Leaving the "Constitution" thus snugly in port at Boston, we will turn aside to follow the fortunes of a ship, which, though belated in getting out to sea, yet won the honor of capturing the first British war-vessel taken during the war. When Commodore Rodgers set sail from New York with his squadron, in the fruitless pursuit of the fleet of Jamaica men, he left in the harbor the small frigate "Essex," under the command of Capt. David Porter. The ship was thoroughly dismantled,--stripped of her rigging, her hold broken out, and provided neither with armament, ammunition, nor crew. Her captain, however, was a man of indomitable energy; and by dint of much hard work, and constant appeals to the authorities at Washington, he managed to get his ship in order, and leave the harbor within a fortnight after the departure of the squadron under Rodgers's command. The "Essex" was a small frigate, lightly sparred, rating as a thirty-two-gun ship, but mounting twenty-six guns only, of which six were twelve-pounders, and the remainder carronades of thirty-two pounds. A carronade is a short cannon of large calibre, but of very short range. Capt. Porter protested vigorously against being furnished with a battery so useless except at close quarters: but his protests were unheeded; and the "Essex" put to sea, trusting to her ability to get alongside the enemy, where her carronades would be of some use. Among the midshipmen who bunked, messed, and skylarked together in the steerage of the "Essex," was one lad whose name in later days was to be inscribed on the roll of the greatest naval heroes of history. David Glasgow Farragut was a child of seven years of age when he was adopted by Capt. Porter, and began his training for a naval career. In 1810 the boy secured his appointment of midshipman; and now, in 1812, we find him enrolled among the "young gentlemen" who followed the fortunes of the "Essex." In those days the midshipmen were often mere boys. Farragut himself was then but eleven years old. But, boys as they were, they ordered the hardy old tars about, and strutted the streets when on shore-leave with all the dignity of veterans. That the discipline of the "Essex" was of the strictest, and that the efficiency of her crew was above criticism, we have the testimony of Farragut himself to prove. "Every day," he writes, "the crew were exercised at the great guns, small arms, and single stick; and I may here mention the fact, that I have never been on a ship where the crew of the old "Essex" was represented, but that I found them to be the best swordsmen on board. They had been so thoroughly trained as boarders, that every man was prepared for such an emergency, with his cutlass as sharp as a razor, a dirk made by the ship's armorer out of a file, and a pistol."