"The Treasury Department has charge of the condemned. Certainly they ought not to be vessels; they are bought by the coast-survey disgraced and condemned in advance. It was appropriation; the off-shore soundings are only an insult to them to suppose that Mr. Hassler in part taken. There are not vessels enough, was the only man in the country capable of suand of the right sort, to take these soundings, perintending this work; and that they could and in the right way. Steamers are wanted. not carry on the survey of our coast by trianThe survey appropriation cannot bear the ex-gulation. They had been for some time, and pense; but if the Navy Department had charge were now, surveying the lakes; and he believed of the hydrography, it could put suitable ves- their surveys would be equally correct with sels on the coast squadron, and employ them Mr. Hassler's. We had a bureau of hydrograon the coast survey, agreeably to the law of phy of the navy, and a corps of topographical 1807. Last year the vessels did no soundings engineers, which were expressly created to peruntil about the 1st of June, although the spring form this kind of service; while there was the opened early. The Treasury had not the means military academy at West Point, which qualito equip the vessels until the appropriation bill fied the officers to perform it. The people passed Congress. But if the navy had charge would hardly believe that these officers (eduof vessels, the few naval stores they wanted cated at the expense of the government) were might have been furnished from the navy stores, not capable of performing the services for which or given from second-hand articles not on charge they were educated; and if they thought so, at the yards. Had good arrangements been they would be for abolishing that institution. made, the Delaware Bay might readily have They would say that these officers should be been finished last fall, and the chart of it got dismissed, and others appointed in their places, out at once. Now, the topographical corps who were qualified. makes surveys for defences; the navy officers make charts along the coast; and the coast survey goes over the same place a third time. If the officers did this work, the army might get the military information, and the navy the hydrographical knowledge, which the interest of the country requires that each of these branches of the public defence should have; and this, at the expense of but one survey; for, at places where defences might be required, the survey could be done with the utmost minuteness. The officers of the army and navy need not clash. The topographical corps (aided by junior navy officers willing to serve under that bureau-and the recent Florida war and the present coast survey system, show that navy officers are willing to serve, for the public good, under other departments than their own) would do the topography and furnish the shore line. The hydrographical officers would receive the shore line, take the soundings, and make the chart. The same principle is now at work, and works well. The navy officers now get the shore line from the citizens in the shore parties. The President could direct the War and Navy Secretaries to make such rules, through the bureaus, as would obviate every difficulty. Employing officers would secure for the public, system, economy, and despatch. The information obtained would be got by the right persons and kept in the right hands. Government would have complete command of the persons employed; and should the work ever be suspended, might, at pleasure, set them to work again on the same duty. The survey he wished to be prosecuted without delay; and all he wanted was to have it under the most efficient management. If it was found that the officers of the navy and army were not competent, it could be remedied hereafter; but it was due to them to give them a fair trial, before they were "He never could acknowledge that there was no other man but Mr. Hassler in the country capable of carrying on the work. This might have been the case when he was first appointed, thirty years ago; but since that time they had a number of officers educated at the military academy, while many others in the civil walks of life had qualified themselves for scientific employments. He was sure that the officers of the army and navy were competent to perform this work. There was but little now for the topographical engineers to do; and he had no doubt that many of them, as well as officers of the navy, would be glad to be employed on the coast survey. Indeed, several officers of the navy had told him that they would like such employment, rather than be idle, as they then were. From the rate the coast survey had thus far proceeded, it would take more than a hundred years to complete it. Certainly this was too slow. He hoped, therefore, a change would be made. In the language of the report of Mr. Aycrigg: "We should then have the survey conducted on a system of practical utility, and moving right end foremost." These were wise suggestions, and unanswerable; but although they could not be answered, they could be prevented from becoming law. Instead of reform of abuses, reduction of expense, and speedy termination of the work, all the evils intended to be reformed went on and became greater than ever, and all are still kept up upon the same arguments that sustained the former. It is worthy of note to hear the same reason now given for continuing the civilian, Mr. Bache, at the head of this work, which was given for thirty years for retaining Mr. Hassler in the same place, namely, that there is no other man in the country that can conduct the work. But that is a tribute which servility and interest will pay to any man who is at the head of a great establishment; and is always paid more punctually where the establishment ought to be abolished than where it ought to be preserved; and for the obvious reason, that the better one can stand on its own