An official communiqué announcing the American declaration of war against Britain reached Commodore John Rodgers of the U.S. Navy on 21 June 1812. From Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton, the message ordered Rodgers to keep his squadron in readiness and at most consider a short cruise from New York to eliminate nearby British warships that were unaware of hostilities. President James Madison may have asked Congress for war, but his administration had yet to determine an appropriate use for the Navy.
While political leaders dithered, Rodgers’ squadron immediately sailed. But the commodore, envisioning a British warship as merely an appetizer, wrote, “My principle object, at present, however is to fall in with a large West India convoy, which from the information I have received, is now about S.E. of us, on the edge of the Gulph [sic].”1 Searching for a convoy had the potential to lead to a longer cruise than Secretary Hamilton desired, but Rodgers was unwilling to sacrifice the advantage of surprise because of indecisive political leadership. Every wasted moment further limited the U.S. Navy’s ability to combat Britain’s massive naval strength.
In mid-1812, the British North America Station, responsible for patrolling waters off the East Coast and much of British Canada, comprised 23 warships, including a ship-of-the-line—the battleship of the era—as well as five frigates. In comparison, the U.S. Navy’s biggest ships were three large frigates: the Constitution, United States, and President. These warships held advantages over British frigates in size, durability, manpower, and firepower. The Americans also had two smaller operational frigates plus several more refitting, along with a handful of smaller warships. If the Americans only had to fight the Royal Navy on the North America Station, the odds seemed difficult. The British, however, had a near-global presence with some 500 operational warships plus others in reserve.2
In search of lone British warships or, better yet, a valuable convoy, Rodgers had sailed from New York into the Atlantic on board the President. The balance of his squadron was two other frigates as well as a pair of smaller warships. On the morning of 23 June, Rodgers chased an unknown sail. The President gained on her, but the other American warships could not keep up.
Across the water, Captain Richard Byron of the pursued ship, the British frigate Belvidera, was unaware that war had been declared but took no chances. With international tensions on knife’s edge, he fled in an effort to avoid provoking hostilities. The previous years had witnessed increasingly strained relations between Britain and the United States. Maritime issues weighed heavily, as a relentless war pitted Napoleonic France and its allies against Britain and its allies. Both sides had difficulty striking a decisive blow, largely because France was the dominant land power and Britain the dominant sea power.
The United States was caught in the middle of this Anglo-French conflict. Britain’s maritime dominance proved particularly galling for the Americans, and a conflict slowly simmered between Britain and the United States over three often overlapping issues: the impressment, or forcible recruitment, of U.S. citizens into the British navy; the free passage of American merchant shipping; and rising antagonism between the Royal Navy and the U.S. Navy. The latter resulted in several bloody encounters. The most notorious occurred in 1807 when the British warship Leopard fired on the American frigate Chesapeake; more recently, a confused May 1811 night encounter had resulted in the frigate President shattering the British sloop Little Belt.
Captain Byron therefore had every reason to be cautious, but his frigate lacked the speed to escape the President. The range had closed enough by 1620 for the President’s bow guns to discharge the first shots of the War of 1812 on the high seas. Seconds later, several rounds slammed into the Belvidera’s stern. Byron ordered his crew to return fire in an effort to slow the President’s pursuit. As a running engagement developed, one American cannon burst, mangling its gun crew. Though Rodgers counted himself among the wounded, he refused to give up the chase. Eventually, Byron had his crew lighten the Belvidera by starting 14 tons of water over the side. Reduced weight gave the British the extra speed to escape.3
Four days later, Byron brought his damaged frigate into Halifax, Nova Scotia, and reported the engagement to the commander of the British North America Station, Vice Admiral Herbert Sawyer. Receiving instructions from the Admiralty in London took several months, so Sawyer had to act on his own initiative and determine that a state of war actually existed and that another confused and bloody misunderstanding had not occurred. Moreover, Sawyer’s command faced numerous missions, including escorting convoys, providing for the naval defense of Halifax and Bermuda, and patrolling from the Gulf of St. Lawrence south, including the eastern seaboard of the United States. Such far-ranging assignments left few ships available for wartime operations.
