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Updated: June 28, 2025
After a detention of nearly twenty-four hours the vessel was allowed to proceed; but was again overhauled by another British frigate as she approached Sandy Hook. There could be no serious question of detaining a ship that had been given a safeguard, under such circumstances and with such deliberation, by so experienced an officer as Hillyar.
This habit is mentioned by Captain James Hillyar, for extracts from whose journals the author is indebted to Admiral Sir W.R. Mends, G.C.B. Morrison Collection, No. 632, October 8, 1801.
So close were the two frigates at this moment that the jib-boom of the Phoebe hung over the bulwarks of the Essex, and Porter called out sharply that if so much as a rope was touched he would reply with a broadside. The urbane Captain Hillyar, perceiving his disadvantage, exclaimed, "I had no intention of coming so near you. I am very sorry indeed."
Commander Hillyar and several other officers and men were severely wounded, as was Lieutenant Corbet, in endeavouring to cut the chain-cable of the Victoria, Mr Beecroft's boat, under a hot fire from the blacks.
Hillyar, so the story goes, replied that his reputation was established, and that as his orders were peremptory to capture the Essex, he was determined to take no risks. He might have added probably did that it was open to the Americans to save their lives by surrendering.
We almost ran to Captain Hillyar, my benevolent looking Englishman, and most cordially did he receive us, and insisted upon our all coming to dine with him. When I presented Fanny and Harriet to him as Captain Beaufort's nieces he did look so pleased, and all the way home he was praising Captain Beaufort with such delight to himself. "But I never write to the fellow, faith!
The behavior of Captain Hillyar after the surrender, however, was most humane and courteous, and lapse of time has dispelled somewhat of the bitterness of the American opinion of him.
The British 36-gun frigate Phoebe, Captain James Hillyar, with the 18-gun ship-sloop Cherub, Captain Tucker, which vessels had sailed in search of him, standing towards Valparaiso, on the 8th of February discovered the American cruisers, with several prizes at anchor in the harbour. For a couple of weeks or more Captain Hillyar did his best to draw the American ships out of the port.
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