History of the second war between the United States of America and Great Britain

Front matter

ACT

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Chapter I. Naval Hostilities — Privateers Dartmoor Prison

Sloops of war Wasp, Frolic, Peacock — Frigate Essex — Her Cruise and Capture — Decatur taken in the Frigate President — Last Action of the Frigate Constitution — Capture of the Penguin — Chase of the Hornet — Privateers, their Numbers and Cruises — Prize Law established by Judge Story — American Privateers and British Navy compared — Privateers Prince of Neufchatel, Captain Ordronneaux — The Chasseur, Captain Boyle — His Blockade Proclamation — Privateer Discipline — British Complaints — Privateer construction — Baltimore Clippers — Privateer General Armstrong — British Brig of war St. Lawrence captured by the Privateer Chasseur — Letters taken on board — American Naval Force at Sea when Peace was declared — American and British Captures during the War — Dartmoor Massacre Page 9

Chapter II. History Of War Law

War Law — Common Law — No Jury in Admiralty — International Law — The Exchange — Prize Law — Seizure by mere War — Freedom of the Seas — Supreme Court of the United States — The Judges — Attorney-General Pinkney — Admiralty Droits — European Publicists — Sir William Scott — British Prize Law adopted — Chief Justice Marshall dissenting — Case of the Nereid — Armed Neutrality of 1780 and 1800 — Free Ships make free Goods — Judicial Proceedings in Prize Cases — Enemy's Licenses — Alien Enemies — Militia — War Law, as administered in War with Mexico — Blockade — Contraband — Search — Free Ships, free Goods — Respect of

Property and Religion — Martial Law as administered 71

CONTENTS.

Chapter III. French Consular Republic

1799-1804.

Tendency of the French Revolution to Representative Government — French in America — Reciprocal Influences of American and French Revolutions — Bonaparte's Arrival from Egypt and irregular Election as Chief Magistrate — Consulate — His Personal Habits, Temper, Appearance, Manners — Temperance — Economy — Religion — Politics — Family — Latitia Ramolino, Mother of the Bonapartes — Arrighi — Cardinal Fesch — Elisa Bacchiochi — Her Daughter Camarata — Pauline — Caroline — Achilles and Lucien Murat — Joseph's Wife and Family — Bonaparte's first Marriage — Josephine — Hortensia and Eugene Beauharnois — Lucien Bonaparte — His Family — Louis — Jerome — Joseph — Treaty with the United States" — Treaty of Amiens — Cornwallis — Consular Government — War by England — Royalist Plots — Count d' Artois — Pichegreu — Moreau — George Cadoudal — Duke of Enghein — His Execution — End of the Republic and beginning of the Empire 127

Chapter IV. French Republican Empire

1804 — 1815 — 1844.

The Consul Bonaparte elected Emperor Napoleon — Reformed Royalty of the Empire — Universal Suffrage — Banishment and Death of Moreau — Empire distinguished, by Joseph, from Kingdom — Republican France — Battle of Austerlitz and Peace of Presburg — Marriages and Coronations of the Bonapartes — Thrones refused by Lucien, Louis, Eugene, and Charlotte — Accepted by Joseph and Jerome — Detriment of Bonaparte Family to Napoleon Dynasty — Unprivileged Aristocracy — Treaty of Presburg — Divorce of Josephine — Espousal of Maria Louisa — Seizure of Spain — Inducements — Bourbons — Spanish War — Its Atrocities and Results — Emancipation of all Spanish America — Invasion of Russia — Napoleon's Reverses — Fatal Tyranny — Deserted by his Creatures, and afraid of the People — Maria Louisa and her Child's flight from Paris — Captured at Blois — Napoleon's Abdication — Death of Josephine — Sebastian! — Pozzo di Borgo — Napoleon's Return from Elba — Public Sentiment — His dread of the People — Their love of Him — Second Abdication — Banishment — Surrender — Transportation — Confinement — Death — Sovereigns' Letters — Joseph in America — La Fayette — Duke of Reichstadt — Joseph in England — His Death in Italy — Representative Government 231

HISTOEICAL SKETCH,

ETC.

