captain was always careful too about the men's health, and their sleeping-places, and all the little matters about their daily life which added to their comfort and their strength. So that the men in turn forgot their hardships, and were his devoted followers in storm and battle, only waiting for his word to do their duty in any way that it might please him to ask it of them. After a stormy passage round Cape Horn the "Essex," about the middle of March, 1813, appeared off the port of Valparaiso. At this time our relations with Spain were not over-friendly, and Captain Porter did not expect a very cordial reception. He learned, however, that Chili had shaken off the Spanish authority not long before, and being a young and small American republic, she was only too glad to welcome a ship from the oldest and most powerful of the free States of the Western Continent. Instead of indifferent or nearly hostile Spaniards, the "Essex" found in the Chilian inhabitants only devoted friends. The ship fired a salute in honor of the town, and the captain visited the Chilian governor, and received his visit in return. All was hospitality and cordial good-feeling, and stores and provisions were supplied in abundance. The Government of Chili could thus be relied on as at least a neutral in the war. It was far otherwise with Peru, which was still a Spanish province. On the day before Captain Porter left Valparaiso, an American whaler had come in with the report that several English whaling privateers were off the Peruvian coast, and that the news of the declaration of war had just reached them. The "Essex," though she had only been in port a week, lost no time in putting out to sea, to reach the enemy's cruising-ground. Soon Porter fell in with another American, the "Charles," whose captain told him that the Englishmen were not the only enemies to be found there, for a Spanish privateer out of Callao, the principal port of Peru, had recently chased the "Charles" and had captured two of her companions, the "Walker" and the "Barclay." Here was a fine state of affairs! It was well that the "Essex" was on the spot, and she had arrived only just in time, for it was evident that between open enemies and piratical neutrals the unarmed Americans would have little hope of safety.