The remarkable cruise of the _Essex_, commanded by Captain David Porter, begun late in 1812, extended along the coast of South America, around Cape Horn, and throughout almost the entire eastern half of the Pacific, ending in a bloody battle in the harbor of Valparaiso, in March, 1814. The prizes taken in the Atlantic were of little value, except one. The packet ship _Nocton_, captured just south of the equator, had $55,000 in specie, on board, with which Porter subsequently paid off his men. She was put in charge of a prize crew, and {291}sailed for the United States, but was recaptured on the way by a British frigate. Porter had sailed under orders to meet Commodore Bainbridge, who had gone to sea with the _Constitution_ and the _Hornet_. But after failing to find either of those vessels at three successive rendezvous, he determined to carry out a plan which he had submitted to the Secretary of the Navy some time before, for a cruise against the British whalers in the Pacific. After the usual stormy passage, he doubled Cape Horn in February, 1813. His description of one of the gales shows us that the greatest dangers undergone by a man-of-war are not always from the guns of the enemy. "It was with no little joy we now saw ourselves fairly in the Pacific Ocean, calculating on a speedy end to all our sufferings. We began also to form our projects for annoying the enemy, and had already equipped, in imagination, one of their vessels of fourteen or sixteen guns, and manned her from the _Essex_, to cruise against their commerce. Indeed, various were the schemes we formed at this time, and had in fancy immense wealth to return with to our country. But the wind freshened up to a gale, and by noon had reduced us to our storm stay-sail and close-reefed main-top-sail. In the afternoon it hauled around to the westward, and blew {292}with a fury far exceeding anything we had yet experienced, bringing with it such a tremendous sea as to threaten us every moment with destruction, and appalled the stoutest heart on board. Our sails, our standing and running rigging, from the succession of bad weather, had become so damaged as to be no longer trustworthy; we took, however, the best means in our power to render everything secure, and carried as heavy a press of sail as the ship would bear, to keep her from drifting on the coast of Patagonia, which we had reason to believe was not far distant.