By 1822 it had become necessary to employ a large force on the Caribbean, and Commodore Porter (he of the _Essex_) was selected for the command. By 1826 piracy in those waters was at an end, but the righteous punishment given some of the depredators at Cape Fajardo at the eastern end of Puerto Rico, though not at all excessive, was, as an invasion of Spanish territory, made a cause of investigation, and Porter’s conduct was found “censurable” by the court-martial before which the matter was brought. This was too much for Porter’s high spirit, and he at once resigned from the navy and never thereafter would speak to a member of the court. In 1826 he became commander-in-chief of the then somewhat considerable Mexican navy, Mexico now being at war with Spain, and it was as a midshipman in this service that the younger Porter, now thirteen, began his sea-going life. He was, in 1828, in one of the severest and bloodiest battles of his career, that of the brig _Guerréro_, in which he was serving, with the Spanish frigate _Lealtad_, west of Havana. His career as a Mexican midshipman ended in imprisonment, a quick release, and an appointment as midshipman in our own navy, his father, the commodore, having thrown up his Mexican appointment. The latter was to end his career as our first minister to Turkey, to which post he was appointed by President Jackson, to whom Porter was a man after his own heart. He ended his life, than which there have been few of such romantic and gallant exploit, at Constantinople on March 28, 1843, at the age of sixty-three, and after fourteen years’ service as minister. * * * * * The following years of the navy until the Mexican War were thus years of commerce-protecting and of the usual routine of naval duty varied by punitive expeditions in the East and in the Pacific. There was the well-known exploring expedition of Lieutenant Wilkes in the years 1838-1842, the discoveries of which were for years to be minimized by British jealousy, but which are now recognized at their full value; the establishment of the Naval Observatory, 1842; of the Naval Academy in 1845; and the introduction of steam vessels, the first to see actual service in our navy being a small purchased vessel, the _Sea Gull_, used against the pirates of Cuba in 1823.[47] Throughout the period, too, of the Seminole War in Florida the navy did its share in a not overglorious but most trying duty.