ON JUNE 8, PORTER PASSED TO THE NORTH OF ABINGDON (Pinta) Island with a fresh breeze. He had all but one of the dull sailing vessels in tow. They were heading for the Peruvian town of Tumbes, close to the Equator in the southern part of the Gulf of Guayaquil, nearly 600 miles north of Lima. Downes and the Georgiana were not with him, but Porter left instructions where to find him.
Porter planned to stop at the Island of La Plata on the way to Tumbes. It was seventeen miles off what is now the southern coast of Ecuador, but was then Peru. Legend had it that Captain Francis Drake landed there to bury treasure and divide his plunder. Porter expected to obtain wood and water and leave a message for Downes. The haze was so thick, however, that he did not find the island until the night of June 16.
As the Essex approached La Plata the following morning, Porter saw huge schools of sperm and finback whales. He dropped anchor two miles offshore and explored the waters around the island in a whaleboat. It proved a big disappointment. He could not find a comfortable landing place. Before continuing on to the Tumbes River, he left a message for Downes in a bottle and suspended it from the branch of a bush. To make certain Downes did not miss the bottle, Porter painted the letters S.X. on a nearby rock—large enough to draw anyone’s attention.
On June 19, the Essex ran into the spacious Gulf of Guayaquil and anchored on the south side, a mile off the mouth of the Tumbes River. A considerable sandbar blocked the entrance. As the Essex came to anchor, misfortune struck. One of the gunner’s crew, John Rodgers, aged thirty-two, one of the best seamen on the ship, was helping to furl the mainsail. Suddenly he lost his balance and plunged headfirst to the deck, smashing his skull. Rodgers’s fondness for rum had finally done him in, shocking and saddening the entire ship. Excessive drinking was a problem that never went away for skippers.
Porter now had to turn to the unpleasant business of dealing with the Peruvian authorities. He anticipated that they would be hostile but amenable to bribery. He sent Captain Randall of the Barclay upriver to the town of Tumbes to confer with the governor while the Essex men got busy bringing wood and water aboard. It was a hazardous business. The waters were loaded with big, hungry sharks and huge alligators; the surf was violent enough to upset rafts. Porter himself shot and killed an enormous, fifteen-foot alligator, placing a musket ball below the joint of the monster’s foreleg near the shoulder.
On June 22, Randall returned with the governor and his retinue. The officials, especially the governor, were so wretchedly dressed that it was all Porter could do to stop from laughing. The Peruvians’ wardrobe did not hinder negotiations, however. The governor and his men were anxious for money, which Porter supplied, and business went forward with no trouble, as he had anticipated it would. Still, Porter had to be careful; this was not friendly territory. He never went on shore or allowed any of his men to go without being heavily armed and on guard.
The following day, June 23, Porter went into Tumbes, reluctantly returning the governor’s visit. The town had about fifty houses or huts and was as wretched as the attire of its officials. Tumbes was built on stilts to protect inhabitants from alligators, but nothing could shield them from swarms of mosquitoes and other insects. Porter spent as little time as possible with the governor and absolutely refused to stay the night.
On returning to the Essex, he was confronted with a problem he had long hoped to avoid. Again it had to do with alcohol. The acting second lieutenant, James Wilson, after an abstinence of many months, was drunk again. Everyone liked Wilson, but he had a drinking problem, which Porter had had to deal with more than once. When he was told of Wilson’s condition, he went directly to his cabin and advised him that he was under arrest for the remainder of the cruise. Wilson was shaken, reached for a pistol, and attempted to load it. Porter grabbed it from him, but Wilson went for another. Porter was too quick for him, however, and stopped him again. Wilson then told him that he had intended to use the pistol on himself. Porter believed him. He could see the terrible state the poor man was in. It was a sad business; Porter felt sorry for Wilson, and after giving the matter more thought, he decided to give him another chance. Wilson carried on, but he remained terribly unhappy with himself.
