‘Don’t Give Up the Ship’

By Roy and Lesley Adkins | MHQ  | 4 comments  | Print This Post  | Email This Post

The Chesapeake was one of six frigates Congress authorized in 1794. U.S. Naval Historical Center.

‘The Americans have . . . captured several of our frigates; but to-day, I trust, they will find out the stuff British sailors are made of’.

After the Battle of Trafalgar, the Royal Navy dominated the high seas and blockaded enemy ports, particularly those of Western Europe, trying to paralyze the navies of France and her allies and to control the flow of imports and exports. Napoleon’s response in late 1806 was to attempt to destroy Britain’s economy by closing ports to British merchant ships and to neutral vessels trading with Britain. The British government retaliated in early January 1807 by placing restrictions on neutral merchant vessels, forbidding them to move between enemy ports, and in turn Napoleon declared it illegal to comply with those regulations.

American merchant vessels were especially affected, as they were unable to collect cargoes for their return journey across the Atlantic. Commerce became a major source of aggravation between the United States and Britain.

Sailors were another area of contention between the two countries. Throughout the Napoleonic wars, the Royal Navy was always short of seamen and continually resorted to impressment—compulsory enlistment in which trained sailors were forcibly seized from merchant ships far and wide, as well as from terrified fishing communities and other settlements along the rivers and coasts of Britain, including the city of London on the Thames River. American merchant ships were at times targeted in these manpower raids, particularly as thousands of British seamen (many of them deserters from the Royal Navy) were known to work on board American merchantmen, attracted by the better pay and conditions and the reduced likelihood of encountering a Royal Navy press gang. Some British sailors also enlisted with the U.S. Navy.

The Royal Navy insisted on the right to board American and other neutral merchant ships, even on the high seas, to impress British citizens and remove deserters. To the Americans, this was nothing less than a violation of their sovereignty.

If British seamen had been the only ones taken from American vessels, there might have been much less rancor, but British ship captains also claimed many Americans. One problem was deciding who was an American, because at that time there was no marked American accent. Certificates of citizenship were issued to many American seamen to prevent them from being seized by press gangs, but British citizens could easily purchase bogus protection documents, both in America and in major British seaports, so the Royal Navy tended to treat them all with suspicion.

While the United States granted citizenship to immigrants, Britain held that nationality could not be renounced unless by permission of that nation. This meant that anyone born in the British Isles could not escape the obligation of serving in the navy simply by becoming a naturalized American citizen. The Royal Navy therefore believed that it had the right to impress anyone who spoke English, resulting in thousands of Americans being mistakenly—or deliberately—seized. It has been estimated that from the start of the war with France in 1793 to the outbreak of war with America, between eight and ten thousand American seamen were impressed into the Royal Navy, while others served as volunteers.

Although war between the United States and Britain did not start until 1812, an incident five years earlier almost led to an outbreak of hostilities. In June 1807, the British warships Bellona, Leopard, and Melampus were lying in wait in Lynnhaven Bay, just inside the Chesapeake Bay. They were hoping to intercept two French seventy-four-gun ships of the line, Patriote and Eole, which had been part of the squadron of Rear Admiral Jean-Baptiste-Philibert Willaumez that had taken refuge there nearly a year before, after being damaged by a severe hurricane. The British flotilla, setting up a blockade to keep an eye on these warships, regularly anchored in Hampton Roads to obtain provisions and fresh water in the port of Norfolk.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to

Tags: 19th Century, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, Naval Battles