The English ships having taken in supplies, cruised outside for six weeks, completely blockading the Essex. Porter saw that his vessel could outsail the enemy, but he was not anxious to escape. He wished if possible, notwithstanding his inferiority in men and weight of metal, to engage the Phoebe alone. In this Captain Hillyar would not gratify him. Once Porter got within range and opened his fire on the Phoebe, but her gallant commander, though his vessel was a thirty-six, while the Essex was a thirty-two, and his crew mustered one hundred more men, refused the challenge and dropped nearly three miles astern to close with her consort, the Cherub. This enraged Porter, for Hillyar had hove to off port, and fired a gun to windward, which could be interpreted in no other way than as a challenge. The former so understood it, and immediately got under way, when his adversary retired. Hillyar afterwards declared that the gun to windward was a signal to the Cherub. It was doubtless a ruse practiced to decoy the Essex into a chase till she could be assailed by both vessels at once. There can be only one of two explanations to Hillyar's conduct in this affair; he either was afraid to meet the American frigate, though the latter was inferior in force, or his instructions were not to hazard a single engagement. Finding that his adversary was determined to avoid him, unless he could close with both his vessels at the same time, and hearing that other British cruisers were on the way, Porter resolved to put to sea, and by tempting Captain Hillyar in pursuit, give the Essex Junior, a slow sailer, an opportunity to follow. So on the 28th of March the wind blowing fresh, he stood out of port. For awhile every thing promised a safe exit, and an open sea, where he would have defied the enemy. But in doubling the Point of Angels to clear the harbor, a squall struck the vessel, carrying away her main-top-mast, and with it several men, who were drowned. Unable to go to sea in this crippled condition, and unable also to beat back to his former anchorage, he passed to the north-eastern side of the harbor and dropped his anchor within three miles of the town, a mile and a half from the Castello Viego, and close in shore. He was on neutral ground, as much so by the law of nations, as if under the guns of the castle, and where, in the same circumstances, at the present day, no nation on the globe would dare fire into an American frigate; and yet Captain Hillyar moved down on her with both his vessels, chose his position, and opened his broadsides. Only one of two measures was therefore left to the American commander--strike his flag at once, or fight his ship to the last. To conquer he knew was impossible, still he could not give up his vessel without an effort, and he sternly ordered the decks cleared for action.