Mad for Glory

by Robert Booth

  For no apparent reason, Porter had given away the huge tactical advantage of surprise. He wrote that he hoped to impress the watching Hapa’a and to enable the Taipi to sequester their women and children. More likely, he simply could not bear the tension. The Americans and Teii spent another day and night in a Hapa’a village, where friendship reigned, the downpour ended, and the warriors rose “fresh and vigorous” and returned to the ridge. “Never in my life,” wrote Porter, “did I witness a more delightful scene.” The Taipi valley was about nine miles long and three or four wide, walled in by “lofty mountains.” At the upper part, a grand cataract fell from “a precipice of many hundred feet in height.” Villages “were scattered here and there, the bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees flourished luxuriantly and in abundance; plantations . . . were in a state of high cultivation, and everything bespoke industry, abundance, and happiness.”

  Porter intended to lay waste to this vision and to kill as many people as possible. His idea of taking a few prisoners gave way to feelings of genocidal vengeance: “I had borne with their reproaches, and my moderation was called cowardice. I offered them friendship, and my offers were rejected with insulting scorn.” He could destroy the tribe that “believed they had obtained an advantage over us”—a belief that stoked Porter’s fear that the other tribes would turn against him. By waging a war of devastation, he could “secure the future tranquility of the island”—at least for as long as he intended to occupy it.

  Porter’s men began the descent toward the river and the music of drums and conch horns, into the homeland of an ancient and undefeated people. At the bottom, they rested on the riverbank, then crossed the ford without loss, firing away at the underbrush. Suddenly the chief warrior emerged, leading a large band of his elite fighters. Before them he fell dead, and another fighter with him, and several more were wounded as they retreated to higher ground. As Porter’s soldiers took the village, followed by groups of Hapa’a and Teii, three were hit by spears and stones, but the Americans coolly kept firing, killing several more natives and driving the rest into the woods. In another skirmish, more Taipi were killed, yet the stones and spears continued to fly from the bushes, and Porter was “satisfied, from the opposition made, that we should have to fight our whole way through the valley.”

  Before starting, he sent a warning to the Taipi that he would “destroy their villages” if they did not surrender. Receiving no response, he had Mouina lead the main force to the next settlement, which they set on fire, and then the next one, and the next, until most of the upper valley was ablaze. Fighting their way toward the waterfall, Porter’s army reached the capital and drove out its defenders. The “beauty and regularity of this place,” he wrote, “was such as to strike every spectator with astonishment; and their grand site, or public square, was far superior to any other we had met with.” Nevertheless, it was all put to the torch, and the Teii and Hapa’a “loaded themselves with plunder, after destroying bread-fruit and other trees and all the young plants they could find.” The Americans now stood at the foot of the great cataract, looking back on their creation, a “scene of ruin and desolation” with thick clouds of smoke rolling up into the blue Pacific sky.

  Were the Taipi ready to quit? Had they been punished enough for mocking Opotee and the moon men? Porter marched his forces back down the valley, avoiding the flames. After a half-hour break, they got ready for the big push toward the beach. “We formed the line of march,” recalled Porter, “and in our route destroyed several other villages, at all of which we had some skirmishing with the enemy.” Eventually they came to the stronghold with the high stone wall. Porter ordered his men to tear it down, but they could do nothing; it was too well built. “This fortification appeared of ancient date,” he decided, “and time alone can destroy it.”

  At the shore, Opotee was met by the chiefs of the Hapa’a, smiling and waving, and by Tavee, the natty chief of the Shoueme, bearing a white flag. Opotee “requested him to return and allay the fears of the women, who . . . were in the utmost terror, apprehensive of an attack” by the lunar killers. The Hapa’a chiefs, wrote Porter, invited him to their valley, “assuring me that an abundance of everything was already provided for us.” As Porter’s men ascended the first mountain on their journey home, he encountered Gattenewa. The old chief did not speak, but genuflected, placing Porter’s hands on his head and resting his brow against the other’s knees. Then he rose and put his hands on the white man’s chest, exclaiming “Gattenewa!” and clapped his own chest, saying “Opotee!”

