The Shining Sea (14 page)

As the voyage progressed, Porter found that the many animals he had allowed aboard were too much of a burden. They were consuming far more water than he had anticipated, and they were causing prodigious sanitation problems. Reluctantly, he ordered all the pigs and young goats killed. The kids had to go because in sucking their mothers they deprived the crew of goat's milk. The monkeys were allowed to live, however. Their skylarking antics in the rigging and upper yards provided much-needed
entertainment. Of course, they also consumed precious water. The men were now reduced to a half gallon a day.

As the
Essex
made her way southwest, she ran beyond the northeast trade winds in a few days and entered the flat water, calms, and erratic storms of the doldrums near the Equator. When she reached four degrees north latitude, slight variations in the winds began, hauling from northeast to east by south. Distant lightning was often seen to the southward. At intervals, heavy rain showers came, but only for a few minutes, making it impossible to catch any water, even though the rain awning was spread. Sometimes the rain was accompanied by a little increase of wind, but more frequently by calms. The temperature of the air remained relatively constant, and clouds continued to block out the sun.

Porter noted that all navigators in crossing between the Cape Verdes and the coast of Brazil had remarked on the irregularities of the currents. He believed that the trade winds were the underlying cause of currents in the North and South Atlantic. The
Essex
picked up the southeasterly trades three degrees north of the Equator, not south of it. And, contrary to expectation, the temperature dropped.

On December 11, the
Essex
crossed the Equator at longitude 30° west. Porter had on board what he considered an accurate chronometer. King Neptune did not make an appearance, all the novices having been initiated earlier. The following afternoon at two o'clock lookouts spotted a sail to windward. She appeared to be a British brig of war, and Porter gave chase. At six o'clock the brig sent up a signal, which Porter responded to. Using intelligence he had taken from the
Alert
months before, he gave what he thought was an appropriate answer, but no reply came. Just before sundown the brig hoisted British colors and after dark began making night signals, whereupon Porter beat to quarters and cleared for action. He kept closing with her, and by nine o'clock he was within musket shot. He hailed her through a speaking trumpet, and not wanting to injure her, he ordered her to lower her topsails, haul up her courses, and heave-to to windward. Instead of obeying, the brig's plucky skipper attempted to run to leeward athwart the
Essex
's stern with a view to raking her and then scooting off. To prevent this, Porter ordered a volley of musket fire, which quickly brought the brig to.

She turned out to be the packet ship
Nocton
out of Rio de Janeiro bound for Falmouth, England, carrying ten guns and a crew of thirty-one. Before Porter sent over a boarding party he warned everyone not to plunder any prisoners. A thorough search of the brig revealed an unexpected treasure—12,000 pounds sterling in metal coinage, or specie ($55,000), money, which Porter took aboard the
Essex
. It could provide him with a considerable degree of independence. The Royal Navy routinely carried large amounts of specie from South America to England. The burgeoning British merchant fleet in South America acquired huge amounts of gold in trade, and skippers always wanted warships to carry their money home. They had been doing a brisk business in Latin America ever since Napoleon had invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 1807 and 1808, and Portugal and Spain had become reliant on Britain for their lives. In the past, Madrid had been able to keep most of Britain's traders out of Latin America, but no longer; and when British merchants accumulated large quantities of gold, London made sure it reached England. The Ministry considered the flow of gold vital. It was financing the Duke of Wellington's army in Spain. He was wisely paying in specie for the supplies he was constantly requisitioning from the countryside.

The following day, December 12, Porter put Midshipman William B. Finch in command of the
Nocton
with Midshipman Thomas Conover as his second. They had orders to sail the packet back to the United States as a prize. The
Nocton
's captain, master, and passengers were sent aboard her on parole of honor with instructions that should they meet any vessel bound for England or anywhere else, they were free to transfer to her. Porter allowed seventeen prisoners to remain aboard the
Nocton
and added thirteen of his own men (one an invalid) to aid Finch. The seventeen were the youngest and weakest of the
Nocton
's crew. Porter kept the strongest, more experienced prisoners on the
Essex.
He expected that this arrangement would help Finch keep control.