By early July, Sawyer had assembled a squadron to counter Rodgers’ ships. Comprising the 64-gun ship-of-the-line Africa as well as the frigates Shannon, Belvidera, and Aeolus, the squadron sailed toward the American coast under the overall command of Captain Philip Broke of the Shannon. Along the way another frigate, the Guerriere, joined Broke’s ships. Meanwhile Rodgers led his squadron across the Atlantic, hot on the heels of a British West India convoy. The convoy’s ignorance of hostilities and its weak escort made it vulnerable to attack, but the convoy stayed one step ahead of the Americans.
In Washington, Secretary Hamilton thought Rodgers had followed his orders and had his squadron operating near the U.S. coast searching for British warships. He even ordered the frigates Constitution and Essex to join Rodgers.4 The idea that the squadron commander had led America’s largest naval force across the Atlantic in search of a British convoy was the furthest thing from Hamilton’s mind, and when he learned of Broke’s squadron, the secretary dispatched the brig-of-war Nautilus to warn Rodgers.5
The Nautilus instead fell prey to Broke’s squadron on 16 July. That afternoon, the British warships came across a bigger prize off the New Jersey coast when they chanced upon the Constitution, Captain Isaac Hull commanding. Hull took a closer look to see if he had encountered Rodgers’ squadron but soon realized the mysterious ships were British. What followed was an epic chase spanning three days (see story, p. 32). Broke recounted that “on the 17th, 18th, and 19th we had an anxious [chase] after an American Frigate supposed to be the Constitution, but she escaped by very superior sailing, tho’ the Frigates under my Orders are remarkably fast ships.”6
Broke then reassessed. He had obtained intelligence that Rodgers had pursued a West India convoy and was well aware of the “vast injury his [Rodgers’] Squadron might do in that point.” Therefore, the British captain concluded, “It appeared to me the more important duty to abandon the plan we had entered upon of distressing the Enemy trade, for the protection of our own” and “determined accordingly to proceed in quest of the American Squadron instead of waiting their return.”7
On 29 July, Broke’s squadron encountered a British convoy of some 70 ships escorted by the frigate Thetis. Such a light escort for a large and valuable convoy might seem surprising, but the convoy had sailed in ignorance of the war. Broke concluded, “This fleet was talked of confidentially in America as the chief object of Commodore Rogers’ [sic] hazardous enterprize;—we shall at least ensure their safety, and I hope our escorting them may lead to a meeting of the squadron.”8
A flaw existed in Broke’s assessment, however. Rodgers was not after the Thetis and her convoy; rather, he had pursued the previous Jamaica convoy and was nowhere near Broke and the convoy he now protected. It took intelligence gained from a fortuitous encounter with an American merchant vessel for Broke to realize his mistake, and he then took part of his squadron back toward the U.S. coast. Meanwhile, Rodgers continued to search largely empty seas for increasingly elusive British commerce. On board the President, one midshipman lamented, “It goes damn hard . . .”9
Though Rodgers’ squadron took few prizes and failed to capture the Belvidera or intercept the convoy, other American warships also plied the sea. Notably, the frigate Essex, under Captain David Porter, had sailed from New York with directions to join Rodgers’ ships. But Porter failed to locate the squadron and instead scoured the Atlantic, taking several prizes including a fully loaded troopship and the British sloop-of-war Alert.
The Constitution made an even more notable cruise. After Hull escaped from Broke’s squadron, he briefly put into Boston but, fearing a British blockade, departed before receiving new instructions from Hamilton. On 19 August, Hull encountered the British frigate Guerriere, Captain James Dacres commanding, which had separated from Broke’s squadron. Neither Hull nor Dacres shied from combat, but the odds were steeply stacked against the British. Later, First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Melville accurately explained, “The Guerriere is taken by the Constitution American Frigate mounting 56 Guns, heavier metal than ours, & nearly double in number of Crew.”10
By early September, the Constitution and Essex as well as Rodgers’ entire squadron had returned to U.S. ports. Though the Americans had lost the Nautilus, they had taken the Guerriere and Alert. American naval operations during the first critical months of the war had the potential, however, to have been far more effective. The outbreak of hostilities found some of America’s warships poorly deployed and the Navy intellectually unprepared. Blame rested on several shoulders. Madison and his Cabinet had not fully considered options for the U.S. Navy. Secretary Hamilton’s role was also significant. The duties of the secretary of the Navy during the War of 1812 differ significantly from those of the present day. There were no flag officers or secretary of Defense. Hamilton was a Cabinet member who simultaneously corresponded directly with the Navy’s uniformed leadership. One historian has asserted, “Power rested entirely with the Secretary, not only in the technical field of naval construction and equipment but also in the strategic and tactical control of naval operations.”11
But Hamilton only began to develop a strategy in May 1812. At the declaration of war, he had yet to issue full orders to key American officers. This was especially important since a narrow window existed at the beginning of the conflict, when the Americans had the advantage of confronting a British foe that was unaware of the U.S. declaration of war. The lack of clear and timely orders allowed Rodgers to craft his own course of action that resulted in a 70-day cruise in search of the British West India convoy, and Hamilton’s attempt to find Rodgers led to the loss of the Nautilus.
