the Phoebe alone to action, first with both my ships, and afterwards with my single ship with both crews on board. ”

“ To Phil and me it was most singular, this seeing one ship filling away with all the wind she needed, and another, our frigate, lying no more than four miles distant with not breeze enough to lift the vane at her masthead.
The only thing which prevented our men from having a desperate fit of the sulks was the belief that when the Essex did get the wind she would make chase; but as the hours wore on we understood that the Britisher was really lost to us, for this time at least. ”

“ Porter, and his officers and crew, had shown unparalleled bravery, skill, zeal, and patriotism; and nothing but the absolute requirements of humanity caused their surrender—to save the helpless wounded. Had they been disposed of, there is little doubt they would have let the Essex sink under them, and have taken the chance of gaining the shore.
The action had been fought almost entirely with the great guns; musketry being only used during the first half hour. During most of the time the Essex could only use her six long twelves; and it is fair to say that every one did his whole duty. ”

“ The united force of the English vessels amounted to eighty-one guns and five hundred men, in addition to which they had taken on board for the nonce the crew of an English letter-of-marque that was then lying in port.
The force of the Essex consisted of 46 guns, all of which, except six long twelves, were 32-pound carronades, and useless except in close fighting. Her crew, much reduced by the manning of her many prizes, consisted of but two hundred and fifty men. The armament of the Essex Junior we have named before. ”

“ The Essex, a sixty-four gun-ship, commanded by our commodore, the Honourable Richard (afterwards Earl) Howe, led the van, and closely in her wake followed the Brilliant of thirty-six guns, commanded by Captain Hyde Parker, who was afterwards knighted for his services off the coast of America.
As the Essex bore across Sandown Bay, I have been told that the French deserter, Theophile Damien, assisted with his own hands to steer the ship, as if in token of the good service he meant to perform for us in future. ”

“ Passing over a number of actions between smaller vessels, in which sometimes the English and at others the Americans were the victors, a celebrated combat in the Pacific between two frigates, the American being the smallest, must be mentioned. In October, 1822, the United States 32-gun frigate Essex, commanded by Captain David Porter, sailed from Delaware Bay on a cruise in the Pacific. ”

“ You're to go to your cousin to-morrow morning, Ezra, and beg of him that we be given permission to join Lieutenant Downes's fleet. It is not fair that we should miss all the most exciting portion of the work by being forced to remain aboard the Essex when there are prizes to be captured. ”

“ Captain Hillyar had good reason for writing to his superior that “the defence of the Essex, taking into consideration our superiority of force and the very discouraging circumstance of her having lost her maintopmast and being twice on fire, did honor to her brave defenders.”
As Roosevelt says, “Porter certainly did everything a man can do to contend successfully with the overwhelming force opposed to him. ”

“ There was nothing for the German fleet to do but fight it out. The admiral gave the order:
"Advance!"
CHAPTER XXV THE LAST SEA BATTLE
The cannonading became terrific.
Now that assistance arrived, Jack ordered the Essex, which still was the nearest British vessel to the enemy, back into the fray.
"The big fellows will look out for us," he confided to Frank.
The revolving turrets of the Essex were kept on the move and guns crashed as fast as they could be brought to bear. Shells struck on all sides of the destroyer and occasionally one came aboard. ”

“ Essex, tossing his cap into the sea for very joy when the command is given, in compliance with his earliest entreaties, for the assault on Cadiz, and with that failing of memory so becoming to a brave man, forgetting the cautions of his sovereign, and rushing into the thickest of the fight; the naval supremacy of England completely established by the defeat of the Armada, and the great deep itself made a monument of the nation's glory.
The boast of the age of Elizabeth was the splendid specimens of humanity which it produced. ”

“ Fit for sea again, the Essex and the Essex, Junior, betook themselves to Valparaiso where they received information that the thirty-six-gun frigate Phoebe of the British navy was earnestly looking for them. She had been sent out from England to proceed to the northwest American coast and destroy the fur station at the mouth of the Columbia River. At Rio de Janeiro Captain Hillyar had heard reports of the ravages of the Essex and he considered it his business to hunt down this defiant Yankee. ”

“ A rendezvous was appointed, and it was agreed that the Essex should allow the British ships to chase her offshore, and give the Essex Junior a chance to make her escape.
The very next day after arriving at this decision the wind came on to blow fresh from the southward, and then followed a chapter of accidents as disastrous as ever happened to any one unlucky vessel.
179 Even in yacht-racing the best boat does not always win; no allowances are made for accidents, hard luck is an element that cannot be forestalled, and thus it will always be in naval warfare. ”

“ When the British ships with their prize returned to the quiet waters of the harbor, and began to take account of damages, it was found that the "Essex" had indeed fought a losing fight. On the "Phœbe," but four men were killed, and seven wounded; on the "Cherub," one killed and three wounded, made up the list of casualties. But on the "Essex" were fifty-eight killed, and sixty-six wounded; while an immense number of men were missing, who may have escaped to the shore or may have sunk beneath the waves. ”

“ At the same time, in the act of falling off, she approached the Essex; and her jib-boom, projecting far beyond her bows, swept over the forecastle of the latter. Porter, who had been watching the whole proceeding with great distrust, [35] had summoned his boarders as soon as the Phœbe luffed. The Essex at the moment was in a state of as absolute preparation as is a musket at full cock trained on the mark, and with the marksman's eye ranging over the sights; every man at his post, every gun trained, matches burning, and boarders standing by. ”

“ Bacon strongly warned Essex not to exaggerate the value of military glory, and obviously thought his conduct in pressing for the command imprudent. The fleet reached Plymouth from Sandwich 10 July; Sir Walter Raleigh joined it as rear-admiral, and Lord Thomas Howard as vice-admiral. The object of the expedition was (as before) to intercept a Spanish treasure fleet, to destroy Spanish shipping at Ferrol, and to seize the Azores. Essex's correspondence on the subject with Sir Robert Cecil is couched in the friendliest terms, and his parting letter to the queen embodies the boldest flattery. ”