On the same day, Porter received a communication from the governor of Tumbes indicating that his superior, the governor of Guayaquil, would not approve of Porter’s remaining in the river, and that he should depart as soon as possible. Porter thought this was a demand for more money, a demand he would not meet. But it was also obvious that he was in hostile territory and should leave as soon as he had collected sufficient supplies.
The next day, Lieutenant Downes and the Georgiana finally appeared with two prizes and a story to tell. Downes had captured three whalers off James Island in the Galapagos—the 11-gun Hector (270 tons), the 8-gun Rose (220 tons), and the 8-gun Catharine (270 tons). The Hector had a crew of twenty-five, the Rose twenty-one, and the Catharine twenty-nine. Downes had no trouble capturing the Catharine and the Rose. Their captains had assumed the Georgiana was a British ship and drove right up alongside her.
The Hector was another matter. She gave Downes plenty of trouble. He had spotted her one afternoon and did not catch up with her until late at night. He ran alongside and shouted for her to strike her colors, but the Hector’s skipper cleared for action instead. Downes had only twenty men and boys; the others were on the prizes Catharine and Rose. Thinking he’d better act fast, Downes fired a shot that smashed into the Hector’s stern, and crashed through the interior of the ship, doing considerable damage. He then called for a surrender, but the Hector got on more sail and tried to get away, whereupon Downes poured one broadside after another into her, killing two men and wounding six. After receiving five rounds at point-blank range, the Hector’s main topmast was down as was most of her standing and running rigging. With his ship a wreck, the Hector’s plucky skipper finally struck his colors.
Downes now had seventy-five prisoners—too many to manage safely. He put all of them in the Rose—the poorest of the three ships—and sent them on parole to St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic. The British captain pledged that he would take them there and not serve against the United States until regularly exchanged. Downes thought the man would be as good as his word and gave him a passport to St. Helena. Before Downes let the Rose go, he transferred her sperm oil to the Georgiana and had all her guns thrown overboard.
Before leaving the Gulf of Guayaquil, Porter reorganized his fleet. He converted the Atlantic, the best of his captures, into a 20-gun cruiser with Downes in command and christened her Essex Junior. Since several more good men from the prizes had volunteered to serve in the American navy, Porter was able to put sixty men aboard her with Midshipman Richard Dashiell as sailing master. The contemporary anti-American British naval historian, William James, claimed that Porter had, with empty promises, enticed His Majesty’s innocent seamen out of the prizes to serve on the Atlantic. The Admiralty and Parliament thought the same. They would never admit that the principal reason so many of their seamen deserted was the brutal conditions aboard their warships. For a large portion of every British crew, life aboard a man-of-war could be a brutal, dangerous existence. The food was unhealthy and the pay abysmal; threats of cruel, sometimes fatal beatings were routinely used to obtain obedience, and leave was never granted if it was thought the recipient would run away. The torment was unending. Seamen were required to serve for the duration of the war with France, which by 1813 had been going on for twenty years. The problem of desertion in the Royal Navy was endemic. It could never be solved as long as upper-class Britons refused to recognize the tyranny aboard their warships. For ordinary seamen, escape was the only way out, the only way to survive. Thousands ran away, many to the more benign ships of the United States. The Admiralty and its numerous supporters in Parliament refused to admit the obvious.
Those prisoners who did not want to join the American navy had repeatedly asked to be put on shore, and Porter decided that he would be better off without them. He gave them three boats, all of their possessions, and set them free, including the obnoxious captains Weir and Shuttleworth.
Porter next appointed Mr. Adams to be skipper of the Georgiana and converted the Greenwich into a storeship, putting the extra provisions from all the ships into her, along with twenty guns. He estimated that he had enough supplies for all his ships to last seven months. At the same time he gave command of the prize ship Montezuma to Midshipman Feltus, who could not have been happier.
