1811 - Little-Belt and President

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1811 Light Squadrons and Single Ships 8

says: " By the officers who came from Washington we learn, that we are sent in pursuit of the British frigate, who had impressed a passenger from a brig." This British frigate was reported to be the Guerrière ; and the American officer anticipates, with a refusal on the part of her commander to deliver up the man, an engagement between the President and a British frigate " exactly her force."

On the 12th of May, at daylight, the President got underway, and began working down the bay. On the 13th the commodore spoke a brig, which had, the preceding day seen a ship, supposed to be the Guerrière, off Cape Henry. But, if the date and place are correct, it could not have been the Guerrière ; as, at noon on the 12th, she was nearly abreast of Cape Roman, South-Carolina. An extra quantity of shot and wads were now got on deck, and the ship was cleared for action. In the evening the wind shifted to a fair quarter, and the President ran before it. On the 14th the American frigate was off Cape Henry ; but no British frigate was there. The commodore now stood slowly to the north-east, expecting every moment to discover the object of his pursuit. The 15th passed without any occurrence ; but on the 16th, at about 25 minutes past meridian, Cape Henry bearing south-west distant 14 or 15 leagues, the wind a moderate breeze from the northward, the President, from her mast-head, discovered a vessel in the east quarter, standing towards her under a press of sail.

The vessel thus descried was the British ship-sloop Little-Belt, Captain Arthur Batt Bingham, mounting 18 carronades, 32-pounders, and two nines, with 121 men and boys, on her return to the southward from off Sandy-Hook ; where she had been seeking the Guerrière, for whom she bore despatches from the commander-in-chief at Bermuda, Rear-admiral Sawyer. The Little-Belt had discovered the President since about noon, and considering her suspicious, had hauled up on the starboard tack in chase. Captain Bingham, in his letter, says, it was " eleven " when he descried the President; the Little-Belt's log says, " half past." Even the latest of these times would, according to the letter of Commodore Rodgers, make it 40 minutes after the Little-Belt had descried the President before the latter discovered her : a circumstance not very probable ; although it does appear, that the American ship did not keep the best look-out ; otherwise, when first seen by the President, the Little-Belt would have been steering south, instead of towards the President or north by west, a deviation from her course caused solely by the latter's appearance. We have therefore, as on other occasions, paid less attention to the absolute, than to the relative time.

At 1 h. 30 m. p.m. each ship, the two then about 10 miles apart, supposed the other to be a vessel of war. The President thereupon hoisted her ensign and commodore's pendant, and

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