CHAPTER I. NAVAL HOSTILITIES — PraVATEERS DARTMOOR PRISON

Sloops of war Wasp, Frolic, Peacock — Frigate Essex — Her Cruise and Capture — Decatur taken in tiie Frigate President — Last Action of tlie Frigate Constitution — Capture of the Penguin — Ciiase of the Hornet — Privateers, tiieir numbers and Cruises — Prize Law established by Judge Story — American Privateers and British Navy compared — Privateers Prince of Neufchatel, Captain Ordronneaux — The Chasseur, Captain Boyle — His Blockade Proclamation — Privateer Discipline — British complaints — Privateer construction — Baltimore Clippers — Privateer General Armstrong — British Brig of war St. Law'rence captured by tiie Privateer Chasseur — Letters taken on board — American Naval force at Sea when Peace was declared — American and British Captures during the War — Dartmoor Massacre.

Of the seven naval engagements in 1814, the Americans gained four by confession of the English, and in two of the other three, when overpowered by irresistibly superior force, improved their national character by unexampled fortitude : for the captures of the frigates Essex and President enhanced the personal character of the vanquished, and improved the national character of their country. These disasters superadded unquestionable evidence of pre-eminent fortitude under discouraging circumstances to abundant preceding proofs that Americans brave dangers with alacrity. Some people excel in power of endurance, such as the English evinced at the battle of Waterloo. Others excel in fierceness of assault, such as the

French displayed there. But there is no record of a British vessel enduring the terrible blows inflicted on the Essex and the President before yielding, as I have been told by an American naval officer not given to vaunting. Men of all nations fight gallantly, bravely, even desperately, as long as there is any chance or hope of success ; but few will persevere in braving death, when defeat is unavoidable. The misfortunes of the Essex and the President had that great alleviation. They established the title of the American mariners to passive as well as active courage in their highest attributes.

Sloops of war named the Wasp, and the Frolic, and the Peacock, (after two of our English prizes, the Frolic and the Peacock, and the Wasp, which was taken from us,) the new vessels, each of about 500 tons, which is much smaller than American sloops of war now, put to sea in 1814. The Frolic, Captain Joseph Bainbridge, soon after she got to sea, was captured on the 20th of April, 1814, by the frigate Orpheus, Captain Pigot, without any contest except endeavoring to escape, when the sloop threw most of her guns overboard. The Peacock sailed from New York in March, 1814, under Captain Louis Warrington, a gentleman understood to be the natm-al son of Count Bochambeau, who commanded the French army which, united with Washington's, forced Cornwallis to surrender at Yorktown, and put an end to the war of the Revolution. It was said too, that when Captain Warrington made his way to promotion and distinction. Count Rochambeau sent and offered to own him as his son; — to which he made answer, that having dishonored his mother, and deserted him when he needed protection, Captain Warrington had neither occasion nor desire for Count Rochambcau's paternity. Besides fourteen merchant vessels, taken during his cruising, Warrington captured, on the 29th of April, 1814, the brig of war Epervier, Captain Wales, nearly, or quite equal in force to the Peacock, but obliged to strike after an action in which the superiority of the American was made every way obvious. The Epervier was sent into Savannah. The Peacock continued the cruise till October, when she returned to New York. The Wasp, Captain Johnson Blakely, put to sea from