With these matters tended to, Porter, on the morning of June 30, made the signal to his fleet—including the ships in Downes’s squadron—to get underway. On July 1, they stood out from the Gulf of Guayaquil, sailing west for the easterly trade winds, which Porter expected to pick up three or four hundred miles offshore. While the fleet sailed west, carpenters and other skilled men worked hard on Essex Junior, building up her breast-works and making other alterations to strengthen her as a fighting ship. On July 4, Porter stopped to commemorate Independence Day. Essex, Essex Junior, and Georgiana fired seventeen-gun salutes, and Porter ordered a double ration of grog for all the crews on the nine ships. The rum came from the prizes and was doubly welcome, since the Essex men, for some time, had had none at all.
Porter was celebrating more than the national holiday. He was also celebrating the incredible success they had had against the British whale fishery. He was so enthusiastic about their achievements that his horizon broadened, and he changed his mind about remaining on the hunt along the coasts of Peru and Chile. Instead of doing that, he contemplated sailing his whole fleet to Polynesia. His dreams of going there were of long standing. He had mentioned them to the crew before, while they were in the Atlantic standing toward Cape Horn. He had no idea at the time if what he promised would ever come to pass, but now there was every reason to believe that he could finally do what he had been fantasizing about all these years.
To begin with, he decided to divide his fleet and send Downes to Valparaiso while he went back to the Galapagos Islands. He anticipated that Downes would join him there a short time later. More importantly, Porter decided that, after he and Downes met up again, his fleet would travel to the Marquesas Islands, the archipelago in Polynesia. There they would experience the legendary delights offered by the women of these exotic islands. Porter also thought that, while enjoying the extraordinary female companionship, he could make necessary repairs on the ships, particularly the Essex.
Four days later, Downes departed for Valparaiso. The prize ships Hector, Catharine, Policy, and Montezuma accompanied him, along with the Barclay. Porter instructed Downes to leave the Barclay at Valparaiso and sell the other ships, if possible. The Policy was loaded with sperm oil. The oil from all the ships had been divided between the Policy and the Georgiana. Prices for oil at Valparaiso were so low, however, that Porter gave Downes the option of sending Policy to the United States, where the oil would bring a much higher price. If she went to America, she was to approach the northern coast in the dead of winter, when severe weather impeded the British blockade.
While Downes was in Valparaiso, Porter expected him to obtain the latest intelligence on any British warships hunting the Essex. Porter was certain there would be at least one, and more likely two or more. Porter also gave Downes three letters addressed to Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton, dated July 2, 1813. Downes was to give them to Joel Poinsett for transmittal to Washington. Poinsett would undoubtedly do his best to get them there any way he could, by land or sea via Thomas Sumter in Rio, but how long it would take, or even if they would get there at all, was uncertain. Porter had no way of knowing that Hamilton was no longer in charge of the Navy Department. President Madison had finally asked for his resignation in December 1812, replacing him with William Jones of Philadelphia, a respected merchant and banker with a long record of accomplishment.
Porter knew that Washington would be wondering what had happened to him. He had no idea if his brief letter to Bainbridge in March had reached its destination. He also wanted his wife and family to know that he and Farragut were faring well. And he was proud of his accomplishments; he wanted the navy and, he hoped, the whole country to know about them. He told the secretary of the navy,
Indeed sir, when I compare my present situation with what it was when I doubled Cape Horn I cannot but esteem myself fortunate in an extraordinary degree—then my ship was shattered by tempestuous weather and destitute of everything, my officers and crew half starved, naked and worn out with fatigue—Now sir, my ship is in prime order abundantly supplied with everything necessary for her. I have a noble ship for a consort of twenty-guns and well-manned, a store ship of twenty guns well supplied with everything we may want, and prizes which would be worth in England two million dollars, and what renders the comparison more pleasing, the enemy has furnished all——.