merits, while the worse needs the support of incessant adulation. Mr. Brown's proposal was rejected -the other adopted; and the coast survey now costs above five hundred thousand dollars a year in direct appropriations, besides an immense amount indirectly in the employment of government vessels and officers: and no prospect of its termination. But the friends of this great reform did not abandon their cause with the defeat of Mr. Brown's proposition. Another was offered by Mr. Aycrigg of New Jersey, who moved to discontinue the survey until a report could be made upon it at the next session; and for this motion there were 75 yeas-a respectable proportion of the House, but not a majority. The yeas were: "Messrs. Landaff W. Andrews, Sherlock J. Andrews, Thomas D. Arnold, John B. Aycrigg, Alfred Babcock, Henry W. Beeson, Benjamin A. Bidlack, David Bronson, Aaron V. Brown, Milton Brown, Edmund Burke, William B. Campbell, Thomas J. Campbell, Robert L. Caruthers, Zadok Casey, Reuben Chapman, Thomas C. Chittenden, James Cooper, Mark A. Cooper, Benjamin S. Cowen, James H. Cravens, John R. J. Daniel, Garrett Davis, Ezra Dean, Edmund Deberry, Andrew W. Doig, John Edwards, John C. Edwards, Joseph Egbert, William P. Fessenden, Roger L. Gamble, Thomas W. Gilmer, Willis Green, William Halsted, Jacob Houck, jr., Francis James, Cave Johnson, Nathaniel S. Littlefield, Abraham McClellan, James J. McKay, Alfred Marshall, John Mattocks, John P. B. Maxwell, John Maynard, William Medill, Christopher Morgan, William M. Oliver, Bryan Y. Owsley, William W. Payne, Nathaniel G. Pendleton, Francis W. Pickens, John Pope, Joseph F. Randolph, Kenneth Rayner, Abraham Rencher, John Reynolds, Romulus M. Saunders, Tristram Shaw, Augustine H. Shepperd, Benjamin G. Shields, William Slade, Samuel Stokely, Charles C. Stratton, John T. Stuart, John B. Thompson, Philip Triplett, Hopkins L. Turney, David Wallace, Aaron Ward, Edward D. White, Joseph L. White, Joseph L. Williams, Thomas Jones Yorke, John Young." once more strong enough to form a party, will have a sacred duty to perform to the country- ! that of diminishing, by nearly one-half, the present mad expenditures of the government: and the abolition of the present coast-survey establishment should be among the primary objects of retrenchment. It is a reproach to our naval and military officers, and besides untrue in point of fact, to assume them to be incapable of conducting and of performing this work: it is a reproach to Congress to vote annually an immense sum on the civil superintendence and conduct of this work, when there are more idle officers on the pay-roll than could be employed upon it. CHAPTER CXVIII. DEATH OF COMMODORE PORTER, AND NOTICE OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER. THE naval career of Commodore Porter illustrates in the highest degree that which almost the whole of our naval officers, each according to his opportunity, illustrated more or lessthe benefits of the cruising system in our naval warfare. It was the system followed in the war of the Revolution, in the quasi war with France, and in the war of 1812-imposed upon us by necessity in each case, not adopted through choice. In neither of these wars did we possess ships-of-the-line and fleets to fight battles for the dominion of the seas; fortunately, we had not the means to engage in that expensive and fatal folly; but we had smaller vessels (frigates the largest) to penetrate every sea, attack every thing not too much over size, to capture merchantmen, and take shelter when pressed where ships-of-the-line and fleets could not follow. We had the enterprising officers which a system of separate commands so favorably developes, and the ardent seamen who looked to the honors of the service for their greatest reward. Wages were low; but reward was high when the man before the mast, or the boy in the cabin, could look upon his officer, and see in his past condition what he himself was, and in his present rank what he himself might be. Merit had raised one and The friends of economy in Congress, when might raise the other. He The ardor for the service was then great; ran up towards the Grand Banks, and in the the service itself heroic. A crew for a frigate night discovered a fleet steering north, all unhas been raised in three hours. Instant sailing der easy sail and in open order, wide spaces followed the reception of the order. Distant being between the ships. From their numbers and dangerous ground was sought, fierce and and the course they steered Captain Porter desperate combat engaged; and woe to the ene-judged them to be enemies, and wished to know my that was not too much over size! Five, more about them. ten, twenty minutes would make her a wreck and a prize. Almost every officer that obtained a command showed himself an able commander. Every crew was heroic; every cruise daring: every combat a victory, where proximate equality rendered it possible. Never did any service, in any age or country, exhibit so large a proportion of skilful, daring, victorious commanders, mainly developed by the system of warfare which gave so many a chance to show what they were. Necessity imposed that system; judgment should continue it. Economy, efficiency, utility, the impossibility of building a navy to cope with the navies of the great maritime Powers, and the insanity of doing it if we could, all combine to recommend to the United States the system of naval warfare which does the most damage to the enemy with the least expense to ourselves, which avoids the expensive establishments which oppress the finances of other nations, and which renders useless, for want of an antagonist, the great fleets which they support at so much cost. Universally illustrated as the advantages of this system were by almost all our officers in the wars of the Revolution, of '98, and 1812, it was the fortune of Commodore Porter, in the late war with Great Britain, to carry that illustration to its highest