PORTER, DAVID (1780-1843) . A distin guished American naval officer. Pe was horn in Boston. and was the son of a naval officer in the Ilevolution. 1798. after some experience on merchant vessels. in the course of which he was twice impressed by the British, but each time escaped. he entered the navy as a midshipman. In the following year he served on board the Con stellation in her fight with the French frigate L'Insurgente. Being made a lieutenant in the fol lowing year, he served in the war with Tripoli. and in 1803 was captured with the Philadelphia, and remained a prisoner until peace was made.
During the first year of the War of IS12, as commander of the frigate Essex, 32 guns, he cap tured several English merchant vessels. a trans port, and the corvette it, 20 guns. In the following February he entered the Pacific. and for almost a year preyed with great success upon the English whale-shipping in that ocean. On tide cruise he was accompanied by young David G. Farragut (q.v.). whom he had adopted in 1809. After inflicting much damage upon the enemy. the Esse.r was blockaded in the port of Valparaiso by two English vessels, the Phecbe, of 36 guns. and the Cherub, of 20 ;*tins. Porter offered to fight either singly, but as this offer was refused. he made an attempt on the 2Sth of March to get to sea, with the result that in doubling a head land his vessel was struck by a squall, which carried away her foretopmast and drowned sev eral of her crew. Porter then returned to the harbor and anchored his vessel less than three miles from the town and only half a mile from the shore. Here. disregarding the rules of neu
trality, the British attacked her, and after a bloody and unequal conflict of two hours and a half forced her to surrender. Despite the loss of his vessel, however, Porter was upon his return home received with great honors.
Ilis career after the close of the war was a varied one. ID 1824, being now a commodore. he was sent in charge of au expedition against the West Indian pirates. In the performance of this duty he compelled the Spanish authorities at Fajardo. Porto _Rico, to render an apology for an insult to his flag; for this action he was after wards court-martialed. and on the ground that he had exceeded his authority he was suspended from the service for six months. Disgusted with this treatment, he resigned. and entered the Mexi can navy as rear-admiral. He remained in this service until 1829, and then, being dissatisfied with it, resigned. lie was soon afterwards ap pointed consul-general to the Barbary Powers by President Jackson, and was later transferred as charg6 d'affaires to Constantinople, where he died in 1S43. Porter published a Journal of a Cruise Made to the Pacilick Ocean by the United States Frigate Essex (1813; 1822), a defense of his conduct at Fojar (.0 and and Its Environs (1835). Consult David Dixon Porter, Life of Commodore David Porter (Albany, 1875).