Unfortunately, the
Nocton
never made it back to the United States. The frigate HMS
Belvidera
(Captain Richard Byron) captured her on January 5, 1813, in heavy seas northeast of the Bahamas and due west of St. Augustine, Florida, in latitude 31° 30' north and longitude 66° west. After a chase lasting three hours and twenty minutes, the frigate—sailing at an
impressive eleven knots—caught the unlucky
Nocton
and took her to Bermuda. Finch and his men were incarcerated for a time, before being exchanged with a number of other prisoners.

On December 14, two days after Porter had captured the
Nocton
, an
Essex
lookout spied the Pyramid (Morro do Pico). It is the highest peak in the strikingly beautiful archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, northeast of Cape St. Roque, the easternmost point on the northeastern coast of Brazil. Remarkably thin, the 1,023-foot-high mountain is the tip of a sub-Atlantic range that rose four thousand feet from the sea bed. Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer and cartographer, temporarily in the service of Manuel I of Portugal, was the first European to describe the island, at the start of the sixteenth century.

Using the mountain as a guide, Porter spent the rest of the day making his way toward the archipelago. During the night he continued to windward under easy sail, and at daylight rounded into a good harbor on the northwest side of the archipelago's capital, disguised as a merchantman displaying British colors. Only seven square miles, the main island, although exceptionally attractive, had been turned by the Portuguese into a depressing prison colony. They allowed no females or boats on it. Women were prohibited in order to render the place of exile more horrible.

Now began a game of false identities and coded messages, played with ingenuity and a keen sense of comedy. Porter ordered a boat lowered, and Lieutenant Downes (in plain clothes) went ashore and met with the governor. Downes told him that the
Essex
was the merchant ship
Fanny
(Captain Johnson) from London, via Newfoundland, bound to Rio de Janeiro for a cargo. Downes told him that they had been out sixty days, were short of water, had several men sick with scurvy, and needed supplies, but they could not anchor, because they had lost all of their anchors but one, and their cables were bad.

In two and a half hours, Downes returned with the news that, according to the governor, two British men-of-war had visited the island the previous week—the 44-gun
Acasta
(Captain Kerr) and the 20-gun
Morgiana
. Kerr left a letter for the captain of HMS
Southampton
, who was, not coincidentally, Porter's old antagonist, Sir James Yeo. It was to be dispatched to England at the first opportunity. The governor also gave Downes some fruit as a present for his captain.

Porter sent Downes back with cheese and porter beer for the governor and a message informing him that a gentleman was aboard who knew Sir James Yeo intimately. This gentleman was on his way to England after a brief stop in Brazil and would take charge of the letter.

At three o'clock that afternoon, Downes returned with the letter. It read:

My dear Mediterranean friend,

Probably you may stop here; don't attempt to water, it is attended with too much difficulty. I learned before I left England that you were bound to the Brazil coast; if so, perhaps we may meet at St. Salvadore or Rio de Janeiro. I should be happy to meet and converse on our old affairs of captivity; recollect our secret in those times.

Your friend, of H.M.'s ship
Acasta
,

KERR

The rest of the letter was written in invisible sympathetic ink:

I am bound off St. Salvadore, thence off Cape Frio, where I intend to cruise until the 1st of January. Go off Cape Frio, to the northward of Rio de Janeiro, and keep a look out for me.

Your Friend

The letter was obviously from Bainbridge; the writing was in his hand. It was also obvious that he had never gone to Porto Praia but had traveled directly from Boston to Fernando de Noronha. Porter immediately hoisted in his boat and stood out from the harbor. The penal colony was so depressing he did not want to tarry a single night, even though he could have obtained wood, water, fruits, vegetables, hogs, and even turtles, albeit with difficulty. He threw on all sail and shaped a course southward for Cape Frio, 1,400 miles away, the next rendezvous point.