Porter also wanted the navy to know how well Lieutenant John Downes was performing. In a separate letter to the secretary of the navy, Porter wrote, “If any officer deserves in an extraordinary degree the attention of the department Lt. Downes certainly does.”
The letters reached Secretary Jones in December 1813, and they caused a sensation. News about Porter and the Essex had been scarce since they left. Reports popped up from time to time, always mixing accurate and inaccurate information, but there had been nothing official. The nation wanted to know what had happened to Porter. Now there was confirmation that he and the Essex were not only in the Pacific, as had been suspected, but they were doing brilliantly.
No one was happier with Porter’s report than President Madison, who needed cheering up. The war was going poorly for the United States in 1813. The president had renewed his attack on Canada without success, except for the victories of Oliver Hazard Perry on Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, and of William Henry Harrison and Perry at the Battle of the Thames in Lower Canada a short time later. Moreover, Great Britain and her allies had defeated Napoleon decisively at the Battle of Leipzig, throwing him back into France, where his days were numbered. The British would soon be able to turn their whole military might against the United States. From Madison’s point of view the future looked bleak. Defeatism was spreading across the country. He was in desperate need of good news—and of heroes. Porter supplied both. The president immediately released Porter’s report, and newspapers around the country printed it, boosting morale everywhere.
Secretary Jones lost no time passing the report on to Evelina Porter. She had been writing to him, inquiring about her husband, but he had had nothing to tell her. Now he did. On December 14, 1813, he sent a message to Green Bank:
I have the pleasure to enclose a letter this day received under cover of a very interesting and highly satisfactory dispatch from Captain Porter, dated July 2 last near the Equator on the west coast of South America.
Himself, officers and crew were in [an excellent] degree of health and spirits, abundantly provided with everything necessary for their comfort for eight months in advance, and their success had equaled the most sanguine expectations.
Evelina was filled with joy and relief. He was safe, and more than that, a hero—what he had always strived for. Of course, David wasn’t home yet, but, even so, this was wonderful news, considering all the horrible things she feared might have happened to him.
CARRYING PORTER’S LETTERS TO THE NAVY SECRETARY, DOWNES and his fleet set off for Valparaiso on July 8. One of the fleet now had a noteworthy new skipper. In one of his stranger decisions, Porter had given his “de facto son,” David Farragut, now age twelve, command of the Barclay for her trip to Valparaiso. And to make the assignment even more bizarre, Captain Gideon Randall and his chief mate were left on board to navigate. Porter doesn’t mention this unusual arrangement in his journal—as if it were inconsequential. For Farragut, however, it was the major event of his young life. Randall was a fiercely independent old cuss, who wanted his ship back so that he could resume whaling. Instead, he was ordered to navigate the Barclay to Valparaiso, and submit to the orders of a twelve-year-old. He was understandably furious, and from the beginning of the voyage he made it plain that he was determined to take back his ship.
As soon as the Barclay separated from the Essex and stood south with Downes’s convoy, Randall made his move. He shouted at Farragut in a voice that was heard throughout the ship, “You’ll find yourself off New Zealand in the morning.”
At that moment, Farragut recalled,
we were lying still while the other ships were fast disappearing from view; the Commodore going north, and the Essex Junior, with her convoy, steering south for Valparaiso. I considered that my day of trial had arrived (for I was a little afraid of the old fellow, as everyone else was). But the time had come for me, at least, to play the man; so I mustered up courage and informed the captain that I desired the main topsail filled away, in order that we might close up with the Essex Junior. He replied that he would shoot any man who dared to touch a rope without his orders, he “would go his own course,” he shouted, “and had no idea of trusting himself with a damned nutshell,” and then he went below for his pistols.
While Randall stomped away, Farragut summoned his “right-hand man of the crew” and explained the situation. He then ordered him in a loud voice to “fill the main topsail.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Farragut’s man shouted. The message to the rest of the crew was clear: Farragut was in charge.
“From that moment I became master of the vessel,” Farragut wrote, “and immediately gave all necessary orders for making sail.”
