The Havannah (built circa 1811)
MSA SC 5496-050706
British Frigate, Captain William Hamilton, War of 1812
Biography:
The thirty-six-gun frigate Havannah was launched on March 26, 1811.1 A Mr. Wilson had built the vessel in Liverpool, England, from a design by Sir Henry Rule. The Havannah initially served in the Napoleonic Wars.2 By October 1814, Captain William Hamilton3 of the Royal Navy sailed the Havannah to the Chesapeake Bay. He commanded the ships in Virginia's Yeocomico River,4 which fed into the Potomac River. A graduate of the University of Dublin, Hamilton appeared in records as William Rowan Hamilton and as Gowen/Gawen William Hamilton,5 and had begun his service in the Mediterranean during the Napoleonic Wars.6
By January 15, 1815, the Havannah and the flagship Orlando were both stationed in the Potomac River.7 The Havannah had also sent an auxiliary ship, a "tender," up the Rapahannock River in Virginia. On January 16th, Captain John Clavell of the Orlando reported that the crews on his ship and on the Havannah were ill from lack of "fresh beef."8
On February 19th, Mathias Clarke's slave, Nathaniel Johnson, escaped to the Havannah. By this time, the vessel was lying near St. George's Island by the mouth of the St. Mary's River, and was visible from Clarke's home, Trinity Manor.9 Clarke's son, Robert Clarke, who was living at Trinity Manor at the time, reported the following: "Three boats from the Havannah were seen descending on the Potomack, shortly after they landed, and plundered the Inhabitants of Stock Poultry, &ca. On their return one of their boats, containing eight or ten men, commanded by an Officer, landed at the house of Mr. George Loker."10 The barge returned to the Havannah with seven of Loker's slaves, namely Leah Hantes, Lucy Hall and her daughter, and Margaret Clem and her three daughters. An eighth slave, Jerry Lynch, joined the ship later that day.
On February 27th, the slaveholders George Loker, Mathias Clarke, Robert Clarke, Captain William Smith, and Peter U. Thompson caught up with the Havannah in Lynhaven Bay at the Virginia Capes.11 Peter W. Thompson estimated about one hundred slaves on board the Havannah.12 When George Loker confronted Captain Hamilton with a copy of the Treaty of Ghent, Hamilton responded that "he would read nothing from him or his government."13 Hamilton further responded that "No Negros would be restored unless we caused the Seamen to be given up, who had recently deserted from his ship." However, he agreed to return the escaped slaves if they themselves consented. They refused, and Captain Hamilton transferred them to the Orlando on the same day.14
The event prompted Captain Hamilton to write to the Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn, explaining that he had taken the slaves before he knew about the Treaty of Ghent. Hamilton also petitioned on the slaves' behalf: "I hope Sir you will excuse my mentioning that should it be thought necessary that these people should be paid for, or returned, the Officers and Men of this ship would prefer making a Subscription to pay for them, to returning them to the cruel punishment they expect."15
At the end of the War of 1812, Captain Hamilton returned to England
with the Havannah as a flag ship, carrying Admiral Sir Edward Codrington.16
He then sailed the Havannah to St. Helena to guard the exiled Napoleon
Bonaparte.17
1. Robert Gardiner. Frigates of the Napoleonic Wars (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000) 22 and 23.
2. Ibid.
3. Papers Presented
to Parliament in 1822. Vol. 1.(London, UK: R.G. Clarke, 1822) xv.
Joseph
Allen. Battles of the British Navy: From A.D. 1000 to 1840 (London,
UK: A.H. Baily & Co., 1842) 514.
Weiss 10.
4. William S. Dudley, ed. The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History. Vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Goverment Printing Office, 1985) 331.
5. W.B.S. Taylor.
History
of the University of Dublin (Founded by Queen Elizabeth): Its Origin, Progress,
and Plesent Condition (London, UK: George Woodfall and Son, 1845) iv.
Arnold Chaplin.
A
St. Helena Who's Who: Or A Dictionary of the Island During The Captivity
of Napoleon (London, UK: Published by the author, 1914) 118.
"The Life
of a Sailor." The Metropolitan: A Monthly Journal of Literature, Science,
and the Fine Arts 2 (1931) 344 and 348.
6. "Capt. G.W. Hamilton,
C.B." The Gentleman's Magazine. Vol. 3 (1935): 97.
Taylor iv.
Chaplin 118.
"The Life
of a Sailor," 344 and 348.
7. Dudley 364.
8. Qtd. in Dudley 348.
9. Claim of Matthias Clarke, Case 120. Case Files, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828, documenting the period ca. 1814 - ca. 1828. *ARC Identifier 1174160 / MLR Number PI 177 190*. National Archives, College Park.
10. Docket of Claims Prepared for the Domestic Claims Commission / Compiled 1826 / ARC Identifier 1172798 / MLR Number PI 177188. Robert Clarke.
11. Thomas M. Bayly.
No. III, Bayly's
List. (RG 76. Records of Boundary and Claims Commissions and Arbitration.
Records of the Mixed Claims Commission: Miscellaneous Records) 107, 112.
Claim
of George Loker. Case Files, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828, documenting
the period ca. 1814 - ca. 1828. *ARC Identifier 1174160 / MLR Number PI
177 190*. National Archives, College Park.
Claim
of Matthias Clarke, Case 120. Case Files, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828,
documenting the period ca. 1814 - ca. 1828. *ARC Identifier 1174160 / MLR
Number PI 177 190*. National Archives, College Park.
Claim
of William Smith, Case 119. Case Files, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828, documenting
the period ca. 1814 - ca. 1828. *ARC Identifier 1174160 / MLR Number PI
177 190*. National Archives, College Park.
12. Claim of George Loker. Case Files, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828, documenting the period ca. 1814 - ca. 1828. *ARC Identifier 1174160 / MLR Number PI 177 190*. National Archives, College Park.
13. Claim of George Loker. Case Files, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828, documenting the period ca. 1814 - ca. 1828. *ARC Identifier 1174160 / MLR Number PI 177 190*. National Archives, College Park.
14. Ibid.
Bayly
107, 112.
15. Qtd. in John McNish Weiss. The Merikens: Free Black American Settlers in Trinidad 1815-1816 (London, UK: McNish & Weiss, 2002) 10.
16. Lady Bourchier, ed. Memoir of the Life of Admiral Sir Edward Codrington. Vol. 1 (London, UK: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1873) 343.
17. Michael John Thornton.
Napoleon
After Waterloo: England and the St. Helena Decision (Stanford, Ca:
Stanford University Press, 1868) 110.
Arnold
Chaplin.
A St. Helena Who's Who: Or A Dictionary of the Island During
The Captivity of Napoleon (London, UK: Published by the author, 1914)
118.
Barry
Edward O'Meara. Napoleon at St. Helena. Vol. 1 (New York, NY: Scribner
and Welford, 1889) 42, 133.
Count
De La Casas. Memoirs of the Life, Exile, and Conversations of the Emporer
Napoleon. Vol. 2 (New York, NY: 1894) 87.
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