The other two he also manned--and now behold him, if you please, sailing the Pacific with a squadron of four good ships! Soon he ran down and captured two British letter-of-marque vessels, well armed and in fighting trim, and in a trice he had not a squadron but a fleet under his command, seven ships in all, mounting eighty guns and carrying three hundred and forty men and eighty prisoners.

Two of these prizes he discovered to be crammed to the hatches with cordage, paint, tar, canvas, and fresh provisions.
The list could not have been more acceptable if Captain David Porter himself had signed the requisition in the New York Navy Yard.
Lieutenant Downes was now sent off cruising by himself, and so well did he profit by his captain's example and precepts that in a little while he had bagged a squadron of his own, three ships with twenty-seven guns and seventy-five men.

When he rejoined the flagship in a harbor of the mainland, Porter rewarded him by calling his cruiser the _Essex, Junior_, promoting him to the rank of commander, and increasing his armament.

They then resumed cruising in two squadrons, finding more British ships and sending them into the neutral harbor of Valparaiso or home to the United States with precious cargoes of whale oil and bone.
Within a few months he swept the Southern Pacific almost clean of British merchantmen, whalers, and privateers.

Winter coming on, Porter then sailed to the pleasant Marquesas Islands and laid the _Essex_ up for a thorough overhauling.