HMS Leopard Fires on the USS Chesapeake
On June 22, 1807, the British frigate HMS Leopard engaged the American frigate USS Chesapeake off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, in an incident that escalated tensions between the United States and Great Britain. The confrontation resulted in the deaths of three American sailors and left 18 wounded, marking a significant event leading up to the War of 1812. The backdrop of this clash involved ongoing maritime conflicts stemming from the Napoleonic Wars, with both Britain and France vying for control and using American shipping to further their own economic interests. The British practiced impressment, forcibly recruiting American sailors, which was a major source of frustration for the U.S. The Leopard's captain, under orders to search the Chesapeake for British deserters, resorted to aggressive tactics when Commodore James Barron refused to allow the search. After enduring heavy fire from the Leopard, the Chesapeake was forced to surrender, leading to widespread outrage among the American public. President Thomas Jefferson sought to avoid war through economic measures, including an embargo that ultimately backfired. The aftermath of this incident continued to influence U.S.-British relations, paving the way for eventual conflict.
HMS Leopard Fires on the USS Chesapeake
HMS Leopard Fires on the USS Chesapeake
On June 22, 1807, the British frigate HMS Leopard engaged the American frigate USS Chesapeake in the waters off Norfolk, Virginia. Three Americans lost their lives during the encounter, and 18 more were wounded. The incident was one of the most serious in a number of events that gradually led the United States and Great Britain into the War of 1812.
After the American Revolution, Great Britain was drawn into conflict with the revolutionary government of France on the European continent and on the high seas. Eventually, Napoleon Bonaparte emerged as the dictator of France and lead the French in a long series of wars against the British. Economics inevitably drew the Americans into the ongoing British-French struggles. The United States was a commercial nation involved in carrying goods across the Atlantic. When war broke out, both England and France turned to the United States to supplement their merchant marines. The plight of the European powers offered the Americans great profits, but risks accompanied the new opportunities.
Britain's naval dominance in the Atlantic made the French especially dependent on the American maritime fleet. In times of peace, France did not allow American vessels to carry goods between its Caribbean colonies and Europe, but during its struggles against Great Britain, France opened the West Indies to American traders. The British naturally protested, invoking their “Rule of 1756,” which declared that trade prohibited in peace had to remain illegal in war and they threatened to seize American vessels carrying French products.
American merchants used a tactic known as the “broken voyage” to circumvent British objections to their trade with France. American traders picked up their cargoes in the French West Indies and first brought them to American ports, where the goods were theoretically unloaded and taxed, thereby “breaking” the voyage. Then merchants reshipped the original items to French ports as American rather than West Indian products.
Britain temporarily accepted this ruse. In a court case involving the Polly, an American ship seized by the British navy, the British in 1800 accepted the defense's contention of a “broken voyage.” However, as the war with France became more intense, and the Americans began to only “touch base” in United States ports without actually unloading or paying levies, the British attitude hardened. In the Essex case of 1805, the British prize courts, reversing an earlier court decision, outlawed the re-export trade.
The Essex decision was only the first of a series of actions that adversely affected American shipping interests. In May 1806 the English instituted a “paper blockade,” namely one not supported by ships stationed off the affected ports, of Europe from the Elbe River to Brest. In November 1806 Napoleon issued the equally unenforceable Berlin Decree, which forbade all commerce with Britain and authorized the seizure of vessels trading with the British. Finally, in January 1807, the British retaliated with an order barring ships from the coasts of France and its allies.
England controlled the seas and was in a better position than France to enforce its decrees. The Americans thus directed most of their wrath against the British, and by 1807 the relationship between the United States and England had badly deteriorated. The Leopard-Chesapeake affair took place during this tense period. The timing only aggravated the consequences of the incident, which was a serious matter in its own right. The confrontation, which concerned the impressment issue, another dimension of the question of neutral rights, brought Britain and the United States to the brink of war.
Impressment, in the Anglo-American context, was the British practice of stopping and searching American vessels, and of removing sailors born in the British Isles so they might serve in the Royal Navy. The British, desperately in need of sailors to battle the French, justified their actions on the principle of “once an Englishman always an Englishman.” Some of the impressed men had been legally naturalized as United States citizens, others had obtained naturalization papers illegally, and a number were actually deserters from the British navy. All had found the high wages of the American peacetime fleet more attractive than either the poor pay of England's commercial vessels or the prospects of battle faced by the British navy. Whatever the actual background of these pirated mariners, the highhanded manner in which the British seized them was a continuing source of friction between the United States and England.
Although impressment had long provoked American ill -feeling towards Great Britain, not until 1807 did the issue become so important that the United States considered war. On March 7, 1807, a number of the crew of the British 16-gun sloop Halifax, which was cruising in American waters, seized a lifeboat and used it to escape to Norfolk, Virginia. The commander of the Halifax complained to the British consul and to American naval authorities in Norfolk in an effort to regain his sailors, but received no satisfaction. Instead, when the officer met the deserters on the streets of Norfolk, one of them, Jenkin Ratford, began to swear at him and declared that in the land of liberty he could do what he pleased.
