According To The Account Of That Officer, The
Frigate Phoebe, And Two Sloops Of War Cherub And Raccoon, Had
Sailed In Convoy Of The Isaac Todd From Rio Janeiro.
On board of
the Phoebe, Mr. John M'Donald, a partner of the Northwest
Company, embarked as passenger, to profit by the anticipated
catastrophe at Astoria.
The convoy was separated by stress of
weather off Cape Horn. The three ships of war came together again
at the island of Juan Fernandez, their appointed rendezvous, but
waited in vain for the Isaac Todd.
In the meantime, intelligence was received of the mischief that
Commodore Porter was doing among the British whale ships.
Commodore Hillyer immediately set sail in quest of him with the
Phoebe and the Cherub, transferring Mr. M'Donald to the Raccoon,
and ordered that vessel to proceed to the Columbia.
The officers of the Raccoon were in high spirits. The agents of
the Northwest Company, in instigating the expedition, had talked
of immense booty to be made by the fortunate captors of Astoria.
Mr. M'Donald had kept up the excitement during the voyage, so
that not a midshipman but revelled in dreams of ample prize-
money, nor a lieutenant that would have sold his chance for a
thousand pounds. Their disappointment, therefore, may easily be
conceived, when they learned that their warlike attack upon
Astoria had been forestalled by a snug commercial arrangement;
that their anticipated booty had become British property in the
regular course of traffic, and that all this had been effected by
the very Company which had been instrumental in getting them sent
on what they now stigmatized as a fool's errand.
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