such of her guns as were not dismounted and had men enough left to man them, a broadside was fired at the Phoebe. The wind was now very light, and the Phoebe, whose main- and mizzen-masts and main-yard were rather seriously wounded, and who had suffered a great loss of canvas and cordage aloft, besides receiving a number of shot between wind and water,20 and was thus a good deal crippled, began to drift slowly to leeward. It was hoped that she would drift out of gunshot, but this last chance was lost by the parting of the hawser, which left the Essex at the mercy of the British vessels. Their fire was deliberate and destructive, and could only be occasionally replied to by a shot from one of the long 12's of the Essex. The ship caught fire, and the flames came bursting up the hatchway, and a quantity of powder exploded below. Many of the crew were knocked overboard by shot, and drowned; others leaped into the water, thinking the ship was about to blow up, and tried to swim to the land. Some succeeded; among them was one man who had sixteen or eighteen pieces of iron in his leg, scales from the muzzle of his gun. The frigate had been shattered to pieces above the water

20 Captain Hilyar's letter. James says the Phabe had 7 shot between wind and water, and one below the water-line. Porter says she had 18 12-pound shot below the water-line. The latter statement must have been an exaggeration; and James is probably further wrong still.

line, although from the smoothness of the sea she was not harmed enough below it to reduce her to a sinking condition.21 The carpenter reported that he alone of his crew was fit for duty; the others were dead or disabled. Lieutenant Wilmer was knocked overboard by a splinter, and drowned; his little negro boy, "Ruff," came up on deck, and, hearing of the disaster, deliberately leaped into the sea and shared his master's fate. Lieutenant Odenheimer was also knocked overboard, but afterward regained the ship. A shot, glancing upward, killed four of the men who were standing by a gun, striking the last one in the head and scattering his brains over his comrades. The only commissioned officer left on duty was Lieutenant Decatur McKnight. The sailing-master, Barnwell, when terribly wounded, remained at his post till he fainted from loss of blood. Of the 255 men aboard the Essex when the battle began, 58 had been killed, 66 wounded, and 31 drowned ("missing"), while 24 had succeeded in reaching shore. But 76 men were left unwounded, and many of these had been bruised or otherwise injured. Porter himself was knocked down by the windage of a passing shot. While the young midshipman, Farragut, was on the wardroom ladder, going below for gun-primers, the cap

21 An exactly analogous case to that of the British sloop Reindeer.

tain of the gun directly opposite the hatchway was struck full in the face by an 18-pound shot, and tumbled back on him. They fell down the hatch together, Farragut being stunned for some minutes. Later, while standing by the man at the wheel, an old quartermaster named Francis Bland, a shot coming over the fore-yard took off the quartermaster's right leg, carrying away at the same time one of Farragut's coat tails. The old fellow was helped below, but he died for lack of a tourniquet before he could be attended to.

Nothing remained to be done, and at 6.20 the Essex surrendered and was taken possession of. The Phoebe had lost 4 men killed, including her first lieutenant, William Ingram, and 7 wounded; the Cherub, I killed, and 3, including Captain Tucker, wounded. Total, 5 killed and 10 wounded.22 The difference in loss was natural, as, owing to their having long guns and the choice of position, the British had been able to fire ten shot to the Americans' one.28

The conduct of the two English captains in at

"James says that most of the loss was occasioned by the first three broadsides of the Essex; this is not surprising, as in all she hardly fired half a dozen, and the last were discharged when half of the guns had been disabled, and there were scarcely men enough to man the remainder. Most of the time her resistance was limited to firing such of her six long guns as would bear.

tacking Porter as soon as he was disabled, in neutral waters, while they had been very careful to abstain from breaking the neutrality while he was in good condition, does not look well; at the best it shows that Hilyar had only been withheld hitherto from the attack by timidity, and it looks all the worse when it is remembered that Hilyar owed his ship's previous escape entirely to Porter's forbearance on a former occasion when the British frigate was entirely at his mercy, and that the British captain had afterward expressly said that he would not break the neutrality. Still, the British in this war did not act very differently from the way we ourselves did on one or two occasions in the Civil War, -witness the capture of the Florida. And after the battle was once begun the sneers which most of our historians, as well as the participators in the fight, have showered upon the British captains for not foregoing the advantages which their entire masts and better artillery gave them by coming to close quarters, are decidedly foolish. Hilyar's conduct during the battle, as well as his treatment of the prisoners afterward, was perfect, and as a minor matter it may be mentioned that his official letter is singularly just and fair-minded. Says Lord Howard Douglas: "The action displayed all that can reflect honor on the science and admirable conduct of Captain Hilyar and his crew, which, without

the assistance of the Cherub, would have ensured the same termination. Captain Porter's sneers at the respectful distance the Phoebe kept are in fact acknowledgments of the ability with which Captain Hilyar availed himself of the superiority of his arms; it was a brilliant affair." While indorsing this criticism, it may be worth while to compare it with some of the author's comments upon the other actions, as that between Decatur and the Macedonian. To make the odds here as great against Carden as they were against Porter, it would be necessary to suppose that the Macedonian had lost her main-top-mast, had but six long 18's to oppose to her antagonist's 24's, and that the latter was assisted by the corvette Adams; so that as a matter of fact Porter fought at fully double or treble the disadvantage Carden did, and, instead of surrendering when he had lost a third of his crew, fought till three-fifths of his men were dead or wounded, and, moreover, inflicted greater loss and damage on his antagonists than Carden did. If, then, as Lord Douglas says, the defence of the Macedonian brilliantly upheld the character of the British navy for courage, how much more did that of the Essex show for the American navy; and if Hilyar's conduct was "brilliant," that of Decatur was more so.

This was an action in which it is difficult to tell exactly how to award praise. Captain Hilyar

VOL. X.-B