Farragut warned Randall that if he came on deck with his pistols he would have him thrown overboard. Farragut felt that he “would have had very little trouble in having such an order obeyed.” That ended the matter. When Farragut, with Randall in tow, made a report of the incident to Downes, he got firm support. Chastened, Randall pretended that he had not meant what he said. He told Downes that he was only trying to frighten Farragut. Randall and the young skipper then returned to the Barclay and “everything went on amicably,” Farragut recalled.
While Downes was leading his squadron to Valparaiso, Porter shaped a course back to the Galapagos in search of British whalers. He had been told that three were fishing there and that they were armed and looking for the Essex. Porter hoped they were. He did not intend to tarry long in the Galapagos searching for the whalers, however. If he found them right away, fine; but if not, he intended to sail on to the little-frequented Marquesas Islands. The storeship Greenwich and the Georgiana remained with the Essex. When the time was right, Porter intended to send the Georgiana to the United States to sell her cargo of sperm oil. He planned to time her departure so that she would have a good chance of arriving along the northeast coast in the dead of winter.
With the prevailing winds and current carrying the Essex, Porter easily raised Charles Island on July 12. Recent volcanic eruptions had changed the face of the island, as they had Albemarle and Narborough. The first thing Porter did was send a boat to Hathaway’s Post Office, where he found evidence that one British ship, at least, had been there recently. He left a note for Downes and buried it in a bottle at the foot of the post office and then sailed for Albemarle, arriving in Banks Bay at midnight, where he dropped his hook. At daylight he steered to the northward, and at eleven o’clock lookouts caught sight of three large vessels, sailing some distance apart from each other. Porter was ready. He raced after the one in the center, while the others, instead of coming to her aid, fled, or appeared to. That did not surprise him, but he worried that one or both might attempt to take the Greenwich and Georgiana, who were trailing a considerable distance behind the Essex. As he raced toward his prey, one of the strangers did tack to windward of the Essex and steer toward the prizes. The Greenwich was alert to the danger and hove to, waiting for the Georgiana to come up. When the two met, the Greenwich took some men from the Georgiana and raced after the vessel that was supposedly in pursuit, while the Georgiana ran for the Essex.
Porter made quick work of the vessel he was chasing—the Charlton, a 10-gun English whaler. He then sped after the Greenwich, which was now in a gunfight with the ship she had been chasing—the 14-gun Seringapatam, a far stronger opponent than the Charlton. The Seringapatam had a crew of forty and was a fine warship, built for that purpose and converted to a whaler. Her captain had no intention of doing any fishing; he was out to capture American whalers. With the Essex gaining ground, the British ship pretended to strike her colors, but then tried to steal away, hoping that darkness would cover her. The Greenwich kept after her, however, and with the Essex now having come up, the Seringapatam was forced to surrender. Immediately, Porter flew after the third vessel and caught her in an hour as darkness was approaching. She turned out to be the New Zealander of eight guns.
The Seringapatam’s captain, William Stavers, had no papers proving he had a privateer’s commission from his government authorizing him to seize enemy vessels. If he could not produce one, he was legally a pirate and could be brought to an admiralty court, convicted, and hung. Porter considered him an outlaw. Unlike his handling of the other enemy skippers, he put Stavers in irons. This did not apply to his crew, however. They received excellent treatment. In doing so, Porter was returning a favor. He had learned that earlier, when Stavers had captured an American whaler, he had treated her crew well—unlike other British captains. Putting Stavers in irons after he had been so decent to the American whalers might seem like an odd decision, but Porter considered him an able leader, and did not want him leading a prisoner uprising.
The number of prisoners had become a problem. On July 19 Porter dispatched the slow-sailing Charlton to Rio under her captain with forty-eight prisoners on parole. The British tars were quick to protest, however; they wanted no part of Rio, where they stood a good chance of being pressed into a man-of-war. Every one of them volunteered for the American service, but Porter, although sympathetic, had enough men, and reluctantly forced them to go.
