116 



porter's journal. 



proached the island of St. Lorenzo, which Ues off the port 

 of Callao, I began to despair of succeeding. I however di- 

 rected all the light sails to be wet, in order to make them 

 hold wind the better, and prepared my boats to send in to 

 bring her out of the harbour, if she should succeed in get- 

 ting past the island. As I approached St. Lorenzo, I dis- 

 covered that she would be becalmed so soon as she doubled 

 the point of the island, as she eventually was. We were, 

 at the moment of her turning the point, at the distance of 

 two miles and a half from her, but shot in with the breeze 

 to within one hundred yards of her, then lowered the boats 

 down, and sent on board to tow her out, which was not ef- 

 fected without considerable labour, in consequence of an 

 indraught. As we were but a short distance from the ship- 

 ping in the harbour, and perceiving the two Spanish vessels 

 had not arrived from Valparaiso, I hoisted English colours 

 on board the Essex, and directed the officer of the captur- 

 ed vessel (which proved to be the Barclay) to hoist English 

 colours over the American. The vessels in port, which 

 w^ere numerous, now hoisted their colours, which were all 

 Spanish except one British flag hoisted on board an armed 

 ship, which did not answer the description of the Nimrod. 

 The other strange vessels continued standing in ; one of 

 them had the appearance of a coasting brig, the other a 

 fine looking ship ; and we were induced to believe her the 

 Nimrod, from the description we had received of that ves- 

 sel. I therefore took a position to prevent her passing the 

 point, when she hauled her wind to go between the island 

 and main, where there is a passage for ships of large bur- 

 then, but shortly afterwards bore up, under a press of sail, 

 to run by us, and on his near approach I perceived it to be 

 one of the Spanish vessels that had sailed from Valparaiso 

 before us. I felt satisfied that we had so altered the vessel, 

 that they could not know us ; besides, how was it possible 

 that they could expect to find the Essex off Callao, when 

 they left her at Valparaiso, beginning to take in provisions 

 and water ? On her getting into the calms under the lee 

 of the island, I despatched a boat to get the news from her, 

 but recalled her on seeing the guard-boat go on board. / I 

 now sent for the captain of the Barclay, (Randall,) inform- 

 ed him he was at liberty to act as he thought proper with 

 respect to his ship, and that, although his crew had entered 



