162 



porter's journal.. 



ing bills ou the department for any object, and had been 

 enabled to make considerable advances to my officers and 

 crew on account of pay. 



For the unexampled time we had kept the sea, my crew 

 had continued remarkably healthy; 1 had but one case of 

 the scurvy, and had lost only the following men by death, 

 viz : — 



John S. Cowan, lieutenant, 

 Robert Miller, surgeon, 

 Levi Holmes, o. seaman, 

 Edward Sweeny, do. 

 Samuel Groce, seaman, 

 James Spafford, gunner's mate, 

 Benjamin Geers, ) 

 JohnRodgers, ' ^ q-"- goners, 



Andrew Mahan, corporal of marines, 

 Lewis Price, private marine. 



I had done all the injury that could be done to the British 

 commerce in the Pacific, and still hoped to signalize my 

 cruise by something more splendid before leaving that sea. 

 I thought it not improbable that Commodore Hillyar might 

 have kept his arrival secret, and believing that he would 

 seek me at Valparaiso, as the most likely place to find 

 me, 1 determined to cruise about that place, and 

 should 1 fail of meeting him, hoped to be compensated by 

 the capture of some merchant ships, said to be expected 

 from England. 



The Phoebe, agreeably to my expectations, came to 

 seek me at Valparaiso, where I was anchored with the Es- 

 sex, my armed prize the Essex Junior, under the command 

 of heutenant Downes, on the look-out off the harbour. 

 But, contrary to the course I thought he would pursue, 

 Commodore Hillyar brought with him the Cherub sloop of 

 war, mountingtwenty-eight guns, eighteen thirty-two pound 

 carronades, eight twenty-fours, and two long nines on the 

 quarter deck and forecastle, and a complement of a hun- 

 dred and eighty men. The force of the Phoebe is as fol- 

 lows : thirty long eighteen pounders, sixteen thirty-two 

 px>und carronades, one howitzer, and six three pounders in 

 the tops, in all fifty-three guns, and a complement of threfi 

 hundred and twenty men ; making a force of eighty-one 