Portsmoutli, New Hampshire, about the first of May, 1814. On the 25th of June, 1814, after a very short, but on both sides gallant conflict, the Wasp took the brig of war Reindeer, Captain Manners, who was killed, with many of his people, and his vessel burned to prevent re-capture. On the 1st of September, 1814, the Wasp compelled the British brig of war Avon, (of almost the same force), Captain Arbuthnot, to strike ; but after she surrendered, and before Captain Blakely could take possession of his prize, two other British vessels of war approached, and the Wasp was constrained to stand on the defensive, so that the Avon escaped. The 21st of September, 1814, when the Wasp captured a merchant brig called Atalanta, and put Midshipman, now Captain Gcisinger on board as prizemaster, who arrived with his prize at Savannah, the 4th of November, is the last that was ever heard of the Wasp, whose loss, by whatever means, after her gallant exploits, was a subject of universal national sorrow and anxious conjecture. American naval victories, with anything like equal force, had by that time become so common, that they were invariable. Dutch, at one period, asserted equality with English mariners, and subsequently English undeniable superiority to French, were neither of them ever so palpable as American superiority to English. Every battle was an American victory, in which ascendant the American privateers participated. In one of those free conversations which O'Meara relates of the loquacious Napoleon, too late convinced of American naval prowess, which as Emperor he unwisely disregarded, he remarked —

'"The sea is yours — your seamen are as mnch superior to ours as tiie Dutch were once to yours. I think, however, that the Americans are better seamen than yours, because they are less numerous.' I observed that the Americans had a considerable number of English seamen in their service who passed for Americans, which was remarkable, as, independent of other circumstances, the American discipline on board of men-of-war was much more severe than ours ; and, that if the Americans had a large navy, they would find it impossible to have so many able seamen in each sliip as they had at present. When I observed that the American discipline was more severe than ours, he smiled and said, 'that is hard to believe.' "

The profane remark of another great warrior, Frederick, tliat Providence always sides with the strongest forces, was completely and wonderfully disproved by the American vessels, not more than one to a hundred, defeating the British.

After Captain Porter's first cruise in the frigate Essex, he brought her into the Delaware, where she lay in the stream off Chester, at which village his wife's father, William Anderson, kept a tavern. He was one'**of the members who represented Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives of the United States. Soon after my election with him to Congress, in October, 1812, some of our party entertained Captain Porter at a dinner, at his father-in-law's tavern in Chester, a few days before the. Essex sailed, the 27th or 28th of October, 1812, on her last and memorable cruise, one of the most remarkable that naval history registers. Porter was a small, slight, and rather ill-favored New England man, of genius, nerve, and capacity for heroic achievement. He avowedly hated the English marine as heartily as it was possible for Admiral Lord Collingwood, with racy but neither useless or perhaps censm-able British patriotism to hate the French ; which detestation that mild and excellent ofiicer said he deemed his duty to his country. For Porter, when a poor cabin-boy, had been seized by a British press-gang, and resisted it unto death ; made his escape, fugitive and hable to be treated as a deserter ; worked his passage home as a common sailor ; and, like hundreds more of American sea Hannibals, had sworn vengeance upon the altar of freedom against the hateful lords of the ocean, with whom, as other American naval officers, he longed for opportunity to prove that they were able to cope. "Free trade and sailors' rights," the motto which he flung out from the mast-head of his little frigate, was in his heart's core, and he was desperately resolved to brand it on British shoulders. American seafaring hatred of the English was then a pervading sentiment, when general repugnance of Americans to English was neither unnatural nor .barbarous. After years of outrageous hostilities, civil wars, kindred conflicts, impressment by sea, conflagration and havoc ashore, bloody indignities every where, contumelious English habits and arrogant overbearing. Porter, Decatur, and other naval officers, and Jackson and Brown in the army, were fired with national animosity which helped exploit. Nor did the intense aversion of brave, high-tempered combatants prevent, but on the contrary superinduced graceful and cordial amity with former foes, as soon as the contest was ended and respect was reciprocated. If there is much to admire in the refinements of antagonists in war, who adorn battle and carnage with chivalrous observances of good-breeding, the savage fm-y with which warriors are sometimes inflamed, sharpens vigilance, increases energy, and doubles force. Americans and English quarrel like brothers or lovers, with extreme bitterness ; but their reconciliations, individual and national, are therefore the more cordial, and, it should be hoped, lasting.

