1S4 
PORTER’S JOURNAL, 
cd great regret that the Atlantic and his ship had not joined one 
another before their capture, as he believed they would then have 
been more than a match for us; and, indeed, considering the then 
weakened state of the crew, and the absence of every officer (ex¬ 
cept the chaplain, the clerk, and the boatswain, from whom I re¬ 
ceived every assistance in their power), it seems not unlikely (as 
they were in every respect well prepared for action) that they 
would have given us some trouble, and have rendered the capture 
of one of them at least doubtful. 
I must here observe, that the captain of the Atlantic (an Amer¬ 
ican from Nantucket, where he has a wife and family), on his first 
coming on board the Essex, expressed his extreme pleasure on 
finding (as he supposed we were) an English frigate in those 
seas. He informed me that he had sailed from England under 
convoy of the Java frigate, and had put into port Praya a few days 
after the Essex, an American frigate, had left there; and that the 
Java had sailed immediately in pursuit of her, and that it was the 
general belief the Essex had gone around the Cape of Good Hope, 
He parted with the Java after crossing the line, and on his arri¬ 
val at Conception heard she had been sunk off Bahia by the 
American frigate Constitution. On enquiry respecting the Amer¬ 
ican vessels in the South Seas, he informed me that about Concep¬ 
tion was the best place to cruize for them, for he had left at that 
place nine of them in an unprotected and defenceless state, and 
entirely at a loss what to do with themselves; that they were al¬ 
most daily arriving there, and that he had no doubt, by going off 
there, we should be enabled to take the most of them. I asked 
him how he reconciled it to himself to sail from England under 
the British flag, and in an armed ship, after hostilities had taken 
place between the two countries. He said he found no difficulty 
in reconciling it to himself, for, although he was born in America, 
he was an Englishman at heart. This man appeared the polished 
gentleman in his manners, but evidently possessed a corrupt heart, 
and, like all other renagadoes, was desirous of doing his native 
country all the injury in his power, with the hope of thereby in¬ 
gratiating himself with his new friends. I permitted him to re¬ 
main in his error some time, but at length introduced to him the 