Though Rodgers had not followed Hamilton’s orders, his actions unknowingly met the strategy upon which the Madison administration had decided. While Rodgers was at sea Hamilton explained, “It has been judged expedient so to employ our public armed vessels, as to afford to our returning commerce, all possible protection . . . the safe return of our commercial vessels, is obviously of the highest importance.”12
The movements of Rodgers’ squadron meanwhile forced Broke to assert that he had to turn “our attention from the destruction of the Enemy’s trade to the protection of our own.”13 Admiral Sawyer made a similar choice sending the only frigate not with Broke to protect commerce, and he dispatched his first wartime frigate reinforcement on the same mission.14 With few warships off the North American coast during the first six weeks of the war, the British protected their own commerce rather than focusing on American trade.
Rodgers followed his own course of action, but it more fully led to the government’s desired maritime strategy than the actions of either the Essex or Constitution. The Essex operated for two months in the Atlantic, capturing several merchant vessels and the Alert, and the Constitution took the Guerriere and several merchantmen. Other than eliminating two warships, there is little evidence that the actions of either American frigate disrupted British naval operations enough to seriously contribute to the protection of American commerce.
The defeat of the Guerriere and the inability of the British, with the most powerful navy in the world, to retaliate by capturing an American frigate led to other important, if unintended, strategic effects. Overall, the first months of the war had been disastrous for the United States, with particularly troubling defeats on the border with British Canada. The capture of the Guerriere proved an almost lone bright spot, buttressing national morale and even the popularity of the Madison administration. Getting warships back to sea thus became a priority, but Secretary Hamilton decided to disband Rodgers’ squadron, fearing that too much of the Navy was concentrated under a single, vulnerable command. In place of that large squadron, Hamilton created three smaller ones under the respective commands of Commodores Rodgers, Stephen Decatur, and William Bainbridge.15
Decatur’s squadron sailed from Boston in early October 1812. Once at sea, he dispatched the brig Argus on a mission stretching toward the equator, while Decatur took his own frigate, the United States, toward Madeira. En route he met and defeated the British frigate Macedonian on 25 October. Rodgers put to sea from Boston with Decatur but once away from the coast separated from him and ended up charting a long roving course around the North Atlantic with the frigates President and Congress. The third warship of Rodgers’ squadron, the sloop Wasp, was in the Delaware. Though she had orders to join Rodgers at sea, that never occurred. Instead, she encountered a convoy escorted by the British brig-of-war Frolic. Though the convoy escaped, the Frolic did not. Just hours after defeating the Frolic, however, the Wasp fell prey to the 74-gun British ship-of-the-line Poictiers.
The random encounter between the Wasp and Poictiers was quite typical of period naval operations given the nature of technology and the difficulties of wind and weather. Certain factors, such as operating along known trade routes and in critical choke points, could decrease but not eliminate the randomness of encounters on the high seas. The Royal Navy further increased the probability of chance meetings by its mass. Even before the outbreak of hostilities, the British had begun to dispatch reinforcements to North America. This trickle became a flood following the declaration of war and included the Poictiers.16
A new British commander-in-chief, Admiral John Borlase Warren, also arrived. Having previously commanded the North America Station, he received broader authority in 1812 that included the North America, the Leeward Islands, and the Jamaica Stations.17 In hindsight, Warren’s command was probably too large to effectively control given the nature of maritime communications. But it was an attempt to create a single command structure to wage war against America and, moreover, protect British trade from American commerce raiders.
Warren also had instructions to negotiate an end to the conflict, but British and American interpretations of the war differed. Many in the United States believed that the Madison administration had little choice but war given Britain’s impressment policies and restrictions on American trade. The British, however, saw a more threatening enemy in Napoleonic France. War with America was a distraction that needed to be terminated.
