 Cheaseapeake boarded by Leopard (John Christian Schetky) |
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| Career (UK) | |
|---|---|
| Builder: | Portsmouth Dockyard |
| Laid down: | 1775 |
| Launched: | 1790 |
| Fate: | Troopship, 1812 Wrecked 28 June 1814 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | 50-gun fourth rate |
HMS Leopard was a British 50-gun fourth-rate warship involved in the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair. Her keel was laid down in 1775 at Portsmouth Dockyard and she was finally launched in 1790 from Sheerness. In early 1807, a handful of British and American sailors deserted their respective ships, then blockading French ships in Chesapeake Bay, and joined the crew of the USS Chesapeake.
In an attempt to recover the British deserters (or possibly to press American sailors into the service of the Royal Navy), Captain Salisbury Pryce Humphreys hailed the USS Chesapeake and requested permission to search her. Commodore James Barron of the Chesapeake refused, and the Leopard opened fire. Caught unprepared, Barron surrendered, and Humphreys sent boarders to search for the deserters. The boarding party seized four deserters from the Royal Navy — two African Americans, one white American, and one British-born sailor — and took them to Halifax, where the British sailor, Jenkin Ratford, was later hanged.
In 1812, the Leopard was converted to a troopship. On 28 June 1814 she was en route from Britain to Quebec when she grounded on Anticosti Island in heavy fog. The ship was destroyed, but none on board were lost.
The Leopard in fiction
In Patrick O'Brian's novel Desolation Island, the fifth book of the Aubrey–Maturin series, Jack Aubrey commands the Leopard on a cruise through the Atlantic and Indian oceans after the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair and before the beginning of the War of 1812. The fictional "horrible old Leopard," in Stephen Maturin's words, ends its days as a store ship sailing from the Channel to the Baltic.
References
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