50 
PORTER’S JOURNAL. 
At 9, spoke the chace: she proved to be a Portuguese brig of 
war, 9 days from Bahia, where she left the Bonne Citoyenne, and 
was boarded the day after she came out by a frigate mounting 50 
guns, having a sloop of war in company, under English colours. 
Knowing that the enemy had but three ships of war in those 
seas, to wit, the Montague 74, the Nerus 32, and the Bonne 
Citoyenne of 20 guns; the first at Rio Janeiro, the second at the 
River of Plate, and the third at Bahia, I was very well satisfied 
' that the frigate and sloop of war, could be no others than the 
American frigate Constitution and the sloop of war Hornet, and 
as I expected that they would remain there to endeavour to take 
the Bonne Citoyenne, I determined to join them with all dis¬ 
patch. 
I requested the commander of the brig to call on the admiral 
immediately on his arrival at Rio Janeiro, and inform him, that he 
had spoken his Britannic majesty’s frigate Hyperion, of 32 guns> 
7 weeks from England, bound to Rio, but having heard of a 
large American privateer on the coast, I intended cruizing for 
her a short time before I went in. He promised me he should 
make it his business to do so immediately on his arrival. 
My motive for giving this information was to keep the admiral 
in port, as I had certain intelligence from the prisoners that he 
expected reinforcements from England, and I was in hopes, that 
the expectation of their arrival in a few days might occasion him 
to delay his departure in pursuit of the ships off Bahia (of which 
I was certain he would receive intelligence by the first arrival 
from that quarter), and thus enable me to cruize more leisurely 
for the convoy, and yet have sufficient time to join the commo¬ 
dore, before the admiral could get there, as I believed that the 
Constitution, Essex, and Hornet, would be a match for him. 
On the 3d spoke another Portuguese brig, who informed me 
that she bad left an American frigate and sloop of war off Bahia 
10 days since. 
We now discovered "that our mizen top-mast-trussel-tree$ 
were in as bad a state as those of the main ; and it falling calm, 
I determined to take advantage of it to repair our damages, hav¬ 
ing previously caused a new set of trussel-trees to be prepared 
