fleet was
carrying a thousand soldiers from Barbados to Quebec, and that the
convoying vessel was the _Minerva_, a 32-gun frigate. In addition,
several of the merchantmen were heavily armed.

Captain Porter's next act was still more audacious. He glided forward
among the fleet and hailed the captain of a second vessel, but the
latter became suspicious, and was on the point of signalling to the
escort the appearance of a stranger among them, when Porter thrust out
the muzzles of twenty cannon and warned him that if he failed to keep
perfect silence and follow in his wake he would blow him out of the
water. The English captain obeyed, and Porter extricated his prize with
such astonishing skill that not a vessel took the alarm. When a safe
point was reached, Porter found that his prize was a brig with about two
hundred British soldiers on board.

Having succeeded so well, Porter again returned to the fleet for another
capture. But by this time day was breaking and the character of his
vessel was discovered. It being useless to attempt further disguise, he
cleared for action and offered the _Minerva_ battle. The captain,
however, deemed it his duty to remain with his convoy, and continued his
course to Quebec, while Porter headed southward, afterward restoring his
prize to its owners for a liberal ransom.

Captain Porter had become so clever in disguising his vessel as a
merchantman that some days later he lured the British 16-gun ship-sloop
_Alert_ to attack him. In the space of eight minutes the _Alert_ was so
helplessly crippled that her captain surrendered. The _Essex_ did not
suffer the slightest injury and no men were killed on either vessel.

The _Essex_ had now five hundred prisoners aboard, and they formed an
element of serious danger, for they began plotting among themselves to
capture the ship from the Americans and turn her over to the enemy.
Captain Porter was a severe disciplinarian, and one of his practices was
to have the alarm of fire sounded at all hours of the day or night, that
his crew might be taught the successful way of fighting the ever-present
danger. To make such training perfect, he occasionally started a fire in
the hatches.

The leader in the conspiracy to seize the ship fixed upon a night to
make the attempt, and his friends were on the alert to join him the
moment he gave the signal. In one of the hammocks was sleeping a
midshipmite only eleven years old, but, young as he was, he was a