David Porter

David Porter 1780-1843, American naval officer, b. Boston. Appointed a midshipman in 1798, he served in the West Indies and in the war with Tripoli. In 1803 his ship, the Philadelphia, was captured off the coast of Tripoli, and Porter was a prisoner until peace was declared in 1805. He achieved his greatest success as commander of the Essex in the War of 1812. In that year he captured several British ships carrying troops to Halifax and the British war vessel Alert. Then, accompanied by young David Farragut , he sailed the Essex around the Horn and cruised in the Pacific, warring on British commercial vessels. He took formal possession of Nuku Hiva, one of the Marquesas Islands , in Nov., 1813, but this act was not recognized by the U.S. government. In 1814 the Essex was blockaded by British ships in the harbor of Valparaiso, Chile. Porter escaped to sea, but a squall disabled his ship, forcing him back to the coast. He was attacked by two British warships and after a hard-fought battle was forced to surrender. While in the West Indies in 1824 on an expedition for suppressing piracy, Porter forced the officials of the town of Foxardo (Fajardo), Puerto Rico, to apologize for jailing an officer from his fleet. The government did not sanction Porter's act, and he was court-martialed and suspended for six months. Porter resigned and in 1826 entered the Mexican navy as its head. Disgusted with the jealous intrigues of the Mexican officers, he resigned in 1829. After his return to the United States, he became (1831) chargé d'affaires and later (1839) minister at Constantinople and held this post until his death.

Bibliography: See biographies by his son, David Dixon Porter (1875), and D. F. Long (1970); R. Wheeler, In Pirate Waters (1969).

Porter, David (1780–1843) U.S. naval officer. Born at Boston, David Porter was a third-generation American naval officer and went to sea in his teens. In January 1798, he received a warrant as midshipman and sailed with Captain Thomas Truxton in the 38-gun frigate USS Constellation. He distinguished himself in his first engagement—with the French warship Insurgente (February 1798)—and was promoted to Lieutenant in October 1799. He saw active service in Barbary Wars and was captured when the frigate USS Philadelphia ran aground in Tripoli harbor in 1803. Imprisoned until the war was over, Porter was promoted to master commandant in 1806 and to captain on July 2, 1812. During the War of 1812, he successfully commanded the 32-gun frigate USS Essex in the Atlantic and in the Pacific until defeated by two British warships off the coast of Chile in February 1814. Porter subsequently served on the Board of Navy Commissioners (1815–1823) and commanded the Mosquito Squadron hunting pirates in the West Indies. Following a court-martial in 1825 stemming from an attack on a Spanish fort in Puerto Rico, Porter resigned his U.S. commission in 1826 and took service as commander of the Mexican Navy. He gave up his Mexican commission and returned to the United States in 1829 and held various overseas appointments until his death in Pera, near Constantinople, on March 3, 1843. Porter's son, David Dixon Porter, and his adoptive son, David Farragut, were noted U.S. naval officers in the Civil War, and both achieved the highest rank in the U.S. Navy.