up in the Porter family. His name was David G.
Farragut. I shall have a good story of him to tell you later on, for he
grew up to be one of the bravest and greatest men in the American navy.

On July 2, 1812, only two weeks after war was declared, Porter was off
to sea in the _Essex_, on the hunt for prizes and glory. He got some
prizes, but it was more than a month before he had a chance for glory.
Then he came in sight of a British man-of-war, a sight that pleased him
very much.

Up came the _Essex_, pretending to be a merchant ship and with the
British flag flying. That is one of the tricks which naval officers
play. They think it right to cheat an enemy. The stranger came bowling
down under full sail and fired a gun as a hint for the supposed
merchantman to stop. So the _Essex_ backed her sails and hove to until
the stranger had passed her stern.

Porter was now where he had wanted to get. He had the advantage of the
wind--what sailors call the "weather-gage." So down came the British
flag and up went the Stars and Stripes: and the ports were thrown open,
showing the iron mouths of the guns, ready to bark.

When the English sailors saw this they cheered loudly and ran to their
guns. They fired in their usual hasty fashion, making much noise but
doing no harm. Porter waited till he was ready to do good work, and then
fired a broadside that fairly staggered the British ship.

The Englishman had not bargained for such a salute as this, and now
tried to run away. But the _Essex_ had the wind, and in eight minutes
was alongside. And in those eight minutes her guns were busy as guns
could be. Then down came the British flag. That was the shortest fight
in the war.

The prize was found to be the corvette _Alert_. A corvette is a little
ship with not many guns. She was not nearly strong enough for the
_Essex_, and gave up when only three of her men were wounded. But she
had been shot so full of holes that she already had seven feet of water
in her hold and was in danger of sinking. It kept the men of the _Essex_
busy enough to pump her out and stop up the holes, so that she should
not go to the bottom. Captain Porter did not want to lose his prize. He
came near losing it, and his ship too, in another way, as I have soon to
tell.

You must remember that he had taken other prizes and sent them home with
some of his men. So he had a large number of prisoners, some of them
soldiers taken from one of his prizes. There w