 | SKETCH FIFTH. The piazza tales |  |
5. SKETCH FIFTH.
“Looking far forth into the ocean wide,
A goodly ship with banners bravely dight,
And flag in her top-gallant I espide,
Through the main sea making her merry flight.”
Ere quitting Rodondo, it must not be omitted
that here, in 1813, the U. S. frigate Essex,
Captain David Porter, came near leaving her
bones. Lying becalmed one morning with a
strong current setting her rapidly towards the
rock, a strange sail was descried, which—not
out of keeping with alleged enchantments of
the neighborhood—seemed to be staggering
under a violent wind, while the frigate lay
lifeless as if spell-bound. But a light air
springing up, all sail was made by the frigate
in chase of the enemy, as supposed—he being
deemed an English whale-ship—but the rapidity
of the current was so great, that soon all
sight was lost of him; and, at meridian, the
Essex, spite of her drags, was driven so close
under the foam-lashed cliffs of Rodondo that, for
a time, all hands gave her up. A smart breeze,
however, at last helped her off, though the escape
was so critical as to seem almost miraculous.
Thus saved from destruction herself, she now
made use of that salvation to destroy the other
vessel, if possible. Renewing the chase in the
direction in which the stranger had disappeared,
sight was caught of him the following
morning. Upon being descried he hoisted
American colors and stood away from the Essex.
A calm ensued; when, still confident
that the stranger was an Englishman, Porter
dispatched a cutter, not to board the enemy,
but drive back his boats engaged in towing
him. The cutter succeeded. Cutters were
subsequently sent to capture him; the stranger
now showing English colors in place of American.
But, when the frigate's boats were within
a short distance of their hoped-for prize,
another sudden breeze sprang up; the stranger,
under all sail, bore off to the westward, and,
ere night, was hull down ahead of the Essex,
which, all this time, lay perfectly becalmed.
This enigmatic craft—American in the morning,
and English in the evening—her sails full
of wind in a calm—was never again beheld.
An enchanted ship no doubt. So, at least, the
sailors swore.
This cruise of the Essex in the Pacific during
the war of 1812, is, perhaps, the strangest and
most stirring to be found in the history of the
American navy. She captured the furthest
wandering vessels; visited the remotest seas
and isles; long hovered in the charmed vicinity
of the enchanted group; and, finally, valiantly
gave up the ghost fighting two English frigates
in the harbor of Valparaiso. Mention is made
of her here for the same reason that the Buccaneers
will likewise receive record; because,
like them, by long cruising among the isles,
tortoise-hunting upon their shores, and generally
exploring them; for these and other reasons,
the Essex is peculiarly associated with
the Encantadas.
Here be it said that you have but three eye-witness
authorities worth mentioning touching
the Enchanted Isles:—Cowley, the Buccaneer
(1684); Colnet, the whaling-ground explorer
(1798); Porter, the post captain (1813). Other
than these you have but barren, bootless allusions
from some few passing voyagers or compilers.
| SKETCH FIFTH. The piazza tales | |