PORTER’S JOURNAL. 
12'3 
Ship Greenwich, Captain --- 
Montezuma, Baxter, 
Rose, Monroe, has a poop. 
Sirius, Has a figure head, is a low ship. 
These were all the vessels, the names of which they could at the 
moment recollect; but they assured me that the number of Bri¬ 
tish whalers now on the coast of Chili and Peru did not amount 
to less than twenty, and were all fine ships of not less than 400 
tons burthen, and that their cargoes in England would be worth 
g 200,000 each, which, agreeably to this estimate, would be up¬ 
wards of four millions of British property now exposed to us ; for 
I did not conceive that their whole force united would be a match 
for the Essex: but besides the capture and destruction of those 
vessels, I had another object in view, of no less importance, which 
was the protection of the American whale-ships; and if I should 
only succeed in driving the British from the ocean, and leaving 
it free for our own vessels, I conceive that I shall have rendered an 
essential service to my country, and that the effecting this object 
alone would be a sufficient compensation for the hardships and 
dangers we have experienced, and be considered a justification 
for departing from the letter of my instructions. That I can ef¬ 
fect this, no doubts exist, provided the Standard has left Lima; 
and this it is necessary I should be informed of, before I make 
my attack on the Gallipagos, for I have knowledge of letters hav¬ 
ing been written to Lima by an active English merchant (per¬ 
haps an agent of the British government), residing at Valparaiso ; 
they were sent by the ships which sailed four days before us; but 
as they had the reputation of being bad sailers, and calculating 
some on Spanish indolence, and much on our own activity and in¬ 
dustry, I am in hopes of looking into Lima before they can arrive 
there, and shall so disguise the ship, that she cannot be known 
there from any description that the aforesaid letters may contain. 
Until information respecting the Standard can be obtained, all my 
proceedings must be governed by views toward that vessel, she 
being the only vessel of war the British have in those seas, and I 
can have but little apprehension of being pursued by any from the 