  Porter turned “to contemplate that valley which, in the morning, we had viewed in all its beauty, the scene of abundance and happiness. A long line of smoking ruins now marked our traces from one end to the other; the opposite hills were covered with the unhappy fugitives, and the whole presented a scene of desolation and horror.” The “heroic” Taipi were, he wrote, “victims of [their] own courage and mistaken pride.”

  At Madisonville, Porter and his men rested. A worn-out marine died a day later. By that time, the Taipi had told Opotee that “there was nothing they desired more than peace, and they would be willing to purchase my friendship on any terms.” He required 400 hogs. The Taipi agreed to live peacefully with all the other tribes, who now sent in great amounts of tribute. Madisonville was overrun by swine, which could not even be corralled, so Porter set up a slaughtering operation on the beach.

  “Peace now being established throughout the island,” he wrote, “and the utmost harmony reigning, not only between us and the Indians, but between the tribes, they mixed with one another about our village in the most friendly manner, and the different chiefs with the priests came daily to visit me.” But as great and admired as Opotee was, he had to move on. “I informed them that I should shortly leave them, and should return again at the expiration of a year,” hoping to find them at peace, but fully prepared, in case of its absence, to punish the tribes “most in fault.”

  Porter had little to do for the next few weeks at Nukuhiva. As the refitting of the Essex went forward, he worked on his journal and wrote a formal report to the Navy Department recounting the challenges he had overcome and the splendid victories he had won.*

  Porter thought about his next move. He could take his prizes and sail west like Lord Anson, across the wastes of the Pacific to Asia, greatly minimizing the chance of encountering British warships and likely gaining entry at Macao, Portugal’s neutral port of entry to China. There he could sell his vessels and perhaps his oil, placing some of the proceeds with dependable American agents. Unencumbered by the prizes, the Essex, with a full crew, could complete her cruise by crossing the Indian Ocean and lurking off the Cape of Good Hope to intercept an English merchantman making her way home. Perhaps in the North Atlantic, not far from New York City, he might surprise a Royal Navy frigate and end his odyssey with a spectacular victory. It seemed the prudent course, but there were other options and a greater temptation.

  For months, Porter knew, he had been hunted, and he had been too smart for the hunters, hiding out at Nukuhiva and practicing the arts of a conqueror. If he really was something of a war god, if he had succeeded magnificently in this first cruise to the South Seas, nothing would seal his fame like surprising and destroying a superior force of pursuers. It was more than ironic that James Hillyar came for him, but in wartime no Briton was a friend. The reversal was irresistible. It would be a grand coup, written about first in his own book and then in the history books, and celebrated forever. He was certain that the Essex could out-sail these Britons and that his crew could outfight anyone. It was only a matter of sailing east and making contact; the rest was preordained.

  Porter ordered that the New Zealander be loaded with barrels of whale oil from the other vessels and then sail for America under master’s mate John King. The other three vessels would stay at Nukuhiva under Gamble and a skeleton crew, with a few British prisoners, to man the fort and inhabit Madisonville. If Porter had not returned or sent word within six months, G
amble was to destroy one vessel and take the other two to Valparaiso.

  For his part, Porter and the Essex were bound for glory. He wrote, “I had done all the injury that could be done to British commerce in the Pacific, and still hoped to signalize my cruise by something more splendid before leaving that sea.”

  During his last days on the island, Opotee toured the remoter parts of the Teii valley, usually in the company of tribal shamans. People ran up to give him coconuts and other gifts, to which he responded with seeds from the American cornucopia, from melons and pumpkins to wheat and Indian corn. He had Wilson explain carefully the crops’ cultivation and the proper way of protecting them from hogs and harvesting them, and he promised to return with whale’s-tooth prizes for the best fruits and vegetables. Although the islanders had their own sort of bread, Opotee showed them how to make wheat into flour for baking bread like that produced at Madisonville’s ovens, of which the women had become “extravagantly fond.”