When Warren reached North America in late September 1812, he dispatched a warship under a flag of truce to open peace negotiations, but one of his officers aptly explained, “Pacific overtures were no more likely to check the flames of war—than a mild remonstrance would the raging of a tiger.”18 With diplomacy failing, Warren lacked warships to prosecute the war because of several having been dispatched with convoys and the loss of five to wreck or enemy action. The capture of the Guerriere was particularly troubling. In summation, Warren wrote to the Admiralty, “The war . . . seems to assume a new, as well as more active, and inveterate aspect than heretofore.”19
Warren inherited a command facing a significant American naval threat. Attempts to defeat the U.S. Navy yielded few results. Meanwhile, Rodgers and Decatur plied the North Atlantic, and in late October Bainbridge departed Boston with the Constitution and the sloop Hornet. The third warship of his squadron, the frigate Essex, sailed from the Delaware. All three ships proceeded toward Brazil, but Bainbridge failed to link up with the Essex. Instead, the Constitution defeated the British frigate Java on 29 December. Though the Americans again won, the engagement proved more difficult than the two previous frigate encounters, and the Constitution suffered enough damage that Bainbridge returned home. He left the Hornet to operate alone. She did not disappoint and defeated the Royal Navy brig Peacock.
The squadrons under Bainbridge, Decatur, and Rodgers had largely fragmented, with the warships trickling home between December 1812 and March 1813. There was one outlier—the Essex. Captain Porter sailed her around Cape Horn and entered the Pacific. The Royal Navy lacked a presence in the region, giving Porter a free hand to savage the British Pacific whaling fleet. Finally, in early 1814, the British captured the Essex at the Chilean port of Valparaiso after a bloody fight.
While the Essex operated in the Pacific during 1813, significant changes occurred in the Atlantic naval war. William Jones succeeded Hamilton as secretary of the Navy. Jones was a merchant with a nautical background, and his extensive knowledge of international trade led him to craft a new naval strategy. He explained, “Our great inferiority in naval strength, does not permit us to meet them [the British] on this ground, without hazarding the precious germ of our national glory, we have however, the means of creating a powerful diversion.” Jones planned for long cruises by single warships to “draw the attention of the enemy, from the annoyance of our coast for the protection of his own rich & exposed commercial fleets.” He concluded, “If this effect can be produced, the two fold object, of increasing the pressure upon the enemy, & relieving ourselves will be attained.”20
Yet Jones did not have much to work with and could not sustain the 1812 tempo of operations, because warships needed time for repairs after grueling cruises. Moreover, replacing losses proved difficult because the Americans had no warships under construction at the start of hostilities. Though Congress had voted for the construction of several ships-of-the-line and large frigates during the last days of Hamilton’s tenure as secretary, none saw combat in the war. In early 1813 Jones did receive funding to build six large sloops, but it took approximately a year for the first three—the Wasp, Peacock, and Frolic—to become operational.
In the meantime, Jones had to utilize existing warships while conserving the U.S. Navy and protracting the war. Rather than battles, he desired long cruises in order to disrupt British naval operations and force the Royal Navy to overreact. In 1813 the President, Congress, and Argus met those objectives. Between the last day of April and September, the President scoured the North Atlantic and Arctic, disrupting British operations in numerous areas.
The Admiralty responded with a secret order, dated 10 July, designed to prevent another frigate defeat similar to the Guerriere, Macedonian, or Java. The document explained that the Admiralty did “not conceive that any of His Majestys Frigates should attempt to engage, single handed, the larger Class of American Ships, which though they may be called Frigates, are of a size, Complem[e]nt and weight of Metal much beyond that Class, and more resembling Line of Battle Ships.”21 This order altered the rules of engagement and acknowledged that the Royal Navy lacked frigates that could fight one-on-one with the likes of the President and Constitution. British frigates operated in pairs, and ships-of-the-line were even sent out to hunt the large American frigates.
Adherence to the 10 July order resulted in one British newspaper chiding about “how flattering it must be to him [Rodgers] to learn, that not single ships but squadrons were dispatched after him.”22 Rodgers asserted that his summer 1813 cruise had caused disruptions equivalent to “more than a dozen times the force of a single Frigate.”23 Yet he was probably too modest. The American frigate Congress added to the disruption by operating along the equator. The Argus, in the space of just several weeks, took 21 prizes, mostly around Ireland. Though the Royal Navy eventually eliminated the Argus, her cruise exposed the vulnerability of British home waters.