Angered by their inability to retrieve deserters, some of whom had allegedly signed on the American frigate Chesapeake, the commander of the Halifax and a number of other officers complained to their commander, Admiral George Cranfield Berkeley in Nova Scotia, Canada. Without waiting for advice from London, Berkeley issued a fateful order. He directed that all captains and commanders of British vessels, should they meet the Chesapeake outside the territorial waters of the United States, stop the frigate and search it for deserters from the British warships Bellona, Belleisle, Triumph, Chichester, Halifax, and Zenobia.
Captain S. P. Humphreys, commander of the Leopard, carried Berkeley's order, dated June 1, 1807, to Chesapeake Bay. Humphreys arrived at nearby Lynnhaven Bay on June 21, and at 6:00 A.M. the next morning anchored a short distance to the east, about three miles north of Cape Henry. At 7:15 A.M. on June 22, the Chesapeake weighed anchor from Norfolk and set sail for the Mediterranean Sea. As the Chesapeake passed Lynnhaven Bay at 9:00 A.M., the British battleship Bellona sighted it and signaled to the Leopard to lift anchor and reconnoiter.
Hours passed before the Leopard and Chesapeake made contact. At 3:30 P.M. the British vessel hailed the American about eight to ten miles southeast by east from Cape Henry. The British announced that they had dispatches for Commodore James Barron, the American commander. Barron, who thought that the English merely wanted him to carry mail to Europe, as a traditional naval courtesy, invited them to send an officer on board the Chesapeake. Lieutenant Meade from the Leopard met Commodore Barron shortly before 4:00 P.M. He presented a note from Captain Humphreys explaining Admiral Berkeley's directive and demanding the right to carry it out. Expecting that Humphreys would respect his word, Barron wrote a reply stating that he was not aware of the presence among his crew of any deserters from the ships mentioned in Berkeley's list and that he could not allow his ship to be searched.
Meade returned to the Leopard with Barron's message. Humphreys, however, did not believe that Berkeley's orders allowed him to accept the American answer. The English captain brought his vessel nearer to the American and called, “Commodore Barron, you must be aware of the necessity I am under of complying with the order of my commander-in-chief.” Barron, knowing that the crew of the Chesapeake would require at least half an hour to prepare the frigate for combat, sought to delay. Twice Barron called through his trumpet, “I do not hear what you say.” After the second exchange the Leopard fired a single shot across the bow of the Chesapeake, and a minute later another. At 4:30 P.M. the British ship opened up with all its weaponry against the helpless American frigate. The Leopard fired three full broadsides point blank into the Chesapeake at a distance of not more than 200 feet. The Americans managed to fire only a single shot.
Twenty-two shots ripped the Chesapeake's hull, and ten tore the sails. The firing mutilated the three masts and cut much of the rigging. Three American sailors died, eight suffered severe wounds, and ten less serious injuries. Barron had no choice but to strike his colors and surrender. When the firing ceased, several British officers boarded the Chesapeake. They seized three men who they claimed had deserted from the Melampus. Berkeley's order had not mentioned that vessel, and the men, two whites and one black, were actually American citizens who had been illegally impressed into service on the Melampus. The British also found Jenkin Ratford who, unknown to Barron, had joined the Chesapeake under the name Wilson.
Barron, in accord with his situation as a defeated commander, offered to turn the Chesapeake over to British control. Humphreys' instructions, however, did not call for capturing the frigate and so he declined to take the vessel. The Americans, degraded and outraged, then turned their battered vessel and headed back to Norfolk.
The American public was angered by Britain's cavalier treatment of the Chesapeake, and many favored military retaliation. President Thomas Jefferson, however, sought to avoid war and relied instead on economic measures and other steps. After ordering British warships out of American waters, he called a special session of Congress for October 1807, and secured from the legislators an appropriation of $850,000 with which to strengthen the United States Navy. In December Congress, on Jefferson's recommendation, passed an embargo act. According to its provisions, which Jefferson saw as a form of “peaceful coercion,” all American vessels were forbidden to sail for foreign ports and foreign ships were barred from carrying goods out of American ports. All exports were prohibited. Unfortunately, Jefferson's embargo backfired. It harmed the American economy more than the economies of Britain and France, and was repealed several years later.
The question of reparations for damage inflicted on the Chesapeake was not laid to rest until November 1811, when the United States accepted a British offer of settlement. Even with reparations paid and with two of the impressed seamen returned (the other two were dead, one having been hanged as a deserter) the question of British impressment of American seamen remained an important issue when differences between the United States and Great Britain finally culminated in the War of 1812.