"When he found the Atlantic coast of South America unfruitful of prizes and adventures. Porter resolved to seek them beyond Cape Horn in the Pacific, and in spite of storms, dangers, and privations of all sorts, hoist his flag among the whalers. It was an adventure full of peril, which none but a fearless seaman could undertake with any chance of success. All the South American states were in the interest of Britain. There was not a port where he could be safe from the mighty foe he braved. Yet he broke up the British Avhale trade entirely, so that whaling has been gradually becoming ever since almost an exclusive American pursuit, until lately the conquest of California, with its marvellous inducements, ensures the whole Pacific sea, and eventually all its Asiatic borders, China, India, and Japan, to American commercial enterprise. For near twelve months after Porter sailed on that expedition, he was hardly heard of at home, and then it was only through Jamaica, England, or some other English place, that his countrymen learned the enormous havoc he was making on the enemy's Pacific trade. He constituted a fleet of nine vessels out of the British whalers he captured ; manned, victualled, armed, refitted, and in every way equipped his frigate and her consorts ; paid for all he had to buy out of more than half a hundred thousand dollars in coin which he took in one of his prizes, and was for many months the terror of our enemies, and protector of American interests in those seas. Numerous ships of war were despatched from many quarters, to arrest and subdue him ; which would probably never have happened, had he not, sated with merely unresisting prizes, after sweeping tlie Pacific of mercliant-men, gone in quest of a frigate of superior force, for the glory of fighting her ; nor when they at last met, would he have been vanquished but for Spanish complicity with British, shrinking from that gallant and lofty defiance of all foes, theretofore not only the boast and glory but the strength of the English navy. If either a neutral harbor had shielded him, or his conquerors had fought him manfully, his marvellous cruise would have closed, in all probability, by a brilliant victory.

Shortly before war was declared. President Madison sent Joel R. Poinsett on a confidential mission through South America, to ascertain and report the state of things, and of public sentiment, in those Spanish colonial countries. Mr. Poinsett, afterwards American Minister in Mexico, Secretary of War during Mr. Van Buren's presidency, and for some time member of Congress, was a South Carolinian, educated in England, enlightened by extensive travel, well-informed, well-bred, and warmly devoted to the republican development of the United States. Notwithstanding many attachments formed in England, like other Americans he was accused of enmity to England, because in the protracted controversies provoking war between that country and this, he espoused the cause of his own. He wrote from South America, advising government that a frigate should be sent round Cape Horn, to show our flag in those seas, where it was the general impression, as it was also common elsewhere, that by the treaty acknowledging independence, the United States were not allowed to employ large vessels of war. There were, moreover, Spanish privateers annoying our commerce. For these reasons Mr. Poinsett advised the employment of a frigate on the South American coast. But it was not by that advice that Captain Porter sailed round Cape Horn and into the Pacific. His cruise was his own project. From Mr. Poinsett, who was with him at Valparaiso, I am enabled to add some particulars to the memorable catastrophe of Porter's capture, correctly described by Fenimore Cooper in his Naval History, and by others, but with one mistake, as Mr. Poinsett understood from Captain Hillyer. With whatever cold-blooded tenacity he clung to disproportionate force to overwhelm his antagonist, whom it would have been more politic as well as honorable to fight on equal terms, yet Captain Hillycr disclaimed superior orders to cruise in company with the Cherub, or to rely on any reinforcement. The Phoebe sailed and cruised alone ; her consorting with the Cherub was accidental. Captain Hillyer deemed it, he said, his duty to subdue a dangerous enemy by irresistible force, rather than risk the result on doubtful terms. Reinforcement he claimed as his duty ; and with eighty-one guns in a neutral harbor, out of range of all but his enemy's six guns, to slaughter them till they surrendered.