Other 1813 operations did not, however, turn out as Jones expected. The first of June proved a particularly bad day for the U.S. Navy, with the Royal Navy either capturing or trapping almost half its ocean going naval strength. First the British won a bloody action off Boston between British frigate Shannon and the Chesapeake. Though the Chesapeake was not a member of the largest class of American frigates, she was still the war’s first U.S. frigate on the losing side of a battle. One English newspaper announced, “We do not recollect any naval occurrence which has excited so much expression of general congratulations, as the recent capture . . . we are obliged to regard the capture of the Chesapeake not as an event to have been expected with certainty, but as a glorious retrieval of our naval reputation.”24
Also on 1 June, a British naval squadron prevented the sailing of the U.S. frigates United States and Macedonian as well as the sloop Hornet. Though this encounter did not end in battle, the British forced the three American warships into New London, Connecticut, where the two frigates remained blockaded for the remainder of the war. The Hornet only slipped away in late 1814.
Though difficult to tell at the time, 1 June 1813 proved the decisive day of the oceanic naval war. Before, the plucky Americans had consistently bested the British, but afterward, the U.S. Navy faced increased problems. The two frigates at New London remained blockaded, the frigate Constellation could not slip past her British watchers at Norfolk, the Constitution’s winter 1813–14 cruise proved disappointing, and she spent much of 1814 blockaded in Boston. The President entered an extended refit after her fourth wartime cruise ended in February 1814. What remained were warships smaller than frigates.
Though the American brig Enterprize defeated the British gun brig Boxer in late 1813 and several American sloops including the Peacock and Wasp made notable cruises during 1814, these smaller U.S. warships did not lead the British to overreact in a manner similar to what had occurred against the President in the summer of 1813. The Admiralty even relaxed the rules of engagement for British frigates in mid-1814 “as from all accounts the American frigates are laid up there is no chance of them meeting a superior force.”25
The British became increasingly adept at eliminating American warships. Some of this had to do with the aggressiveness of Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane, who had replaced Admiral Warren in command off the U.S. coast. More important, the spring of 1814 witnessed the defeat of Napoleon, thus releasing British warships for use against the United States. That led to stronger and more effective blockade squadrons, more warships for amphibious operations, and additional patrols.
But the war proved a double-edged sword for the British. They were defeating the Americans, but it came at high costs. Globally, the Royal Navy had maintained approximately 500 deployed warships to fight Napoleon. By the end of 1814, Britain was only fighting the United States, but its navy still maintained around 350 deployed warships, including about 120 under Cochrane’s direct orders off the North American coast.26 The convoy system also remained in effect. Each convoy required escorting warships, only moved as fast as the slowest ship, and took time to assemble, but they kept commercial losses on many routes to manageable levels.
Though the war was costly for the British, this problem paled in comparison with the issues facing the Americans by late 1814. Financial distress gripped the U.S. government, limiting the readiness of existing warships and slowing new construction. Other priorities led Secretary Jones to have some existing U.S. warships dismantled and their crews sent to serve on the lakes along the border with Canada. Limited resources, competing priorities, and a powerful opponent placed Jones in an awkward position. Under such a cloud he resigned, giving his stated reason as personal financial ruin.27
Before stepping down, Jones issued his last set of cruising orders. Just weeks later, on 24 December 1814, the United States and Britain signed a treaty of peace at Ghent, Belgium. Ratification occurred in February 1815, but the naval war sputtered along until summer due to the snail-like pace of maritime communications. The Constitution slipped out of Boston in December. Across the Atlantic she defeated a pair of British warships, the Levant and Cyane, and narrowly escaped a British squadron before returning safely to the United States.
In January the President ran aground while departing New York. Slowed by damage, she was taken after a running fight. In the war’s waning moments, the British had finally captured the most elusive prize of the naval war—a large American frigate. The sloops Peacock and Hornet sailed for the Indian Ocean. Along the way, the Hornet defeated the British brig Penguin. The Peacock only learned of the war’s end in late June 1815 after a confused shooting incident with an armed vessel of the British East India Company in the waters off modern Indonesia.