After they left, he strengthened the Seringapatam by putting twenty-two guns on her. He wanted a spare warship in case some dreadful event in these uncharted waters destroyed the Essex. If that happened, he could carry on with the Seringapatam as his flagship.
When work on the Seringapatam was completed, Porter, on July 25, dispatched the heavily laden Georgiana to the United States. He wanted to get rid of Captain Stavers, whom he considered a potential threat, and he wanted to allow Lieutenant James Wilson, the officer with the severe drinking problem, a second chance by giving him command of the Georgiana. Wilson’s seamanship was never in question, and he had performed well in the battle between the Greenwich and the Seringapatam.
It was a popular decision; Wilson was well liked. The other officers wanted him afforded an opportunity to redeem himself. Porter estimated that it would take five months to reach the northern coast of the United States, which meant that Wilson and the Georgiana would be arriving in winter when the British blockade was least effective. Porter estimated her cargo would fetch at least $100,000. He used this occasion to offer some of his men the option of going home. The time of enlistment for many was nearing completion, and he announced that those who qualified could sail back to America with Wilson. None elected to go. Success against the whalers, confidence in Porter, and the prospect of leave on a Polynesian island (which at this point had not been officially announced but was widely anticipated), inspired every man to remain. Needless to say, Porter was gratified.
As the Georgiana prepared to depart, the Essex gave her a smart salute and three cheers. Everyone hoped that Wilson would have a swift, safe passage. Unfortunately, before he reached the United States, the British frigate HMS Barrosa (William H. Shirreff) captured the Georgiana, her crew, and all her oil.
At noon on the day that Wilson left, Porter found that his squadron had drifted to the west and was now in longitude 91° 15” west and latitude 1° 8’ 25” north. Three days later, at seven o’clock on the morning of July 28, lookouts spotted a strange sail that Porter assumed was a British whaler. He ran up to the main topgallant yard with his glass to get a good look at her and saw that she was close on a wind and had fresh breezes while the Essex was practically becalmed with a strong current taking her toward Rodondo Island. Nonetheless, Porter attempted to give chase, but the current nearly ran the Essex aground on Rodondo. Only a smart breeze springing up at a critical moment and a quick use of drags saved the ship from crashing into the rocky, perpendicular cliffs on the inaccessible side of the island.
With the Essex out of danger, Porter continued the chase, certain she was a British whaler. It was not until 7:30 the following morning, however, that the stranger was seen again from the main masthead. Porter kept after her. In two hours he was only seven miles away, and then, with the mightiest exertion, he approached to within four miles, when his prey lost the wind. It looked as if she was done for. Her captain did not give up, however. He got her boats out, and they towed her. Porter sent two boats after her, the gig and a whaleboat, but cannon shot from the stranger’s forecastle kept them at bay.
At four o’clock, both ships were still becalmed. Porter was close enough to see that the stranger had only ten guns and probably a crew of thirty. He did not think there was any possibility that she’d escape. He hoisted out his seven boats, and they went after her. She fired on them ineffectually, while her boats continued towing. The Essex’s attack boats kept closing. But just when it appeared that the stranger would be easily overpowered, a breeze sprang up from the east, and she got up every piece of canvas she had and sailed to the northward, while the Essex was still becalmed. Porter watched in frustration as his prey moved farther and farther away. By sunset she was hull down, and during the night she completed her escape. Porter thought she was probably either the whale ship Indispensable or the whale ship Comet. He consoled himself by noting that she was the first enemy who had escaped his clutches. “Such is our nature,” he reflected, “that we could not help blaming fortune for thus jilting us, and for this freak of hers forgot for a moment all the favors she had hitherto lavished on us.”
