* Professor William E. Lingelbach in a notable article on "England and Neutral Trade" in "The Military Historian and Economist" (April, 1917) has pointed out the error committed by almost every historian from Henry Adams down, that the Essex decision reversed previous rulings of the court and was not in accord with British law.
Had the impressment of seamen and the spoliation of neutral commerce occurred only on the high seas, public resentment would have mounted to a high pitch in the United States; but when British cruisers ran into American waters to capture or burn French vessels, and when British men-of-war blockaded ports, detaining and searching--and at times capturing--American vessels, indignation rose to fever heat. The blockade of New York Harbor by two British frigates, the Cambrian and the Leander, exasperated merchants beyond measure. On board the Leander was a young midshipman, Basil Hall, who in after years described the activities of this execrated frigate.
"Every morning at daybreak, we set about arresting the progress of all the vessels we saw, firing of guns to the right and left to make every ship that was running in heave to, or wait until we had leisure to send a boat on board 'to see,¹ in our lingo, 'what she was made of.' I have frequently known a dozen, and sometimes a couple of dozen, ships lying a league or two off the port, losing their fair wind, their tide, and worse than all their market, for many hours, sometimes the whole day, before our search was completed."
* "Fragments of Voyages and Travels," quoted by Henry Adams, in "History of the United States", vol. III, p. 92.
One day in April, 1806, the Leander, trying to halt a merchantman that she meant to search, fired a shot which killed the helmsman of a passing sloop. The boat sailed on to New York with the mangled body; and the captain, brother of the murdered man, lashed the populace into a rage by his mad words. Supplies for the frigates were intercepted, personal violence was threatened to any British officers caught on shore, the captain of the Leander was indicted for murder, and the funeral of the murdered sailor was turned into a public demonstration. Yet nothing came of this incident, beyond a proclamation by the President closing the ports of the United States to the offending frigates and ordering the arrest of the captain of the Leander wherever found. After all, the death of a common seaman did not fire the hearts of farmers peacefully tilling their fields far beyond hearing of the Leander's guns.