Chesapeake–Leopard Affair

This article is about 1807 incident. For incident during the American Civil War, see Chesapeake Affair.

Chesapeake–Leopard Affair
Part of the events leading to the War of 1812
HMS Leopard (right) fires upon the USS Chesapeake
Date June 22, 1807 Location off Norfolk, Virginia Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom	United States
Commanders and leaders
Salusbury Pryce Humphreys	James Barron
Strength
1 4th rate	1 frigate
Casualties and losses
none	1 frigate damaged 4 killed 17 wounded 4 captured

The Chesapeake–Leopard Affair was a naval engagement which occurred off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, on June 22, 1807, between the British warship HMS Leopard and American frigate USS Chesapeake, when the crew of the Leopard pursued, attacked and boarded the American frigate looking for deserters from the British Navy. The Chesapeake was caught off guard and in a state of unpreparedness and after a short battle involving broadsides from the Leopard, her commander James Barron surrendered his vessel to the British after firing only one shot. Four crew members were removed from the American vessel and were tried for desertion, one of whom was subsequently hanged aboard the Leopard. The Chesapeake was allowed to return home where James Barron was court martialed and suspended from command.

The Chesapeake-Leopard Affair created uproar among Americans and strident calls for war with Great Britain, but these quickly subsided. President Thomas Jefferson initially attempted to use this widespread bellicosity to threaten the British government into settling the matter diplomatically. The United States Congress backed away from armed conflict when British envoys showed no contrition whatsoever for the Chesapeake outrage and delivered proclamations reaffirming impressment. Jefferson’s political failure to coerce Great Britain led him towards economic warfare: the Embargo of 1807.

Background

USS Chesapeake

In the spring of 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, a number of British Navy warships were on duty on the American Station, blockading two French Third Rate warships in Chesapeake Bay.[2] Several Royal Navy seamen escaped from their British vessels and local American authorities provided sanctuary for them. One of these deserters, a Londoner named Jenkin Ratford, joined the crew of the U.S.S. Chesapeake. Ratford had made himself conspicuous to British Officers by shouting at them on the streets of Norfolk, Virginia.

The men suspected of deserting were reported to be at the Gosport naval yard, then under the command of Stephen Decatur. Decatur received a letter from the British consul with instructions to turn over the three men who were alleged to have deserted from the British ship Melampus and who had enlisted into the American Navy through the efforts of Lieutenant Sinclair who was recruiting crew members at Gosport for the Chesapeake which at the time was in the Washington naval yard outfitting for her coming voyage to the Mediterranean.

Vice-Admiral Sir George Berkeley dispatched his flagship, the fourth-rate warship Leopard, with written orders authorizing the boarding and search of the frigate to recover deserters .

Attack and Search

The Chesapeake was off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, under the command of Commodore James Barron, when the Leopard, under the command of Salusbury Pryce Humphreys, encountered and hailed the American warship. Unalarmed, Barron came to and received Lieutenant John Meade onboard, who presented Barron with the search warrant. After an inconclusive debate, the officer returned to the Leopard, and Captain Humphreys, using a hailing trumpet, ordered the American ship to submit. When the Chesapeake temporized, the Leopard fired a round across their bow, followed by broadsides. Her decks cluttered with stores in preparation for a long cruise, the Chesapeake managed to fire only a single gun in reply to the Leopard. Barron struck his colors and surrendered. Three of the Chesapeake’s crew were killed and 18 were wounded, including Barron. Humphreys, however, refused the surrender, and sent a boarding party to search for the deserters.[5]

Scores of British nationals and deserters were known to be among the Chesapeake crew. The Leopard seized exactly four Royal Navy deserters: Daniel Martin, John Strachan and William Ware, run from HMS Melampus; and Jenkin Ratford, run from HMS Halifax. Of the four, only Ratford was British-born. The other three sailors were American citizens - two of them demonstrably non-British because they were African-Americans – all who had served on British warships.