point, and to show, in the most brilliant manner, what an American cruiser could do. Of course we speak of his cruise in the Pacific Ocean, prefaced by a little preliminary run to the Grand Banks, which may be considered as part of it-a cruise which the boy at school would read for its romance, the mature man for its history, the statesman for the lesson which it teaches. The Essex, a small frigate of thirty-two guns, chiefly carronades, and but little superior to a first-class sloop-of-war of the present day, with a crew of some three hundred men, had the honor to make this illustrious cruise. Leaving New York in June, soon after the declaration of war, and making some small captures, she Approaching the sternmost vessel and entering into conversation with her, he learnt that the fleet was under the convoy of a frigate, the Minerva, thirty-six guns, and a bomb-vessel, both then ahead; and that the vessels of the fleet transported one thousand soldiers. could have cut off this vessel easily, but the information he had received opened a more brilliant prospect. He determined to pass along through the fleet, the Essex being a good sailer, speaking the different vessels as he quietly passed them, get alongside of the frigate, and carry her by an energetic attack. In execution of this plan he passed on without exciting the least suspicion, and came up with the next vessel; but this second one was more cautious than the first, and, on the Essex's ranging up alongside of her, she took alarm and announced her intention to give the signal of a stranger having joined the fleet. This put an end to disguise and brought on prompt action. The vessel, under penalty of being fired into, was instantly ordered to surrender and haul out of the convoy. This was so quietly done as to be unnoticed by the other ships. On taking possession of her she was found to be filled with soldiers, one hundred and fifty of them, and all made prisoners of war. A few days afterwards the Essex fell in with the man-of-war Alert, of twenty guns and a full crew. The Alert began the action. In eight minutes it was finished, and the British ship only saved from sinking by the help of her captors. It was the first British man-of-war taken in this contest, and so easily, that not the slightest injury was done to the Essex, either to the vessel or her crew. Crowded now with prisoners (for the crew of the Alert had to be taken on board, in addition to the one hundred and fifty soldiers and the previous captures), all chafing in their bondage, and ready to embrace the opportunity of the first action to rise, Captain Porter agreed with the commander of the Alert to convert her into a cartel, and send her into port at St. John's, with the prisoners, to await their exchange. Continuing her cruise, the Essex twice fell in with the enemy's frigates having other vessels of war in company, so that a fair engagement was impossible. The Essex then returned to the Delaware to replenish her stores, and, sailing thence in October, 1812, she fairly commenced her great cruise. Captain Porter was under orders to proceed to the coast of Brazil, and join Commodore Bainbridge at a given rendezvous, cruising as he went. It was not until after he had run the greater part of the distance, crossing the equator, that he got sight of the first British vessel, a small man-of-war brig, discovered in the afternoon, chased, and come up with in the night, having previously boldly shown her national colors. The two vessels were then within musket shot. Not willing to hurt a foe too weak to fight him, Captain Porter hailed and required the brig to surrender. Instead of complying, the arrogant little man-of-war turned upon its pursuer, attempting to cross the stern of the Essex, with the probable design to give her a raking fire and escape in the dark. Still the captain would not open his guns upon so diminutive a foe until he had tried the effect of musketry upon her. A volley was fired into her, killing one man, when she struck. It was the British government packet Nocton, ten guns, thirty-one men, and having fifty-five thousand silver dollars on board. Pursuing his cruise south to the point of rendezvous, an English merchant vessel was captured, one of a convoy of six which had left Rio the evening before in charge of a man-ofwar schooner. The rest of the convoy was out of sight, but, taking its track, a long and fruitless chase was given; and the Essex repaired to the point of rendezvous, without meeting with further incident. Commodore Bainbridge had been there, and had left; and, being now under discretionary orders, Captain Porter determined to use the discretion with which he was invested, and took the bold resolution to double Cape Horn, enter the Pacific Ocean, put twenty thousand miles between his vessel and an American port, and try his fortune among British whalers, merchantmen, and ships-of-war in that vast and remote sea. have forbid, and which the undaunted resolution of a bold commander alone could take. He had every thing against him: no depots, no means of repairing or refitting; only one chart; the Spanish American States subservient to the British, and unreliable for the impartiality of neutrals, much less for the sympathy of neighbors. He was deficient both in provisions and naval stores, but expected to furnish himself from the enemy, whose vessels in that capacious and distant sea, were always well supplied; and the silver taken from the British government packet would be a means towards paying wages. In the middle of January, after a most tempestuous passage, he had doubled the Cape, entered the Pacific, his characteristic motto, FREE TRADE AND SAILORS' RIGHTS, at the mast-head, and ran for Valparaiso―the great point of maritime resort in the South Pacific. He had expected to find it a Spanish town, as it was when he left the United States: he found it Chilian, for Chili, in the mean time, had declared her independence: and this change