75 
IS 11.1 Slate of Public Jfairs in 
occurred on the nigh* of the 16th instant, be¬ 
tween the ship under my command, and his 
Britannic Majesty’s ship of war the Little 
.Belt, commanded by Captain Bingham ; the 
: result of. whicli has given me much painj as 
-WeU on account of the injury she has sus- 
. tained, as that T shoidd have been compelled 
. to the measure that produced it, by a vessel 
Oi her inferior force The circumstances are 
_as follow : On the 16th inst. at 25 minutes 
. post meridiem^ in seventeen fathoms water, 
Cape Henry, bearing S. W. distant fourteen 
or fifteen leagues, a sail was discovered from 
. our mast head in the east, standing towards 
. us under a press of sail. At h.alf-past one the 
svmmetrv of lier upper sails (which were at 
this time distinguishable from our deck), and 
her making signals, shewed her to be a man 
of war. At 45 minu.tes past onG.p m. hoist¬ 
ed our ensign and pendant ; when, finding her 
signals not answered, she wore and stood to 
tiie southward. Being desirous of speaking 
her, and of ascertaining what she was, 1 now 
made sail in cnase ; and, by half past three 
f.m. found we were coming up with her; 
as by this time the upper part of her stern 
be gan to shew itself above the horizon. '! he 
-wind now began and continued gradually to 
■ decrease, so as to prevent my being able to 
' approach her sufficiently before sunset, tb dis¬ 
cover her actual torce (which tiie posilion 
she preserved during the chase was calculated 
^ to conceal), to judge even to what nation she 
belonged, as she appeared studiously to de¬ 
cline shewing her colours,. At 15 or 20 
. minutes past seven p. m. the chase took in 
her sLudaing sails, and soon after hauled up 
r her courses, and hauled by.the wind on the 
star- board tack ; she at the same time hoiste.d 
. an ensign or fljg at her mizen peak, but it 
was too dark for me to discover what nation 
it represented. Now, for the first time, her 
bioadside was presented to our view ; but 
■n-ighc had so tar progressed, that; although 
her appearance indicated siie was a frigate, I 
was unsble to delermlne lier actual force. 
At 15 minutes before eight p.rfu being about 
a mile and a half from her, the wind at the 
time very light, I directed Captain Ludlow to 
■ take a position to windward of her, and on 
the same tack, within short speaking distance. 
This, however, the commander of the chase 
; appeared, from his inanceuvres, to be anxious 
to prevent, as he wore and hauled by the 
wind on diflerent tacks four Limes successive- 
■ ly, between this period and the time of cur 
arriving at the position which I had ordered 
to be taken. At 15 or 20 minutes past eight, 
■ being a little forward of her weather-beam, 
and distant from seventy fo a hundred yards, 
1 hailed “ What ship is that?” to this en¬ 
quiry no answer was given ; but I was hailed 
by her commander, and asked “ What ship 
is that ?” Having ashed the first ques ion, I 
of course considered myself entitled, by the 
common rules of politeness,, to the first an¬ 
swer. After a pause of 15 or 20 seconds, I 
. reiterated my first enquiry of “ What ship is 
that?” and before I had time to take the 
..trumpet from my moulh, was answered by a 
. shot, that cut off one of our main-top mast 
, breajt back s.tays, and went into our main- 
. mast. At this instant Captain Caldwell (of 
marines), who was standing very near to me 
on the gangway,.having observed, “ Sir, she 
has fired at us,” caused me to pause for a mo¬ 
ment ; just as I was in the act of giving ara 
order to fire a shot in return, and before I had 
, time to resume the repetition of the intended 
order, a sliot was actually fired from the se¬ 
cond division of this ship, and was scarcely 
out of the gun before it was answered fronj 
our,assumed enemy by three others in quick 
succession, anti soon ufter the rest of his 
broadside and musk“try. ’ When iH'e-'first 
shot was fired, being upderdn impressioTthat 
it rrfight possibly have p^dteeded from%cvi- 
dsnt, and without the orders of the conl-mand- 
er, I had determined, at the moment, to fire 
only a single shot in return ; but the-imrne- 
, diate repetition of th'e previous unprovoked 
outrage induced me to believe that the' insult 
. was p emedjtated, and that, from our adver¬ 
sary being at the time .as ignorant oT bur real 
force as 1 was of his, he thought t-hfs/ per¬ 
haps, a favourable opportunity bf ae^iliring 
promotion, although at the expencedaf violat¬ 
ing our neutrality, and insulting our-'dag : I 
accordingly, vyith thay degreejof repughartce 
incident to feeling, equally determined'ribither 
to be the,aggressor, or to sutler the'fla^ b'f my 
country to be insulted with impunity, gave a 
general order to fire ; the effect of which, in 
from four to six minutes, as near asT can 
judge, having produced a partial silence df his 
guns, I gave orders to cease firing ; discover¬ 
ing by the feeble opposition that It must be a 
ship of v»ry interior for);e to w'hat I liad sup¬ 
posed, or that some untoward /accident had 
happened to her. 
My orders in this instance, however, (al¬ 
though they proceeded alone from motive of 
humanitV) und g determination not to spill a 
drop of blood u.nnecessarily) I had, in less 
than four minutes, some reason to regfct, as 
he renewed his fire, of which two 32-pound 
shots cut off one of our fore-shiouds, and in- 
, jured our fore-mast. It was now that 1 found 
myself under the painful necessity ofgiving 
orders for a repetition of our fire against a force 
which cn y forbearaiace aione had enabled to 
do us any injury of moment. Our fire was 
accordingly renewed, and continued fioiu 
three to°five minutes, when, perceiving our 
opponent’s gaff and colours down, his main¬ 
top-sail yard upon the cap, and his fiie si¬ 
lenced, although it was so dark that 1 could 
not discern any othei particular injury we had 
done, or how tar he was in a situation to do 
us farther harm, I nevertheless embraced the 
earliest moment to stop our fire, and prevent 
the further effusion of bipod. Here a pause 
% ' 'of 
