“Commodore Barron must be aware that the orders of the admiral must be obeyed.”
No reply was made to this, and the words were repeated. A shot was fired across the bows of the Chesapeake. Another one was fired in like manner, and then a whole broadside was discharged directly at the American ship.
Being wholly unprepared for action, the Chesapeake could make no reply, and for twelve minutes (some accounts say fifteen) she lay there helpless while the British seamen worked their guns. Her masts, rigging, and sails were shot to pieces. Three men were killed and eighteen wounded, Captain Barron being among the wounded.
CAPTN. SALUSBURY PRYCE HUMPHREYS. R.N.
It was deliberate, cold-blooded murder, done to compel three American citizens to return to the slavery on a British ship into which they had been kidnapped. And it succeeded in its object.
Being, as said, wholly unprepared, no defence was made, and when Captain Barron saw that his crew were being killed uselessly, he hauled down his flag. Lieut. William H. Allen, on the Chesapeake, did manage to fire one gun by means of a coal carried in his bare hands from the galley fire, and the ball hulled the Leopard, but the flag was already down to the rail, and it was done only as a matter of honor.
So the crew of the Chesapeake were mustered on deck, the triumphant lieutenant returned, the four “deserters” were bundled over the rail into the British boat, and the Chesapeake was left, with her dead and wounded, to work her riddled sails in the course back to Norfolk.
The Leopard sailed on. The unfortunate Jenkin Ratford was hanged at the fore yardarm, and the three who were acknowledged to be kidnapped American citizens were sentenced to receive 500 lashes from the cat.
And what does the uninformed reader suppose the political leaders of the American republic did about it? They tore the Eagle from the American coat-of-arms and substituted the Porcupine—they asked the British government to disavow the act of Admiral Berkeley, and they ordered the building of 188 more gunboats for harbor defence!