18071776 Club
HMS Leopard opens fire on USS Chesapeake; three Americans dead, four seized and taken to Halifax
Commodore Barron refuses a British demand to search for deserters; Leopard fires on a ship whose guns are still unloaded, off the Virginia coast.
In the summer of 1807, the young American republic still shared its coastal waters with the Royal Navy, an uneasy arrangement that had never fully resolved itself after independence. On June 22, Captain Salusbury Pryce Humphreys brought HMS Leopard alongside the American frigate USS Chesapeake off Norfolk, Virginia, and demanded the right to search for Royal Navy deserters. Commodore James Barron refused — and Leopard opened fire on an unprepared ship whose guns were still unloaded and decks cluttered with stores. Three Americans were killed, eighteen wounded, and four men were seized and taken to Halifax for trial…
