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Updated: June 28, 2025
The former at length got near enough to open her fire. Captain Hillyar now ordered Captain Tucker to keep under way, while he himself stood in closer with the intention of anchoring close to the Essex. The latter ship now cut her cable, and endeavoured to run on shore, but the strong wind from the land blew her off towards the Phoebe, and she had again to let go an anchor.
His grief mastered him again soon afterward, when asked by Captain Hillyar to breakfast with himself and Captain Porter. Hillyar, seeing his discomfiture, spoke to him with great kindness, saying: "Never mind, my little fellow, it will be your turn next perhaps"; to which, says Farragut, "I replied I hoped so, and left the cabin to hide my emotion."
Several officers and men had before been wounded on shore, among whom was Lieutenant Williams, of the Marine Artillery, who, though hit in three places, had continued at the head of his men till they returned to the boats. Commander Hillyar was also wounded, and very many of the men were killed. Among the latter was James Webb, gunner's mate, belonging to the first lifeboat.
Almost at the beginning of her voluntary service she is represented as realising 'the hideous fate to which she has condemned herself in her fanaticism. It is quite impossible to make the reader believe that, loving Erne Hillyar as she did, she could for years persist in rejecting him, and that her brother would permit so much sacrifice on his account.
The spring on the Essex's cable being shot away, she was unable to turn her broadside as was wished; but the Americans ran out of the stern-ports three of their long guns, which were so well served as to cut away some of the most important of the Phoebe's ropes and sails, and Hillyar for a moment feared his ship would be drifted out of action.
Hillyar, however, told Porter frankly that he should not throw away the advantage given by his superior force, for the event of a naval action was ever uncertain, liable to be decided by the accidental loss of an important spar or rope; whereas, by keeping his two ships together, he thought he could effectually blockade the Essex and prevent her renewing her depredations upon British commerce until the arrival of other ships of war which were on their way.
On the 5th, off the coast of Long Island, she was stopped by a British ship-of-war, whose captain questioned the right of Hillyar to give her the passports she carried, and indicated an intention of detaining her. Porter construed this violation of the stipulation between himself and his captor as releasing him from his obligations, and escaped to shore with a boat's crew.
While Commander Hillyar was arranging the boats so that they might keep up their fire as they retreated to the Teazer, some of the kroomen on board Mr Beecroft's Victoria let go her anchor, and there she lay exposed entirely to the fire of the blacks. On seeing this, Captain Lyster pulled back to her to learn what was the matter. "What has occurred now?" he asked of Mr Blight, the boatswain.
Under these conditions, although their force was inferior, the advantage was with the Americans, whose ships were anchored and cleared, while the Phoebe still had her canvas spread and the anchoring to do, which is a troublesome operation in water so deep as that of Valparaiso Bay. If men's motives can be judged by their acts, Captain Hillyar afforded Porter full justification for opening fire.
Moreover, Captain Hillyar, though a brave and experienced officer, a favorite with Nelson, whose esteem could not be won without high professional merit, was reputed to have shown scanty scruples about neutral rights on a previous occasion, when the disregard of them procured an advantage to the enterprise he had in hand.
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