U4 
PORTER’S JOURNAL. 
dozen. Many of my guns had been rendered useless by the ene¬ 
my’s shot, and many of them had their whole crews destroyed. We 
manned them again from those which were disabled, and one gun 
in particular was three times manned-~fifteen men were slain at 
it in the course of the action! But, strange as it may appear, the 
captain of it escaped with only a slight wound.—Finding that the 
enemy had it in his power to choose his distance, I now gave up 
all hopes of closing with him, and as the wind, for the moment, 
seemed to favour the design, I determined to endeavour to run 
her on shore, land my men and destroy her. Every thing seem- 
ed to favour my wishes. We had approached the shore within 
musket shot, and I had no doubt of succeeding, when, in an instant, 
the wind shifted from the land (as is very common in this port in 
the latter part of the day) and payed our head down on the Phoebe, 
where we were again exposed to a dreadful raking fire. My ship 
was now totally unmanageable; yet, as her head was toward the 
enemy, and he to leeward of me, I still hoped to be able to board 
him. At this moment lieutenant commandant Downes came on 
board to receive my orders, under the impression that I should 
soon be a prisoner. He could be of no use to me in the then 
wretched state of the Essex; and finding (from the enemy’s put¬ 
ting his helm up) that my last attempt at boarding would not suc¬ 
ceed, I directed him, after he had been about ten minutes on board, 
to return to his own ship, to be prepared for defending and de¬ 
stroying her in case of an attack. He took with him several of 
my wounded, leaving three of his boats crew on board to make 
room for them. The slaughter on board my ship had now be¬ 
come horrible, the enemy continuing to rake us, and we unable to 
bring a gun to bear. I therefore directed a hawser to be bent to 
the sheet anchor, and the anchor to be cut from the bows to bring 
her head round: this succeeded. We again got our broadside to 
bear, and as the enemy was much crippled and unable to hold, 
his own, I have no doubt he would soon have drifted out of gun 
shot before he discovered we had anchored, had not the hawser 
unfortunately parted. My ship had taken fire several times dur¬ 
ing the action, but alarmingly so forward and aft, at this moment ? 
the flames were bursting up each hatchway, and no hopes were 
entertained of saving her; our distance from the shore did not ex 
