At the outbreak of the War of 1812 our government planned a crushing blow at British commerce. A fleet of 100 English merchantmen from Jamaica was expected to pass close to the North American coast and the most formidable squadron we could then assemble, consisting of the frigates _President_, _United States_ and _Congress_, with the sloop and brig _Hornet_ and _Argus_, under the command of Captain John Rodgers, was held in New York ready to sail. As soon as war was declared, June 18, 1812, a courier set out from Washington and in three days arrived in New York—quick work for those days, but the information now could be flashed in a few seconds. One hour after receiving the news Rodgers got under way and on the morning of the second day out spoke an American vessel and learned from her master that he had seen the Jamaica fleet only two days before. Rodgers made sail in the direction indicated, but he was drawn away in a futile chase after the British frigate _Belvidera_. Afterward, however, he resumed his pursuit of the merchant fleet and on July 1 he detected “quantities of cocoanut shells and orange peels” in the water, which showed that he was in the wake of the fleet. He followed this sea-trail several days and was rapidly overtaking the chase, when he lost it in the fogs on the Newfoundland Banks. Floating bottles, pieces of wreckage, cask-heads and other ship debris were the “clicks” of the first “marine wireless” that assisted our early mariners in discovering the whereabouts of friend or foe on the high seas. And even a marine “postoffice” was a service recognized early in the 19th century—many years before it came into general use on land. When our 32-gun frigate _Essex_ was making her memorable cruise in the Pacific Ocean, 1813–1814, Captain David Porter records that he stopped at Charles Island of the Galapagos in the southern Pacific Ocean to examine the “postoffice”—a box nailed to a tree in which whalers and other craft deposited records of their cruises and intended movements. That these ocean “postoffices” were sometimes used for “misinformation” is shown in the case of this same Captain Porter. One of these “postal stations” in the Atlantic was the penal island of Fernando de Noronha, off the extreme eastern limit of Brazil. This was a point usually touched by vessels bound for the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. While Porter was cruising in the south Atlantic under orders to join the _Constitution_ and _Hornet_, he hove-to off this port on December 14, 1812, and sending a boat ashore learned that there was a letter there addressed to “Sir James Yeo, of the British 32-gun frigate _Southampton_.” He also learned that only the week before the English 44-gun frigate “_Acasta_ and the 20-gun sloop of war _Morgiana_” had stopped at that port and had sailed for Rio de Janeiro, leaving a letter addressed to “Sir James Yeo.”