ained, matches burning, and boarders standing by. The
position was one of extreme tension. The American captain had in his
hand a chance such as in his most sanguine dreams he could scarcely have
hoped. His guns, feeble at a distance, could tell with the greatest
effect at such short range; and even if his enemy dropped an anchor, in
the great depths of Valparaiso Bay he would not fetch up till far past
the Essex. Until then he was for the moment helpless. Porter hailed that
if the ships touched he should at once attack. Hillyar kept his presence
of mind admirably at this critical juncture, replying in an indifferent
manner that he had no intention of allowing the Phoebe to fall on
board the Essex--an assurance that was well enough, and, coupled with
his nonchalant manner, served the purpose of keeping Porter in doubt as
to whether a breach of neutrality had been intended. But the British
frigate was unquestionably in a position where a seaman should not have
placed her unless he meant mischief. It is good luck, not good
management, when a ship in the Phoebe's position does not foul one in
that of the Essex. While this was passing, Farragut was witness to a
circumstance which shows by what a feather's weight scales are sometimes
turned. Of all the watch that had been on shore when the enemy appeared,
he says, one only, a mere boy, returned under the influence of liquor.
"When the Phoebe was close alongside, and all hands at quarters, the
powder-boys stationed with slow matches ready to discharge the guns, the
boarders, cutlass in hand, standing by to board in the smoke, as was our
custom at close quarters, the intoxicated youth saw, or imagined that he
saw, through the port, some one on the Phoebe grinning at him. 'My
fine fellow, I'll stop your making faces,' he exclaimed, and was just
about to fire his gun, when Lieutenant McKnight saw the movement and
with a blow sprawled him on the deck. Had that gun been fired, I am
convinced that the Phoebe would have been ours." She probably would,
for the Essex could have got in three broadsides of her twenty
thirty-two-pounder carronades before the enemy could effectively reply,
a beginning which would have reversed the odds between the two ships.
Farragut fully shared the belief of all his shipmates that an attack was
intended, in consequence of the information given to Captain Hillyar, as
he was entering, by the boat of an English merchant ship in the port,
that half the crew o