Sloops of war were combined in that enterprise. The frigate Phoebe cruised alone, and her junction afterwards with the Cherub was accidental, not from any superior orders or design to cruise in couples for the American frigate. The Spanish harbors and authorities were friendly to the British, and hostile to the Americans. A Spanish port was scarcely neutral, owing to British and Spanish alliance, and the commanding British navy, little scrupulous of neutral rights. When the Phoebe, having discovered the Essex at Valparaiso, after six weeks blockade boldly steered at last into that harbor, her resolution to attack there was so ostensible, that Porter might have justifiably anticipated what the British frigate gave every reason to apprehend. Porter did not believe that Hillyer would respect the neutrality of the port. All cleared and prepared for action, her men at quarters, the Phoebe steered right for the Essex, if not to attack, at least to defy, to reconnoitre close aboard, scan the American and display the British force; and currents set the Phoebe probably still nearer the Essex than was intended. Their yards nearly touched. Collision seemed inevitable. Porter's men were at quarters eager for conflict, nor did he allow a spar or a rope to be altered or touched. If the Phoebe's yards had not been trimmed, she Avould have been afoul of the Essex, and then Porter would have instantly boarded. In a clear, calm voice he called to his adversary, " Captain Hillyer ! if you tbuch my ship I shall board you," at the same time ordering all hands to the starboard quarter, boarders to repel boarders. Captain Hillyer, elderly and grey-headed, with probably no rash design, pale and evidently perturbed, protested again and again that liis ship's position was accidental, that there was no design of aggression. The American boarders, armed to the teeth, were at their posts ; blows and bloodshed were at hand. Mr. Poinsett, who was in the Essex, with military tastes and self-possession, says it was a moment of intense excitement, — when the Phoebe fell off a little without touching the Essex, — Captain Hillyer's disquiet sufficiently demonstrating that he did not intend to attack. Just as the Phoebe cleared the Essex, the British first lieutenant, Graham, called out, "Don't be alarmed — we shall not touch you." "We are not at all alarmed, but wish you would touch us," was the prompt retort of a young American oflEicer, Decatur McKnight, from the fore chains.

If the Essex had put to sea immediately, it would have been a breach of neutrality for the Phoebe and Cherub to pursue her directly from the harbor of Valparaiso ; and probably the British vessels needed provisions, having been five months at sea in quest of the Essex, and six weeks blockading her at Valparaiso. But when Captain Porter was told by Mr. ' Poinsett of these advantages for going to sea, he at once rejected them in the hope of an engagement with the Phoebe, for which he was anxious. Captain Hilly er, losing no time in supplying his two ships, resumed his station off the port. Continual manoeuvi'es ensued. Porter frequently sailing out of the harbor, in order to bring the Phoebe to action, and likewise to try the speed of the Essex, which he found to be greater than that of the Phoebe. But Hillyer never suffered the Cherub to leave the Phoebe, nor would the Phoebe engage the Essex alone. Qn one occasion, when the Cherub happened to be far to leeward, the Phoebe made her appearance off the harbor, hoisted her flag, and fired a gun to windward. That, in naval etiquette, being considered a challenge. Porter immediately accepted it, weighed anchor, and stood out to meet his antagonist. But as the Essex approached the Phoebe, the latter squared away and ran down towards the Cherub. Captain Hillyer afterwards assured Captain Porter that he did not mean to challenge the Essex, but that the gun fired to windward was a signal to the Cherub, to bear up and join the Phoebe. Porter failing to bring Ilillycr to single combat, attempted a plan for depriving liim of tbe Cherub. Observing that she occupied the same place several nights, Porter manned boats for an expedition to surprise, board, and capture the Cherub in the dark. All his measures were taken with great circumspection. Reconnoitering in person, and confident of success, he took command of the boats, and in profound silence and darkness made for tlie British corvette. But she had changed her position, the approach of the boats was by some means known on board the Cherub ; the sea around her was illuminated by blue lights, and the boats were obliged to return to Valparaiso. When that attempt was made, Mr. Poinsett was absent. Hearing of it on his retm-n, he warned Captain Porter that it was a breach of neutrality to fit out an armed expedition from a neutral port. It was that circumstance which prevented our government from demanding satisfaction of the Chilian for the much grosser violation of neutrality, committed by the British in the capture of the Essex within Chilian jurisdiction ; for which, but for Porter's boat expedition, Mr. Poinsett Avould have filed a protest, on which our government would have demanded indemnity for the loss of the Essex : for though perhaps the Chilian government were not aware, yet the British were, of the armament of the boat expedition at Valparaiso, and its sailing from the neutral port.