On December 20, the
Essex
spoke a Portuguese vessel from St. Salvador. The
Constitution
and the
Hornet
had, indeed, put in there on December 13, as Bainbridge said he would. The Portuguese captain confirmed what Porter had learned from the
Nocton
, that the
Bonne Citoyenne
, a British sloop of war carrying a heavy load of specie to London, had sprung a bad
leak, and had run into St. Salvador in distress. She was carrying gold belonging to British merchants trading in Buenos Aries on the Rio de la Plata.

Porter thought of racing to St. Salvador and joining Bainbridge, but decided that he was not needed, and Bainbridge might not remain there for long. So far as the war between America and Britain was concerned, St. Salvador was a neutral Portuguese port, and Bainbridge might not be able to touch the
Bonne Citoyenne
. There was also the danger that the 74-gun British battleship
Montague
would be sailing up from Rio with escorts to rescue the
Bonne Citoyenne
and shepherd her to England. The
Montague
was the flagship of Vice Admiral Manley Dixon, commander of Britain's South American Station at Rio. The
Montague
was the most powerful warship on the South American coast, and Porter did not want to run into her. Given all these factors, he thought it best if he went directly to Cape Frio.

It did not take long to get there. On December 25 the color of the water indicated soundings, and at noon a lookout sighted several islands north of the cape. Around four o'clock the cape itself came into view, seventy-four miles east of Rio. Three hundred and nine years earlier, in 1503, Amerigo Vespucci had been the first European to view the cape. Porter thought the waters surrounding it were as good as any for intercepting British commerce. He hove to just off the cape, positioning himself to catch any vessel traveling to or from Rio.

For two days he patrolled under easy sail without spotting an enemy vessel. He did chase a Portuguese brig-of-war he thought was British, and in doing so, came within fifteen miles of the entrance to Rio. That was too close; enemy warships were sure to be in the harbor. He attempted to beat back to Cape Frio, but fresh winds made that impossible, so he decided to remain where he was and take the risk. Vice Admiral Dixon was in Rio at the time, and he had no idea that Porter and the
Essex
were so close. He did not find out until weeks later.

During the few days that the
Essex
patrolled off Rio, she saw little action at first. But there was great excitement when many dolphins began swimming playfully around the ship. Hands were enchanted. They threw lines out, hauling in scores, and having a feast every day. But everything changed on the morning of December 29, when a lookout at the main masthead
spotted a sail to windward. Porter grabbed a glass and rushed to the maintop, where he saw a schooner making for Rio. He immediately gave chase, caught up with her, and after firing several shots, brought her to around nine o'clock that night. She turned out to be the British schooner
Elizabeth
. Porter examined her log book, which her captain had failed to destroy, and then questioned the luckless skipper, who told him that he had been on the way to England before a dangerous leak had forced him to turn back. From the schooner's crew Porter learned that the
Montague
was still in the harbor at Rio with her sails unbent, which might mean that Dixon wasn't preparing to depart anytime soon.

Porter also discovered that the
Elizabeth
was part of a six-vessel convoy being shepherded to England by the three-masted, 8-gun schooner
Juniper
. He learned further that three deeply laden ships were slowing the convoy down, and he went after them. Before departing, he turned over command of the leaky
Elizabeth
to Midshipman William Clarke, and gave him six
Essex
men and three prisoners for a crew. Porter told Clarke to pick some port other than Rio to stop into and fix the leaks, and to then sail to the United States. He gave Clarke discretion to go into Rio if he absolutely had to, but Porter obviously did not want to alert Admiral Dixon to the
Essex
's presence offshore. If Clarke was forced to go into Rio, however, Porter gave him a letter for the American minister there, Thomas Sumter Jr. Porter then raced east after the
Juniper
and her charges, but contrary winds and damage to the
Essex
slowed him down.