On August 4, Porter anchored his ships (now reduced to four: Essex, Greenwich, New Zealander, and Seringapatam) in what is now James Bay on James (Santiago) Island. There he spent several days repairing—fixing sails, rigging, and boats, and doing various other jobs that could not be done conveniently at sea. He made a new main topsail for the Essex, and wove new cordage from old rope, broke up her hold, cleansed and re-stowed it, and scrapped the ship’s bottom, removing a thick accumulation of barnacles and grass. He changed the appearance of the Essex as well, and painted the Seringapatam to look exactly like her from a distance. And he gave the Greenwich the appearance of a sloop of war. He also took all the Essex’s gunpowder ashore, sunning and sifting it. He discovered that water had spoiled a third of it by entering the magazine—probably during the passage around Cape Horn or when the rudder coat was damaged off Patagonia. To make up for the loss, he took most of the powder from the Seringapatam.
Later, he explored parts of James Island. He noticed for the first time how different the tortoises on this island were compared to those on either Hood or Charles. Charles Darwin would later remark, after it was pointed out to him, that, in fact, tortoises, and many other species of plants and animals, were different on each of the islands, something that would later appear to him to be of great significance as he developed his grand theory of the origin of species.
While the Essex was anchored in the bay off James, four of the ship’s goats, one male and three females, were allowed to graze on shore. Each day, when the Essex men returned to work on the island, they found the goats grazing peacefully, but one day they disappeared, and all efforts to find them failed. Porter assumed they had instinctively searched for the water he believed was in the interior of the island, where the tortoises undoubtedly found theirs. He speculated what effect this might have on the future and came to the conclusion that the animals would thrive and multiply and offer seamen who landed in the future an excellent resource.
The goats did indeed make a difference on the island, but it was not beneficial. By the year 2000 the descendants of Porter’s goats had taken over the island (now known as Santiago). Almost no tortoises were left. The goats had monopolized the water and made it almost impossible for the unique reptiles to survive. In order to save the few tortoises that remained, the government of Ecuador spent huge sums reducing the goat population to zero.
SUDDENLY ONE MORNING IN THE MIDDLE OF AUGUST, PORTER was taken aback by shocking news that gave him incredible pain. His officers reported that twenty-one-year-old Acting Lieutenant John S. Cowan, one of his particular favorites, had been killed in a duel. Porter could not believe it, and he was furious. He could ill afford to lose a good officer, and having it happen in the manner it did was excruciating. Cowan had begun the voyage as a midshipman, and Porter had advanced him because of his leadership abilities. So far as Porter was concerned, dueling was a practice that disgraced human nature.
The duel had taken place on shore at daylight, and Cowan had been killed not on the first round of firing, nor even on the second, but on the third. As angry as Porter was, however, he did nothing to punish the victor; he even attempted to keep his name a secret. But it was generally supposed, although never verified, that marine Lieutenant John Gamble killed Cowan.
Dueling was a tradition in the navy, and setting aside his own strong feelings, Porter felt he had to respect it. A naval officer could not remain in the service for any length of time without participating in a duel. Although Porter had never been a principal himself, he had taken part on more than one occasion as a second. In fact, when Lieutenant Stephen Decatur McKnight’s father, Marine Captain James McKnight, had been killed in a duel on October 4, 1802, Porter had been one of his seconds. Navy Lieutenant Richard H. L. Lawson had shot McKnight. Both were serving on the Constellation, which was anchored off Leghorn, Italy, with most of the Mediterranean squadron. Porter had been serving aboard the Chesapeake at the time.
Porter had had no inkling there was bad blood between Cowan and Gamble. Although living in the closest proximity to both men, he had no suspicion of what was afoot. Because of the psychological distance he felt was necessary to maintain from his officers in the interests of discipline, he lost an able leader who was vital to the success of his difficult mission. The much-esteemed Cowan was buried the same day he was shot, in the spot where he fell near the beach in James Bay. The unnecessary, idiotic manner of his death weighed heavily on the minds of his brother officers and their captain.