After many ineffectual efforts to bring the Phoebe to single combat. Porter at last determined to go to sea, — believing that the Essex could out-sail both the British ships. The cabin bulwarks were taken down, and the long twelve-poimd guns were run out to serve as stern chasers. Mr. Poinsett, who slept on board the Essex the night before her departure, took leave of Captain Porter, when his vessel made sail from the harbor of Valparaiso, on the 28th of March, 1814, in one of those fierce gales common there. The two British ships, always prudently managed, were under light canvass, on the look-out. As the Essex rounded the point, discovering that he could pass to windward between them and the land, Captain Porter ventured to haul up without taking in topsails, and in doubling the headland cr.rried away his maintopsail, precipitating several of his crew into the sea, some of whom it was impossible to save in that first and ominous disaster of a fatal day. That misfortune left Porter no alternative but to return to Valparaiso, where, if he could have regained his former berth, it might have been possible to defend his ship; but, crippled as she was, he was obliged to run her to the head of the bay, and there cast anchor. The Cherub, shaking out her reefs, quickly followed. But though bravely brought into action by her captain, Tucker, he was soon wounded, and his vessel so battered by the Essex, that the Cherub hauled off to repair damages before the Phoebe opened her fire. Following in his consort's Avake, Captain Hillyer took the Cherub's place, but soon found the fire of the Essex intolerable.

His first lieutenant, Ingram, and some of his men, were killed ; the Phoebe was repeatedly hulled, and the action began so favorably to the Essex that the Phoebe, like the Cherub, drew off, and retired beyond the range of the American cannonade. As Captain Hillyer was going into action, his first lieutenant, Ingram, warmly urged his commander to fight the Americans fairly, and without any undue advantage. " Let us," said he, a few minutes before that brave seaman was shot dead, " let us have no Cherub to help us, but with the Phoebe alone, lay the Essex aboard, yard-arm to yard-arm, and fight like Britons." Captain Hillyer told Mr. Poinsett, who walked with him at Ingram's funeral, that he was an excellent officer, who, in their long sea-service together, Hillyer had never known to be insubordinate but on that occasion, when he was much excited, "and I was obliged," said the Captain, "to overrule his request. It was our duty, I told him, to use whatever means were placed at our disposal, to capture an enemy who had done so much damage to British commerce, and whose escape would be attended Avith such serious results." In Captain Hillyer's official despatch, there are odors not only of duty but of sanctity and sentimentalism, of which American history has no right to deprive him. The thanks of the merchants, whose commerce he rescued from a dangerous assailant, and the favor of his superiors, he probably earned. But the heroism of British naval exploit was buried with his lieutenant. And if that heroism was warmed by the blood of Byng, shed for alleged cowardice, it may be questioned wlicthcr Captain Ilillyer's cold-blooded calculations were more profitable to the policy than to the true glory of lords of the ocean. To massacre the brave people of the Essex with eighty-one cannon, when out of reach of their six, was more benumbing to British enterprise than the admiralty order to avoid large American frigates, which Admiral Napier coarsely characterised in Parliament as only fit to be thrown into the quarter-gallery.