he had a right to deem favorable, as, in addition to the advantages of conventional neutrality, it was fair to count upon the good feeling of a young and neighboring republic. In this he was not disappointed, being well received, meeting good treatment, obtaining supplies, and acquiring valuable information. He learnt that the American whalers were in great danger, most of them ignorant of the war, cruisers in pursuit of them, and one already taken. He learnt also that the Viceroy of Peru had sent out corsairs against American shipping-a piece of information of the highest moment, as it showed him an enemy where he expected a neutral, and enabled him to know how to deal with Peruvian ships when he should meet them. This criminality on the part of the viceroy was the result of a conclusion of his own, that as Spain and Great Britain were allies against France, so they would soon be allies against the United States; and that he, as a good Spanish viceroy should begin without waiting for the orders. This let Captain Porter see that he had two enemies instead of one to contend with in the Pacific; and this information, as it showed increase of danger to American interests, increased his ardor to go to their protection; which he promptly It was a bold enterprise, such as few governments would have ordered, which many would | did. these. After giving this information he made the apology for the shot, which was that, having put one of their American prizes in charge of a small crew, the English letter-of-marque Nimrod had fallen in with it and taken it from the crew, and that they were cruising for this Nim Barely taking time to hurry on board the sup- the smaller vessel in company was one of plies, which six months already at sea rendered indispensable, he was again in pursuit of the enemy, and soon had the good fortune to fall in with an American whale-ship, which gave the important intelligence that a Peruvian corsair had just captured two American whalers off Coquimbo and was making for that place, with a British vessel in company. This was excit-rod with a view to obtain redress, and had mising information, and presented a three-fold enterprise to the chivalrous spirit of Porter-to rescue the American, punish the Peruvian, and capture the Englishman. Instantly all sail was set for Coquimbo, the American whaler which had given the information in company, and all hearts beating high with expectation, and with the prospect of performing some generous and gallant deed. In a few hours a strange sail was descried in the distance, with a smaller vessel in company; and soon the sail was suspected to be a cruiser, disguised as a whaler. Then some pretty play took place, allowable in maritime war, although entirely a game of deception. The stranger showed Spanish colors; the Essex showed English, and then fired a gun to leeward. The whaler in company with the Essex hoisted the American flag beneath the English jack. All these false indications are allowable to gain advantages before fighting, but not to fight under, when true colors must be shown by the attacking ship under the penalty of piracy. Gun signals were then resorted to. The stranger fired a shot ahead of the Essex, as much as to say stop and talk; the Essex fired a shot over him, signifying come nearer. She came, for the implication was that the next shot would be into her. When nearer, the stranger sent an armed boat to board the Essex; but the boat was directed to return with an order to the stranger to pass under the frigate's lee (i. e. under her guns), and to send an officer on board to apologise for the shots he had fired at an English man-of-war. The order was promptly complied with. The stranger came under the lee of the Essex and sent her lieutenant on board, who, not suspecting where he was, readily told him that his ship was the Nereyda, Peruvian privateer, of fifteen guns and a full crew; that they were cruising for Americans, and had already taken two (the same mentioned by the whaler); and that taken this frigate for her, and hence the shot ahead of her; and hoped the explanation would constitute a sufficient apology. It did so; Capt. Porter was perfectly satisfied with it, and still more so, with the information which accompanied it. It placed the accomplishment of one of his three objects immediately in his hands, and the one perhaps dearest to his heart-that of catching the Peruvian corsair which was preying upon American commerce. So, civilly dismissing the lieutenant, he waited until he had got aboard of the Nereyda, then run up the American flag, fired a shot over the corsair, and stood ready to fire into her. The caution was sufficient: the Peruvian surrendered immediately, with her prize. Thus was the piratical capture of two American whalers promptly chastised, and one of them released, and the Peruvian informed that he and his countrymen were cruising against Americans in mistake. and would be treated as pirates if they continued the practice. This admonition put an end to Peruvian seizure of American vessels. Believing that the other American whaler captured by the Nereyda, and taken from her prize-crew by the Nimrod would be carried to Lima, Captain Porter immediately bore away for its port (Callao), approached it, hauled off to watch, saw three vessels standing in, prepared to cut them off, and especially the foremost, which he judged to be an American. She was so, and was cut off-the very whaler he was in search of. It was the Barclay; and the master, crew and all, so rejoiced at their release that they immediately joined their deliverer. The Barclay became the consort of the Essex; her crew enlisted under Porter; the master became (what he greatly needed) a pilot for him in the vast and unknown sea he was traversing. There was now a good opportunity to look into this most frequented of Peruvian ports, which Captain Porter did, showing English colors; and, seeing nothing within that he would have a |