Fragments of voyages and travels, including anecdotes of a naval life

by Basil Hall

Every morning, at daybreak, during our stay off New York, we set about arresting the progress of all the vessels we saw—firing off guns to the right and left, to make every ship that was running in, heave to, or wait, until we had leisure to send a boat on board, “to see,” in our lingo, “what she was made of.” I have frequently known a dozen, and sometimes a couple of dozen ships, lying a league or two off the port, losing their fair wind, their tide, and, worse than all, their market, for many hours, sometimes the whole day, before our search was completed. I am not now inquiring whether all this was right, or whether it was even necessary, but simply describing the fact.

When any circumstance in the ship’s papers looked suspicious, the boarding officer brought the master and his documents to the Leander, where they were further examined by the captain; and if any thing more important was then elicited, by an examination of the parties or their papers, to justify the idea that the cargo was French, and not American, as was pretended, the ship was forthwith detained. She was then manned with an English crew from the ships of war, and ordered off to Halifax, to be there tried in the Admiralty Court, or adjudicated, as the term is; and either released with or without demurrage, if proved to be truly neutral property, or condemned, if it were shewn to belong to the enemy.

One can easily conceive how this sort of proceeding, in every possible case, must be vexatious to the neutral. If, in point of fact, the whole, or a part of the ship’s cargo, really belong to that ship’s belligerent party, whose enemy is investigating the case, and this be clearly made out, it is still mortifying to the neutral to see the property taken away which he has undertaken to cover so effectually as to guard it from capture. If, on the other hand, the cargo be all the while, bonâ fide, the property of the neutral whose flag it is sailing under, the vexation caused by this interruption to the voyage is excessive. In the event of restoration or acquittal, the owner’s loss, it is said, is seldom, if ever, adequately compensated for by the awarded damages. In most cases there are found a number of suspicious circumstances sufficient to justify the detention, but not enough to lead to a condemnation; and in these instances the remuneration is not great.

If the case, then, be annoying, in any view of it, supposing the neutral ship to have been met with on the wide ocean, what must be the aggravation when the vessel is laid hold of at the instant she has all but reached her own home? when half an hour’s further sailing would have ended the voyage successfully, and put it beyond the power of either of the belligerents to have asked any questions about the nature of her objects, or the ownership of her cargo?

We detained, at that period, a good many American vessels, on the ground of having French or Spanish property on board. One of these, a very large ship from Lima, filled with cocoa, was clearly made out to be a good prize, and was condemned accordingly. Three or four others, I remember, were restored to their owners by the decision of the Admiralty Court; and two of them were forcibly recaptured by the Americans, on their way to Halifax. On board one of these ships, the master, and the few hands left in her to give evidence at the trial, rose in the night, overpowered the prize-master and his crew, nailed down the hatches, and having put the helm up, with the wind on land, gained the coast before the scale of authority could be turned. In the other ship, the English officer in charge imprudently allowed himself to be drifted so near the land, that the people on the beach, suspecting what had happened, sent off armed boats in sufficient number to repossess themselves of the property. Possession in such cases being not nine, but ten points of the law, we were left to whistle for our prizes!

There was another circumstance connected with our proceedings at that time, of still more serious annoyance to the Americans, and one requiring, in its discussion, still greater delicacy of handling. I shall not, indeed, presume to enter upon its very difficult merits, but, as before, content myself with merely describing the circumstances. I need hardly mention that I allude to the impressment of those seamen whom we found serving on board American merchant ships, but who were known to be, or supposed to be, British subjects. What the strict letter of the law is now, I am not aware—I mean, what would be considered the ‘law of usage’ in the event of another war. But I presume we should act pretty much as we did before, and consequently incur the risk, whatever that might be, of converting a neutral into an enemy, rather than agree to relinquish our right to command the services of any British-born subject, whenever we found him on the high seas. At all events, it seems quite clear that, while we can hold it, we will never give up the right of search, or the right of impressment. We may and ought, certainly, to exercise so disagreeable a power with such temper and discretion as not to provoke the enmity of any friendly nation.

But at the time I speak of, and on board our good old ship the Leander, whose name, I was grieved, but not surprised, to find, was still held in detestation three or four and twenty years afterwards at New York, I am sorry to own that we had not much of this discretion in our proceedings; or, rather, we had not enough consideration for the feelings of the people we were dealing with. We have since learnt to respect them more—or, as they prefer to express it, they have since taught us to respect them: be it either way, it matters not much; and if it please the Americans more to say they have instructed us in this point of good manners, than to allow that we have come to a knowledge of better habits, well and good. I am grievously afraid, however, that if we come again to be placed in like circumstances, and our ships of war are in want of men, whilst Englishmen are to be found in numbers on board American ships, we shall always fall upon some good excuse for impressing His Majesty’s liege subjects, find them where we may. However civilly we may then set about this duty—as a duty it certainly will appear—the old charges, I fear, will again be raised up against us.

To place the full annoyance of these matters in a light to be viewed fairly by English people, let us suppose that the Americans and French were to go to war, and that England for once remained neutral—an odd case, I admit, but one which might happen. Next, suppose that a couple of French frigates were chased into Liverpool, and that an American squadron stationed itself off that harbour to watch the motions of these French ships, which had claimed the protection of our neutrality, and were accordingly received into ‘our waters,’—I ask, “would this blockade of Liverpool be agreeable to us, or not?”

Even if the blockading American frigates did nothing but sail backwards and forwards across the harbour’s mouth, or occasionally run up and anchor abreast of the town, it would not, ‘I guess,’ be very pleasant to be thus superintended. If, however, the American ships, in addition to this legitimate surveillance of their enemy, were to detain off the port, with equal legitimacy of usage, and within a league or so of the light-house, every British ship coming from France, or from a French colony; and if, besides looking over the papers of these ships, to see whether all was regular, they were to open every private letter, in the hope of detecting some trace of French ownership in the cargo, what should we say? And if, out of some twenty ships arrested daily in this manner, one or two of our ships were to be completely diverted from their course, from time to time, and sent off under a prize-master to New York for adjudication, I wonder, how the Liverpool folks would like it? But if, in addition to this perfectly regular and usual exercise of a belligerent right on the part of the Americans, under such circumstances, we bring in that most awkward and ticklish of questions, the impressment of seamen, let us consider how much the feeling of annoyance, on the part of the English neutral, would be augmented.

Conceive, for instance, that the American squadron, employed to blockade the French ships in Liverpool, were short handed, but, from being in daily expectation of bringing their enemy to action, it had become an object of great consequence with them to get their ships manned. And suppose, likewise, that it were perfectly notorious to all parties, that, on board every English ship arriving or sailing from the port in question, there were several American citizens, but calling themselves English, and having in their possession ‘protections,’ or certificates to that effect, sworn to in regular form, but well known to be false, and such as might be bought for 4s. 6d. any day. Things being in this situation, if the American men-of-war, off the English port, were then to fire at and stop every ship, and, besides overhauling her papers and cargo, were to take out any seaman, to work their own guns withal, whom they had reason, or supposed, or said they had reason, to consider American citizens, or whose country they guessed from dialect, or appearance; I wish to know with what degree of patience this would be submitted to on the Exchange at Liverpool, or elsewhere in England?