150 
PORTER’S JOURNAL, 
For the unexampled time we had kept the sea, my crew had 
continued remarkably healthy; I 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, 
Beniamin Geers, > 
John Rodgers, $ ^ S Unners ’ 
Andrew Mahan, corporal of marines, 
Lew r is 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 ar¬ 
rival secret, and believing that he would seek me at Valparaiso, 
as the most likely place to find me, I therefore determined to 
cruise about that place, and should I 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 Essex, my armed 
prize the Essex Junior, under the command of lieutenant 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, mounting twenty-eight guns, eighteen 
thirty-two pound carronades, eight twenty-four’s, and two long 
nine’s on the quarter deck and forecastle, and a complement of 
a hundred and eighty men. The force of the Phoebe is as fol¬ 
lows: thirty long eighteen pounders, sixteen thirty-two pound car¬ 
ronades, one howitzer, and six three pounders in the tops, in all 
fifty-three guns, and a complement of three hundred and twenty 
men; making a force of eighty-one guns and five hundred men—- 
in addition to which, they took on board the crew of an English 
letter of marque lying in port. Both ships had picked crews* 
and were sent into the Pacific in company with the Racoon of 
