enemy. Upon his
return he found the frigate all ready for battle, it being then just an
hour and a half since the alarm was given. The Essex Junior was then
anchored in a position to support the Essex should occasion arise.

The strangers were the Phoebe and the Cherub. The third British ship,
the Raccoon, had gone north to the Columbia. As has before been said,
Captain Hillyar was an old friend of Porter's. The two men had been
thrown together in the Mediterranean, and the American had been a
frequent visitor in the other's house at Gibraltar. On one occasion
Hillyar's family had made a passage from Malta to Gibraltar in an
American ship-of-war; for in those troubled times would-be voyagers had
to avail themselves of such opportunities as offered, and the courtesy
of a large armed ship was among the most favorable. It was natural,
therefore, that, as the Phoebe stood into the harbor, Captain Hillyar
should bring his ship, the wind allowing it, close to the Essex and hail
the latter with a polite inquiry after Captain Porter's health; but it
was going rather too far, under all the circumstances, not to be content
with passing slowly under the Essex's stern, than which no more
favorable position could be found for an exchange of civil words.
Instead of so doing, the helm of the Phoebe was put down and the ship
luffed up into the wind between the Essex and the Essex Junior, the
latter lying now near the senior ship and on her starboard beam. Whether
Hillyar counted upon his own seamanship to extricate his ship from the
awkward position in which he had placed her, or whether, as the
Americans believed, he intended to attack if circumstances favored, he
soon saw that he had exposed himself to extreme peril. As the Phoebe
lost her way she naturally fell off from the wind, her bows being swept
round toward the Essex, while her stern was presented to the Essex
Junior. Both her enemies had their guns trained on her; she could use
none of hers. At the same time, in the act of falling off, she
approached the Essex; and her jib-boom, projecting far beyond her bows,
swept over the forecastle of the latter. Porter, who had been watching
the whole proceeding with great distrust, had summoned his boarders as
soon as the Phoebe luffed. The Essex at the moment was in a state of
as absolute preparation as is a musket at full cock trained on the mark,
and with the marksman's eye ranging over the sights; every man at his
post, every gun tr