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The government accepted his offer, and gave him orders to fit out such a fleet as he chose, and he bought eight small schooners, similar to those used by the pirates, and also five large row-boats or barges, which were called the “mosquito fleet” and Farragut was assigned to one of the vessels named the Greyhound, and in command of it he had many exciting encounters with the pirates. At one time when off the Southern coast of Cuba, some of the Greyhound’s crew who had gone ashore to hunt game, were fired on by the pirates, and returned this fire without effect, then went back to their ship. Farragut was ordered to take a party of men to capture the pirates, and at three o’clock the next morning, they set out in the barges, and after landing on the island, had no easy time to find the pirate camp, as they had to cut their way through thickets of trailing vines, thorny bushes and cactus plants and in such intense heat that some of the men fainted from exhaustion. They found the camp, but their prey had fled! Evidently the approaching vessels had been seen, and the pirates were gone. The sailors at once searched their camp, which was protected by several cannon, and there they found some houses a hundred feet long, and also an immense cave filled with all kinds of goods taken from plundered vessels.

The sailors burned the houses, and carried off the plunder and the cannon to their boats, while David carried away a monkey as his prize. Just as the men were returning to their boats, they heard a great noise behind them, and thought surely that the pirates had come back to attack them, and Farragut stood still and made a speech to the sailors, urging them to fight bravely and to stand their ground like men. Imagine their surprise and amusement when they found their foes were not pirates, but thousands of land-crabs scurrying through the briars!

This was only one of the incidents that young Farragut had while on his first cruise as acting lieutenant. During the entire cruise to the West Indies, the American sailors suffered much from yellow fever and from exposure, and in alluding to the voyage in after days, Farragut said:

“I never owned a bed during my cruise in the West Indies, but laid me down to rest wherever I found the most comfortable berth.”

The pirates were finally driven from the seas, their boats burned or captured, and their camps entirely destroyed, and Farragut’s first and most exciting cruise as a youthful commander came to an end. The honours which were his at a later day were such as come to the man of years of training and experience, but from the day when the little midshipman stood on the deck of the Essex beside Captain Porter as she sailed down the Delaware river, to the time when he stood in the proud glory of his title, the first admiral of America, his is the story of a man who won his fame by a never varying attention to detail, a never ending effort for self-improvement, and a never relaxed adherence to duty.

All honour to Midshipman Farragut–the Admiral-to-be!