Chesapeake–Leopard Affair

The Chesapeake–Leopard Affair was a naval engagement that occurred off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, on 22 June 1807, between the British warship HMS Leopard (1790) and American frigate USS Chesapeake (1799), when the crew of the Leopard pursued, attacked and boarded the American frigate looking for deserters from the Royal Navy. The Chesapeake was caught unprepared 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. 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 diplomatically threaten the British government into settling the matter. The United States Congress backed away from armed conflict when British envoys showed no contrition for the Chesapeake affair and delivered proclamations reaffirming impressment. Jefferson's political failure to coerce Great Britain led him towards economic warfare: the Embargo of 1807.

Background


In the spring of 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, a number of British naval vessels were on duty on the North 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 USS Chesapeake (1799). 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 Navy 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 HMS Melampus (1785) 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 Navy Yard outfitting for her coming voyage to the Mediterranean.

Vice-Admiral Sir George Berkeley dispatched his flagship, the fourth-rate warship HMS Leopard (1790), with written orders authorizing the boarding and search of the frigate to recover deserters. Berkeley ordered Leopard's captain to search for deserters from HMS Belleisle (1795), HMS Bellona (1760), HMS Triumph (1764), HMS Chichester (1753), HMS Halifax (1806), and the cutter HMS Zenobia (1806).

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. Barron was not alarmed, and came to and received Lieutenant John Meade on board, 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 (1806). 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.

The brig HMS Columbine (1806) brought the first dispatches to Halifax in early July. Leopard followed with her prisoners for trial. The British citizen, Ratford, was sentenced to death and hanged from the yardarm of Halifax on 31 August 1807. The three Americans received sentences of 500 lashes each, but the sentences were later commuted.

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 (1807) returned the last two of the alleged British deserters to Boston, one month after the outbreak of the War of 1812.

Aftermath
The incident outraged the American public, as President Thomas Jefferson noted: "Never since the Battle of Lexington have I seen this country in such a state of exasperation as at present, and even that did not produce such unanimity." 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 Federal government began to be concerned about the lack of war material. A protective tariff on gunpowder manufacture followed, which helped ensure the fortunes of the DuPont company.

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 1 June 1813, during the War of 1812, after a long and surprising series of victories of United States' ships in combat with the Royal Navy, the British frigate HMS Shannon (1806) captured Chesapeake—then under the command of Captain James Lawrence—in a ship-to-ship action near Boston. The British took Chesapeake into the Royal Navy but put her up for sale at Plymouth in July 1819. She was sold in 1819 and her timbers are now part of the Chesapeake Mill in Wickham, England.

In Fiction
The fallout from the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair and the subsequent Chesapeake vs Shannon  engagement in the War of 1812 feature prominently in the sixth Aubrey-Maturin novel, The Fortune of War, by Patrick O'Brian.