Leopard carried the men to Halifax for trial. The British citizen, Ratford, was sentenced to death and hanged from the yardarm of Halifax on August 31, 1807. The three Americans were sentenced to 500 lashes each, but the sentence was later commuted.^{[citation needed]}

The incident caused a storm of protest from the United States' government, and the British government eventually offered not only to return the three to the U.S. but also to pay reparations for damaging the Chesapeake.

In 1812, the schooner HMS Bream returned the last two of the alleged British deserters to Boston, one month after the outbreak of the War of 1812.

Origins of the War of 1812
Chesapeake–Leopard Affair
Orders in Council (1807)
Embargo Act of 1807
Non-Intercourse Act (1809)
Macon's Bill Number 2
Tecumseh's War
Henry letters
War Hawks
Rule of 1756
Monroe–Pinkney Treaty
Little Belt Affair

Aftermath

The American public was outraged with the incident, as President Thomas Jefferson noted: "Never since the Battle of Lexington have I seen this country in such a state of exasperation." James Monroe, then a foreign minister acting under instructions from U.S. Secretary of State James Madison, demanded British disavowal of the deed, the restoration of the four seamen, the recall of Admiral Berkeley, the exclusion of British warships from U.S. territorial waters, and the abolition of impressments from vessels under the United States flag.

This event raised tensions between the two countries and, while possibly not a direct cause, can certainly be seen as one of the events leading up to the War of 1812. Indeed, many Americans demanded war following the incident, but President Jefferson initially turned to diplomacy and economic pressure in the form of the ill-fated Embargo Act of 1807.

The incident had significant repercussions for the U.S. Navy. The public was shocked that Chesapeake had put up little resistance and surrendered so quickly (even if the surrender was declined), calling into question the ability of its navy to defend the U.S. from a possible British invasion, despite its expensive and controversial frigate-building program. A court-martial placed the blame on Barron and suspended him from service for five years as punishment. He did return to service, however, after the five years.

In 1820, Commodore Barron challenged, and killed, fellow Commodore Stephen Decatur in a duel over comments that Decatur had made about Barron's conduct in 1807 (Barron was wounded). Decatur had served on the court-martial that found Barron guilty of being unprepared and that barred him from command for five years.

As for the Chesapeake herself: on June 1, 1813, during the War of 1812, after a long and surprising series of victories of United States' ships in combat with the Royal Navy, Chesapeake – then under the command of Captain James Lawrence – was defeated and captured by the British frigate HMS Shannon in a ship-to-ship action near Boston, and taken into service in the Royal Navy. She was sold out of the service in 1820, the same year in which Barron killed Decatur.

Fiction

In Patrick O'Brian's novel Desolation Island, Jack Aubrey commands the Leopard well after her victory.

See also

• Little Belt Affair
• Impressment of American Seamen

Bibliography

• Mackenzie, Alexander Slidell (2005). Life of Stephen Decatur: a commodore in the Navy of the United States.
  C. C. Little and J. Brown, 1846 - Biography & Autobiography - 443 pages. 

• Guttridge, Leonard F (2005). Stephen Decatur American Naval Hero, 1779–1820. Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, New York, NY, 2006. p. 304. ISBN 978-0-7653-0702-6. 

• Cooper, James Fenimore (1826). History of the navy of the United States of America.
  Stringer & Townsend, New York. p. 508. OCLC 197401914.  Url

• Dickon, Chris (2008). The enduring journey of the USS Chesapeake: ....
  The Hickory Press, Charleston, SC. p. 157. ISBN 978.1.59629.298.7.  Url

• McMaster, John Bach (1914). A History of the People of the United States: 1803-1812.
  D. Appleton and company, New York & London.. p. 590.  Url

Further reading

• Toll, Ian W (2006). Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the US Navy. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-05847-5. OCLC 70291925. 
• Tucker, Spencer (2006). Injured Honor: The Chesapeake-Leopard Affair. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-824-0. OCLC 70291925. 

External links

• Journal of the Early Republic: Remembering the USS Chesapeake: The Politics of Maritime Death and Impressment by Robert E. Cray, Jr. (pdf)
• Norfolk Historical Society Account