A FRIENDLY SALUTE: THE PRESIDENT-LITTLE BELT AFFAIR AND THE COMING OF THE WAR OF 1812 by JONATHON WOODARD HOOKS A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2009 Copyright Jonathon Woodard Hooks 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT In May 1811, thirteen months before the start of the War of 1812, the United States frigate President and the British sloop-of-war Little Belt fought an hour-long battle approximately fifty miles off the North Carolina coast. When the firing ceased the Little Belt had suffered heavy damage and thirty-two casualties. The President sustained only minor damage and one wounded sailor. The brief battle had significant ramifications for Anglo- American relations. The victory of the U.S.S. President four years after the defeat of the Chesapeake redeemed the honor of the United States and its navy. Because the action occurred near the spot of the previous bout, some Americans and Britons suspected the scrape did not happen accidentally. Newspaper editors and political leaders hostile to the president alleged that President Madison ordered the attack as a means to halt the impressments of American sailors or possibly to draw the United States into a war with Great Britain. In both nations sentiment for a conflict increased as many Britons believed the United States had sullied their national honor and numerous Americans concluded that a victory over Britain would come with ease. The President -Little Belt Affair also confirmed the American tactical theory holding that the United States Navy could never destroy Britain’s, but that lone, swift ships could defeat single British vessels in head-to-head duels. This strategy proved extremely successful in the opening months of the War of 1812. ii While the President -Little Belt Affair did not start the War of 1812, it did serve as an important event leading up to the conflict. Without this occurrence Americans might never have summoned the courage to fight their former master and the British might never have developed the desire to struggle with a nation thousands of miles away while their empire resisted Napoleonic France. The President -Little Belt Affair proved an essential part of the road to the War of 1812. iii CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................ ii INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: Sovereignty, Neutral Rights, and Impressment…………….4 CHAPTER 2: Tarnished Honor .................................................................42 CHAPTER 3: Mounting Frustrations ........................................................72 CHAPTER 4: The Encounter ...................................................................105 CHAPTER 5: The Chesapeake Avenged ................................................137 CHAPTER 6: The American Inquiry ......................................................160 CHAPTER 7: On to War .........................................................................188 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................214 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................219 iv INTRODUCTION In May 1811, thirteen months before the outbreak of the War of 1812, the American frigate President engaged the British sloop-of-war Little Belt in a short, bloody battle approximately fifty miles off the United States coast. The mêlée resulted in the outgunned Little Belt incurring over twenty casualties and enough structural damage to threaten its sea- worthiness. The President sustained little damage and one of its crewmen was seriously wounded. Controversy immediately ensued over this event. Why did warships of two countries still at peace engage in battle? Who fired first? Did one of the commanders act on covert orders? Would this violent episode finally trigger a war between the young republic and its former master? The President-Little Belt affair was not an isolated event but an episode in a long brewing storm that led to war in June 1812. From the beginning of independence in 1783 the United States struggled to earn the respect of European nations. The fledgling republic began under the weight of mounting debts, a severely weakened military, and the enmity of many monarchies that viewed the new nation as a potential threat to their interests and form of government. Of these powers, Spain, France, and Great Britain presented the most problems. Spain viewed the United States as a potential military and economic rival in North America. France, America’s only ally in the Revolutionary War, possessed little love for the republic and nurtured its friendship only for potential economic and diplomatic advantages that would, not coincidentally, avenge England. But of the European powers that annoyed the United States the most, Great Britain seemed to be the most oppressive; the inability of the 1 two Atlantic countries to reach equitable settlements in their mutual problems led to another war almost thirty years after the first had ended. The major causes for the second war between the mother country and its former colonies were bitterness regarding the outcome of the American Revolution, rivalry over North America, the ease with which British and American citizens passed for each other, and the United States’s potential to challenge Great Britain as the world’s greatest economic empire. Britain possessed the world’s best navy, and the “ruler of the waves” could threaten the United States’s foreign trade through control of water lanes. It was at sea that Americans encountered most of their problems with their former countrymen. Great Britain struggled with France from 1793-1815, and in this long period the Royal Navy seized American merchant ships and cargos at will -- all in the name of a military blockade. While this practice affected the most Americans, the forced entrance into the British navy of sailors serving aboard American vessels, commonly referred to as impressment, provided the greatest humiliation and the utmost challenge to national sovereignty. For nineteen years (while dealing with its disagreements with France and Spain) the United States wrestled to find peaceful solutions to its numerous problems with the British; it failed as Americans suffered repeated humiliation, diplomatic insults, and the loss of property and lives. Little wonder that tensions eventually erupted in conflict. This manuscript will examine the influence of the President-Little Belt incident on the coming of war in 1812. The event will not be studied in isolation, but as part and product of the long chain of events that caused the war. Once the Little Belt limped back to port in 1811, diplomats for Great Britain and the United States sought a settlement that suited their nation’s interests while also preserving peace. These efforts quickly became intertwined with negotiations on other tribulations that plagued Anglo-American relations. During this highly 2 sensitive process the issue never found closure and became mixed with the other troubles that led to war. Because the President-Little Belt affair had repercussions outside the realm of foreign relations, this work will deal also with the tactical and psychological influences produced by the clash. In the months following the American victory, public support for a conflict fluctuated in both countries, while government leaders crafted a course of action that sometimes veered from public opinion. Meanwhile, American naval leaders learned lessons that combined with their other experiences to fashion strategies for some of the early engagements in the coming war. Hopefully this work will place the maritime encounter within its proper historical context. 3 CHAPTER 1 Sovereignty, Neutral Rights, and Impressment In September 1783 the United States did what seemed very unlikely in 1775: after an eight-year struggle against the British Empire, thirteen American colonies won their independence. Against overwhelming odds the United States outlasted its colonial master, but how much of the victory belonged solely to the new nation? Britain suffered military defeats at the hands of the Continental Army, but the glaring fact remained that few American victories came without outside help. Within months of the war’s eruption France, Britain’s chief commercial, political, and military rival, provided covert support to the American rebels. After the American victory at Saratoga in the autumn of 1777, France signed the Treaty of Alliance and a Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the fledgling United States in February 1778. These accords practically assured an American victory because not only did they provide the United States with a steady stream of money, armaments, and diplomatic support, but the powerful French army and navy would now assist the Continental forces in their campaigns. This combination would be too powerful for the British to resist successfully. Indeed, French assistance was valuable in the military campaigns in New England and Georgia, while much of the credit for the American victory at Yorktown belonged to the French army and navy that isolated Lord Cornwallis’s British army and forced its surrender in 1781. With France’s entry into the war in 1778 came that of Spain a year later. Not only did the two