"When this last sea broke on board us, one of the prisoners exclaimed that the ship's broadside was stove in, and that she was sinking. This alarm was greatly calculated to increase the fears of those below, who, from the immense torrent of water that was rushing down the hatchways, had reason to believe the truth of his assertion. Many who were washed from the spar- to the gun-deck, and from their hammocks, and did not know the extent of the injury, were also greatly alarmed; but the men at the wheel, and some others, who were enabled by a good grasp to keep their stations, distinguished themselves by their coolness and activity after the shock." Porter touched at the island of Mocha, and afterward ran into the harbor of Valparaiso, where he learned that his arrival in the Pacific was most opportune; for there were many American whalers that had left home before the war began, and knew {295}nothing of it, while some English whalers, sailing later, had taken out letters of marque, and carried guns, and were making prizes of the unsuspecting Americans. Porter soon captured a Peruvian privateer, and two English whalers, and recaptured an American ship that had been taken by the enemy. One of the whalers carried six guns, and the other ten. He placed the entire armament in the faster sailer, cut away her try-works, and with some other alterations converted her into a war-vessel, giving the command of her to John Downes, his first lieutenant. Subsequently a still better ship for the purpose was captured, and the armament was shifted to that, which was then re-christened _Essex Junior_. With these two ships Porter scoured the ocean for the next six months, and took numerous prizes, nearly all English whalers, several of which had armed themselves as privateers. One he loaded with oil and sent home. Two or three, as he could spare no more men for prize crews, he disarmed and allowed to go home in charge of their own crews, carrying also the other prisoners, all of whom were paroled. One captain, whom he found cruising as a privateer without a commission as such, he put in irons, to be tried as a pirate when the _Essex_ should return home. In that six months, Porter and {296}Downes had captured four thousand tons of British shipping, taking four hundred prisoners; and as they could now hear of no more in that part of the Pacific, they went in October to the Marquesas Islands, to refit their vessels and let the crews have a rest and a run on shore. There in the beautiful harbor of Nukahiva they made repairs and wooded and watered at their leisure. Porter formally took possession of the island in the name of the United States, called it Madison's Island, and the harbor Massachusetts Bay, and built a fort on the shore, in which he mounted four guns. Near the fort he constructed a small village, consisting of six houses, a rope-walk, a bakery, and other buildings, which he named Madisonville.