118 WHALING 



Finding it necessary because of the number of prisoners to 

 rearrange his squadron, Captain Porter, at Tumbez on the 24th 

 of June, mounted twenty guns on board the Atlantic, a much 

 larger and faster vessel than the Georgiana, placed in her a crew 

 of sixty men, and gave her to Lieutenant Downes, whom he 

 promoted to the rank of Master-Commandant. They renamed 

 her Essex, Jr. Having already made the Rose sl cartel and 

 sent her to St. Helena with a cargo of paroled prisoners, they 

 placed in the Greenwich the stores from the other prizes, and sent 

 the Barclay, the Montezuma, the Policy, the Catherine, and the 

 Hector to Valparaiso, with the Essex, Jr. as an escort, while Cap- 

 tain Porter in the Essex, with the Greenwich and the Georgiana, 

 sailed for the Galapagos. 



In command of the recaptured American whaler, Barclay, 

 there was a twelve-year-old midshipman named David Glas- 

 gow Farragut. Consider what must have been the emotions 

 of that hard-handed old sea-dog. Captain Gideon Randall, the 

 master whaleman who had commanded the Barclay until she 

 fell into the hands of the Nereyda, when he found a lad of twelve 

 placed in authority over him. 



When young Farragut ordered the mainsail filled away, the 

 old man roared that he would shoot any one who touched a rope 

 without his orders. He "would go his own course, and had no 

 idea of trusting himself with a damned nut-shell." 



He went below to get pistols; but young Farragut called his 

 "right hand man of the crew'' and told him what had hap- 

 pened and what was to be done; then, vastly encouraged by the 

 fellow's determined response, the boy called down to the captain 

 not to come on deck with his pistols unless he wished to go over- 

 board. They made sail and pressed after the Essex, Jr. and 

 Captain Gideon Randall manifested commendable discretion in 

 dealing with the juvenile fire-eater. David Farragut, at the 

 age when most boys are playing with marbles and kites, was a 

 youth not to be lightly crossed. 



Meanwhile, the Essex and her companion ships took the 

 Charleton, the New Zealander, the Seringapatam, and the Sir 

 Andres Hammond. After that, there was a period of inactivity; 