  When not playing seed king or spending quality time at home with his fifteen-year-old lover, Opotee visited the interior of Nooahevah. “In one of those excursions,” he wrote, “I was led to the chief place of religious ceremony” up in the Havvou valley. In a “large and handsome grove” of trees at the foot of a steep mountain, he encountered a shrine and a deity statue “formed of hard stone, about the common height of a man but larger-proportioned every other way.” Around it were others, made of wood, all “handsomely decorated with streamers of white cloth, which give an elegant and picturesque appearance.” To the right and left stood obelisks about thirty-five feet high, made of bamboo and palm leaves, festooned with the heads of hogs and tortoises, “offerings to their gods.”

  Nearby, Porter noticed four splendid war canoes, “furnished with their outriggers and decorated with ornaments of human hair, coral shells, etc., with abundance of white streamers.” They seemed ready for a voyage, and Porter took a harder look: the big canoes were headed away from the shrine toward the mountainside, and in the stern of each, steering with a paddle, was the figure of a man “in full dress,” ornamented with plumes, earrings, and other fashionable items. Through Wilson, Opotee inquired “who the dignified personage might be” in the largest canoe. He was informed that it was a corpse, that of “the priest who had been killed, not long since, by the Happahs.”

  Porter was fascinated. The “stench here was intolerable” as he approached the dead man’s canoe and “found the bodies of two of the Typees, whom we had killed”—his own victims—“in a bloated state, at the bottom . . . and many other human carcasses, with the flesh still on them, lying about the canoe.” Pursuing his ghastly interest, Opotee learned that the other canoes belonged to “warriors who had been killed or died not long since.” The Taipi had been put in the big canoe, said the shaman, because the priest, now a god, could only be paddled to paradise by enemy warriors killed in battle. “A full crew” of ten was needed—two more dead Taipi fighters—and then the priest-god would begin his journey, with a sea stock of red hogs, which snuffled in an enclosure nearby, and choice coconuts and breadfruit. Opotee asked if he had far to go. No, said the shamans, pointing to a modest square enclosure of stones: “that was their heaven, that he was to go there” by way of a river of smoke and an island in the sky.

  Opotee strolled over to inspect the wooden statues, whose facial features were exaggerated in typical tiki style. The shamans went with him, eager to call attention to symbols of their supernatural power. They grasped the icons’ large ears, but their visitor seemed indifferent; they ran their hands over the wide lips as if to make them talk, and they widened their own eyes as they traced the enormous goggling eyes of the statues. Unmoved, Opotee told them that they treated their gods disrespectfully. No, they said, not at all. These were but attendants like themselves, guardians of the grove and of the small house in which resided the greatest of the gods.

  Opotee wanted a look, but the shamans hesitated. They consulted in whispers, then walked over and ducked through the doorway of the shrine. When they came out, solemnly proceeding, they held an effigy lashed to a spear, with a head made of strips of cloth, resembling “a child in swaddling clothes.” At the sight of this most sacred relic of the island people—so reminiscent of the divine infant of his own forgotten religion—their conqueror guffawed.

  The shamans went stiff and looked at each other, then at the scoffing alien. “I could not help laughing at the ridiculous appearance of the god they worshipped,” he confessed. The holy men recovered quickly. They appeased Opotee with animated nods and smiles and “a great deal of good humor, some of them dandling and nursing the god, as a child would her doll.”

  *In the seaport of Salem, whose Federalists had built the Essex and given her to the nation, Porter’s report would be received with disgust, sarcasm, and incredulity, as reflected in the Federalist newspaper, the Gazette.

  Chapter Eleven

  Rendezvous

  In the first light of February 8, 1814, two vessels approached the high bluffs of the Point of Angels at the entrance to Valparaiso Harbor. As they did so, Captain James Hillyar, in command of the Phoebe and the squadron, and Captain Tucker of the Cherub spotted a sloop sailing toward them with men waving and a voice calling in English of a naval sort; it was George O’Brien, mate of a British merchantman. He came up with Phoebe and stood in the sheets of his little boat alongside the great warship, hollering that he had news of the highest importance. He was taken up, and he was not wrong. The American frigate Essex, he said, was anchored in the outer harbor two miles off; her commander, David Porter, had thrown a grand party on board ship the night before, with wine flowing freely and all the fine ladies and gentlemen of Valparaiso dancing into the small hours. The Essex remained vulnerable, with tents and awnings on deck, officers surely passed out in their cabins, and half the men ashore in the city. There was another American vessel, a corvette of twenty guns, but not a real warship and not a threat: Captain Hillyar would know what to do.

