[Rarebooks] fa: 1807 REPORT on AGGRESSIONS COMMITTED in OUR PORTS & WATERS by FOREIGN VESSELS (Chesapeake-Leopard Affair)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 2. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/ol8vnv2

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

Report, (in part,) of the Committee to whom was referred, on the twenty-ninth ultimo, so much of the Message of the President of the United States as relates to Aggressions Committed within Our Ports and Waters, by Foreign Armed Vessels; to Violations of Our Jurisdiction, and to Measures Necessary for the Protection of Our Ports and Harbours.  November 17, 1807. City of Washington: A. & G. Way, Printers, 1807. Pamphlet; 8vo; 72 pp. Disbound from a nonce volume with some remnants of the old leather binding on the spine; page-gatherings starting to separate at the midpoint, light toning to the first and last page, small chip and short closed edge-tear to the title-page, otherwise quite clean and sound.

A U.S. congressional report regarding the naval engagement known as the "Chesapeake-Leopard Affair," one of the inciting incidents of the War of 1812. Earlier in the year (June 22nd), the Unites States frigate Chesapeake was intercepted off the coast of Virginia by the British warship Leopard, whose captain demanded he be allowed to search the American for British deserters. The Chesapeake's captain refused, whereupon the Leopard ranged alongside and "commenced a heavy fire on her." Outgunned and taken unawares, the American ship struck her colors, but not before twenty-one of her crew were wounded or killed. The British then boarded her and removed three "deserters," three of whom were American citizens who had been pressed into the King's navy. The incident provoked outrage in the U.S. and calls for war with Britain; President Thomas Jefferson, however, ultimately chose to respond with the ill-fated Embargo of 1807.

The report begins with a vivid account of the incident ("that atrocious act of aggression… of which there is scarcely to be found a parallel in the history of civilized nations…"), then, after a prefatory letter from Secretary of State James Madison, goes on to reproduce documents, testimony and letters from witnesses and other interested parties, including the Chesapeake's commander James Barron, who was court-martialed and relieved of command for his hasty surrender of his vessel, and several letters and dispatches from Commodore Stephen Decatur, hero of Tripoli and future hero of the War of 1812. Decatur, after having served on the court martial that suspended Barron for five years, was given command of the Chesapeake. Thus, the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair would have fatal consequences even beyond the War of 1812: thirteen years later, Barron, aggrieved over comments about his conduct during the incident, challenged Decatur to a duel and, on March 22, 1820, shot him dead.