Mr. Poinsett, who had gone ashore from the Essex in the boat of the Essex Junior, one of Porter's prizes fitted out and manned from his ship, and put under command of his first Lieutenant Downes, mounting his horse gallopped to the head of the bay, earnestly surveying the various eventful occurrences between the British and American vessels. At the beginning of the battle he saw that the Essex fired with fatal effect, and so repelled her first assailant ; that the Phoebe's firing was wild and pointless, while she suffered from the deadly shots of the Essex. But when the Phoebe likewise retired, and the British ships, both out of range of the guns of the Essex, from their long eighteen-pound cannon swept her decks, with no danger to the British, it was, like target-firing, with cruel certainty. Mr. Poinsett could distinctly see the shots from the Essex plunge into the water without reaching the Phoebe, while her shot, when they missed the Essex, struck the shore not far from where Mr. Poinsett was. During that massacre, the Americans, officers and men, all emulating their noble captain, gloriously immolated themselves to the honor of their untarnished flag, and the glory of their distant country. The Essex was repeatedly on fire. More than half of her crew were either killed, wounded, drowned, or escaped ashore. Valparaiso, built at the foot, or on the accli\dty of lofty hills, furnished thousands of eye-witnesses upon them, of the sanguinary sacrifice, continued for nearly two hours, by the cannon of two vessels firing upon one, disabled and nearly iniarmed, the two executioners keeping out of gun-shot, where it was impossible for their victim to hurt them. Cajnaiu Ilillyer's official despatch stated that in the out.-;et of the

little inauspicinns :" and that " the colors of the Essex were not struck until the loss, in killed and wounded, was so awfully great, her shattered condition so seriously bad, as to render further resistance unavailing."

That engagement was the most desperate by sea throughout the war. The commanders of the antagonist ships had Avorked their respective crews to intense, if not to delirious hostility. They fought under numerous flags and ensigns, defying each other: the American motto "free trade and sailor's rights" defensive ; the British motto " God, our country and liberty, traitors offend both," insulting. During the six weeks while the British lay off Valparaiso watching the Essex, the crews exchanged challenges by letters and rhymes, several of which were afterwards published in the Analectic Magazine by Mr. Paulding, who was Secretary of the Navy when Mr. Poinsett was Secretary of War. National antipathy had been so excited, that many of Porter's crew, rather than be captured swam ashore, whilst others were drowned in the effort. They repaired to Mr. Poinsett's residence in a state of extreme indignation : and Captain Porter's ofiicial letters state that Mr. Poinsett called on the Governor to vindicate the violated neutrality of the port. Only one hundred and sixty of the Americans fell into captivity, which Captain Hillyer mitigated as much as he could by generous treatment. In that respect full homage was rendered to him by his prisoners, as he did equal justice to their heroic fortitude. But Captain Hillyer refused Mr. Poinsett permission to go home in the Essex Junior when that vessel was fitted as a cartel to carry home Captain Porter and his men. Arrived off Long Island, New York, July 5, 1814, the Essex Junior was overhauled by the British razee-ship Saturn, Captain Nash, who, receiving Captain Porter kindly, permitted the Essex Junior to proceed homewards ; but soon countermanded that permission on the assumption that Captain Hillyer was not authorised to make the arrangements he did for Porter's liberation. Incensed at this disappointment, which might lead to his being sent to Halifax as a prisoner, he indignantly gave Captain Nash notice that he (Porter) was no longer on parole, and that night leaving with Lieutenant Downes a reproachful message for Nash, Porter pushed off m the ship's boat fifty miles from land, and effected his escape ashore at New York, where he was welcomed with great enthusiasm, the horses taken from his carriage, which was drami by the populace to his lodgings, witii every demonstration of general delight. Captain Nash finally alloAvcd Lieutenant Downcs to proceed with the Essex Junior ; but not till his high-mettled commander, chafed by ungenerous discomfiture and dreading more disappointment, abruptly broke from honourable confinement, Avitli imprecations on captors who unjustly impressed and unmanfully overpowered him.