eering has always tended to injure the regular naval service.
Though unquestionably capable of being put by owners on a business
basis, as a commercial undertaking, with the individual seaman the
appeal of privateering has always been to the stimulants of chance and
gain, which prove so attractive in the lottery. Stewart, an officer of
great intelligence and experience in his profession, found a further
cause in the heavy ships of the enemy. In the hostilities with France
in 1798-1800, he said, "We had nearly four thousand able seamen in the
navy. We could frequently man a frigate in a week. One reason was
because the enemy we were then contending with had not afloat (with
very few exceptions) vessels superior in rate to frigates. The enemy
we are fighting now have ships of the line, and our sailors know the
great difference between them and frigates, and cannot but feel a
degree of reluctance at entering the service from the disparity of
force."[17] The reason seems to prove too much; pressed to an extreme,
no navy would be able to use light vessels, because the enemy had
heavier which might--or might not--be encountered. Certain it is,
however, that when the government in the following winter, in order to
stop the license trade with the enemy, embargoed all vessels in home
ports, much less difficulty was experienced in getting seamen for the
navy.

Whatever the reasons, the only frigates at sea during the first four
months of 1813 were the "Essex" and the "Chesapeake." The former,
after failing to meet Bainbridge, struck off boldly for the Pacific
Ocean on Porter's own motion; and on March 15, 1813, anchored at
Valparaiso, preparatory to entering on a very successful career of a
year's duration in those seas. The "Chesapeake" had sailed from Boston
December 17, making for the Cape Verde Islands. In their neighborhood
she captured two of a British convoy, which, thinking itself beyond
danger, had dispersed for South American destinations. The frigate
then proceeded to her cruising ground near the equator, between
longitudes 24 deg. and 30 deg. west, where she remained for about a month,
taking only one other merchantman. Leaving this position, she was off
the coast of Surinam from March 2 to 6, when she returned to the
United States; passing sixty miles east of the Caribbean Islands and
thence north of Porto Rico and Santo Domingo, as far west as longitude
75 deg., whence she ran parallel to the American coast, reachin