  The visitor claimed to have been a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, cashiered for youthful indiscretions but forever loyal and more than willing to put his men at the captain’s disposal. Aware of Porter’s love of tricks and impersonation, Hillyar wondered about this bold man O’Brien but judged him a sincere patriot and sent word to Captain Tucker that the six-month hunt for the Essex might well come to an end that very morning. Hillyar’s chief officer, the excellent Lieutenant William Ingram, ordered the drummers to beat to quarters, and the decks of the Phoebe seethed with sailors and marines throwing on their clothes and rushing to battle stations to make an entrance that old Valparaiso would never forget.

  Hillyar rounded the point and had to tack his way forward across the moderate breeze coming off the land. To the right, under cloudy skies, was the conquistadors’ fort, Castello Viejo, on the cliffside at Point Antonio, forming one pillar of the harbor; in the distance, two miles to the east across the calm waters, stood the walls of another fort, the Castello el Baron. Presumably there was nothing to worry about. As Hillyar knew from having visited in September, Valparaiso welcomed all flags.

  Dead ahead, in the outer anchorage off the old fort, the Essex lay at her mooring, not exactly the picture of disarray. Quietly Hillyar gave orders, and Ingram sent his lieutenants and midshipmen throughout the vessel to see that all was in readiness for the terrible surprise. It was 7:30. In half an hour, with two or three more stretches across the wind, the men of the Phoebe would be throwing a party of their own.

  Porter was wide awake. Lieutenant Wilmer had roused him at six o’clock to say that he had received a signal from the Essex Junior offshore that two vessels were approaching, perhaps frigates. Porter had given the order to fire a shot, and in a few minutes the liberty-men, one-third of the well-drilled crew, had swarmed down to the wharves and into the boats. Porter directed that the Essex be prepared for action, and then he joined Downes on board Essex Junior to get a good look at the vessels in the offing. It was true: both were En
glish, one a frigate, obviously intending to enter an open port guarded by three forts against any hostile action. Porter was back on board the Essex well before eight o’clock, eager for the rendezvous, fully prepared for the worst. The Essex Junior took a position nearby so that the two vessels could defend each other.

  Entering the harbor, Phoebe was alone, guns thrust from her ports, sails taut on a reach, while Cherub fell off below the Essex Junior, out of view of the Essex. In the semi-darkness belowdecks, the gun crews strained forward and the boys stood by with their big, lighted matches, awaiting a command. Phoebe came on fast at the Essex, headed straight for her starboard stern quarter. Captain Hillyar stood at the port gunwale of his quarterdeck in his peacoat, grim-faced, sword drawn, with the fate of ships and men in his hand. Ahead of him, down along the rail, disguised by the shadows and the tangle of lines, a hundred armed men crouched in readiness for boarding. At the last second, Hillyar murmured the command, and the bow of the Phoebe swung in a tight arc, reversing her course. As she started to come alongside the Essex, Hillyar clenched; with his first clear view, he realized that it was all wrong. The target’s railing and rigging were thick with armed men ready to board, and her gunports showed the black mouths of carronades. Hillyar had not sprung a trap; he had entered one. Quickly stepping up on an after gun, he did the only thing that might possibly undo the impending disaster: he called out, loudly and pleasantly as if across a London street, “Captain Hillyar’s compliments to Captain Porter! Hoping Captain Porter is well!”

  The crews of both vessels stood in a frenzy of anxiety, watching, waiting, breathless. Time and the world had contracted to this climactic moment, and to Porter. He looked at his men, poised for slaughter; then he met the gaze of his sworn enemy and old friend, just a few yards away, and shouted, “Very well, I thank you!” in civil captain’s diction, as Phoebe came closer, “but I hope you will not come too near!” His voice was rising. “Some accident might take place! Some confusion,” he yelled, “that would be disagreeable to you!” Porter’s absurd words did not stop the aggressor. Staring at Hillyar, he saw the pained white mask and felt the wave of shocked silence as the ship of war, moving on its own, loomed closer and closer, thrusting and sidling toward conjunction.