an 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. The Cherub also
was forced to leave her first position and join the Phoebe. The
latter's damages being repaired, she regained her ground and anchored;
both she and her consort placing themselves on the starboard quarter of
the Essex, a position on which the American guns, neither from the stern
nor the broadside, could be brought to bear unless by the springs on the
cables. These, unfortunately, were three times shot away as soon as they
had been placed. The first lieutenant of the Phoebe, a frank and
gallant young Englishman, whose manly bearing had greatly attracted the
officers of the Essex, is said to have remarked to his captain that it
was no better than murder to go on killing men from such a position of
safety, and to have urged him to close and make a more equal fight of
it. Hillyar, so the story goes, replied that his reputation was
established, and that as his orders were peremptory to capture the
Essex, he was determined to take no risks. He might have added--probably
did--that it was open to the Americans to save their lives by
surrendering. The same view of the situation now impelled Porter,
finding himself unable to give blow for blow, to try and close with his
wary enemy. Only one light sail was left to him in condition for
setting--the flying-jib. With it, the cable having been cut, the head of
the Essex was turned toward the enemy; and, fanned along by the other
sails hanging loose from the yards, she slowly approached her foes till
her carronades at last could reach. The wary Englishman then slipped his
cable and stood away till again out of range, when he resumed the
action, choosing always his own position, which he was well able to do
from the comparatively manageable condition of his ship. Finding it
impossible to get into action, Porter next attempted to run the Essex
aground, where the crew could escape and the vessel be destroyed. She
was headed for the beach and approached within musket-shot of it, when a
flaw of wind from the land cruelly turned her away.

The engagement had lasted nearly two hours when this disappointment was
encountered. As a last resort, Porter now ordered a hawser to be made
fast to an anchor which was still left. This was let go in the hope
that, th