On the Ocean 207 



end might have been as successful as it was glorious. 

 The whalers were many of them armed letters-of- 

 marque, and, though of course unable to oppose the 

 frigate, several times smart skirmishes occurred in 

 attacking them with boats, or in captured ships ; as 

 when Lieutenant Downs and 20 men in the prize 

 Georgiana after a short brush captured the Hector, 

 with 25 men, two of whom were killed and six 

 wounded ; and when, under similar circumstances, 

 the prize Greenwich, of 25 men, captured the Serin- 

 gapatam of 40. The cruise of the Esse.i", the first 

 American man-of-war ever in the Pacific, a year and 

 a half out and many thousand miles away from 

 home, was a good proof of Porter's audacity in 

 planning the trip and his skill and resource in carry 

 ing it out. 



To return now to the Hornet. This vessel had 

 continued blockading the Bonne Citoycnnc until 

 January 24th, when the Montagu, 74, arrived to 

 ward evening and chased her into port. As the 

 darkness came on the Hornet wore, stood out to sea, 

 passing into the open without molestation from the 

 74, and then steered toward the northeast, cruising 

 near the coast, and making a few prizes, among 

 which was a brig, the Resolution, with $23,000 in 

 specie aboard, captured on February I4th. On the 

 24th of February, while nearing the mouth of the 

 Demerara River, Captain Lawrence discovered a 

 brig to leeward, and chased her till he ran into quar 

 ter less five, when, having no pilot, he hauled off 

 shore. Just within the bar a man-of-war brig was 



