Note 2 — Chapter II

At length, after revolving various schemes in his mind, he took the bold resolution to go alone into the Pacific, where we had not a depôt of any kind, or a place in which a disabled vessel could be refitted, while all the neutral ports were under the influence of our enemy, and make a dash at the British fishermen. The vessels employed in these fisheries he knew were invariably supplied with naval stores, etc., and he resolved to live on them. This original and daring cruise was no sooner decided upon than he turned his prow southward, and was soon wrapt in the storms that sweep Cape Horn. Jan. 28. Again and again beaten back, as if to deter him from his hazardous course, he still held on, and at length, after a most tempestuous and toilsome passage, took the breezes of the Pacific and stretched northward. March 5. His provisions getting short, and being in want of some new rigging, he determined to run into Valparaiso. On his arrival at that port he found, to his astonishment and delight, that Chili had declared herself free of Spain, and his reception was kind and courteous. Here he learned, also, that Peru had sent out cruisers against American shipping, which, together with British letters of marque, threatened to make destructive work with our whalers. He therefore remained only a week in port, and then steered northward. On the 25th he captured one of the Peruvian cruisers, which, with an English vessel, had seized two American whalers a few days before.[2] Four days after, he recaptured the Barclay, one of the American vessels taken by the Peruvians, and the British letter of marque. Looking into Callao to see if any thing had arrived from Valparaiso since he left, he cruised from island to island till the latter part of April without making any prizes. At length, on the morning of the 29th, three sail were discerned and chase was immediately made for the nearest, which soon struck. She was a British whaler with fourteen hundred barrels of oil on board. It having fallen calm when the Essex was yet eight miles distant from the other vessels, he was compelled to resort to his boats to effect their capture. One of these, the Georgiana, Captain Porter equipped as a cruiser, with sixteen guns, and put her under the command of Lieutenant Downes, who soon started on a cruise of his own.