The last months of hostilities had spectacular moments. The President’s defeat was redemption for the British, while the Americans added notable victories. But these events did not change the conflict’s outcome; instead, they became the naval war’s bloody epilogue.
In retrospect, the War of 1812 served as a catalyst for the development of the U.S. Navy. Before hostilities, the Navy’s budget, and even its existence, had been precarious. Though the war enhanced the service’s standing, it proved divisive for the young republic. Regional differences, often tied to party politics, had created fissures in the fabric of the state. The U.S. Navy served as a point of unity through the exploits of heroes such as Decatur, Hull, and Bainbridge and through oaken monuments like the frigate Constitution. For the British the naval war yielded fewer heroes, though there were exceptions, including Captain Broke of the Shannon.
The naval legacy of the conflict proved more convoluted because it did not fit neatly into an exciting narrative. There was no defining moment, such as Trafalgar. Instead, the British goliath had slowly whittled down American naval strength and protected Britain’s commercial sea lines of communication. In workmanlike fashion, the Royal Navy had exercised sea control, but it had not come easy, there were unexpected setbacks, and it rarely had been glamorous.
Yet the naval war left a profound legacy as both states navigated the 19th century, an era that found the British consistently practicing sea control on a near-global basis and the Americans emerging as a continent-spanning state with a navy that allowed for increasing international involvement.
1. Hamilton to Rodgers, 18 June 1812; Rodgers to Hamilton, 21 June 1812, National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter NARA), M149, Reel 10/61 & M125, Reel 24/48.
2. Ships in Sea Pay, 1 July 1812, National Archives, Kew, U.K., Admiralty Papers (hereafter ADM) 8/100.
3. Proceedings of the Belvidera, 23 June, Rodgers’ Journal, 23 June 1812, NARA, M125, Reel 24/210A, Reel 25/2A.
4. Hamilton to Porter, 24 June; Hamilton to Hull, 18 June, 3 July 1812, NARA, M149, Reel 10/61, 72–74, 86.
5. Hamilton to Crane, 10, 11 July 1812, NARA, M149, Reel 10/91–93.
6. Broke to Croker, 30 July 1812, ADM 1/1553/351.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. William Belt to Harrington, 12 July 1812, “The Harrington Letters,” James Sprunt Historical Publications, H.M. Wagstaff and J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton, eds., 13:36.
10. Melville to Croker, 6 October 1812, Duke University, William R. Perkins Library, John Wilson Croker Papers, Box 2.
11. Howard I. Chapelle, The History of The American Sailing Navy: The Ships and Their Development (New York: W. W. Norton, 1949), p. 177.
12. Hamilton to Rodgers, 22 June 1812, NARA, M149, Reel 10/69–70.
13. Broke to wife, 30 July 1812, Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich, U.K. (hereafter SRO), Broke Papers, HA 93/9/107.
14. Sawyer to Croker, 21 July 1812, ADM 1/502/68; Log Spartan, 9 July–17 August 1812, ADM 51/2812.
15. Hamilton to Decatur, 9 September 1812, NARA, M149, Reel 10/144–45.
16. Statement of the British Navy, Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, Charles Vane Marquess of Londonderry, ed. (London, 1851), 8:286–92.
17. Warren to Brown, 1 July 1813, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, U.K. (hereafter NMM), Warren Papers, WAR/54.
18. Broke to Wife, 13 October 1812, SRO, HA 93/9/118.
19. Warren to Croker, 5 October 1812, ADM 1/502/98A.
20. Jones to Rodgers, Decatur, Bainbridge, Stewart, Morris, 22 February 1813, NARA, M149, Reel 10/266, 77.
21. Croker to the Several Commanders in Chief . . . , 10 July 1813, ADM 2/1377/154–56.
22. The Morning Chronicle (London), 13 November 1813.
23. Rodgers to Jones, 27 September 1813, NARA, M125, Reel 31/100.
24. Liverpool Mercury, 16 July 1813.
25. Hope to Keith, 4 June 1814, NMM, Keith Papers, KEI/37/9.
26. Admiralty Board Minutes, late 1814, ADM 7/266.
27. Jones to his wife, 6 November 1814, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Papers of William Jones; Jones to Madison, 25 April, 11 September 1814, Library of Congress, James Madison Papers, Series 1, Reel 16.