The BALTIMORE Incident
16 NOVEMBER 1798
THE BALTIMORE INCIDENT
For five months the US Navy had been patrolling, President John Adams having ordered the protection of American shipping from French privateers during a brush with that nation known today as the “Quasi-War.” October found the 20-gun warship USS BALTIMORE accompanying the frigate CONSTELLATION, 36, north from Cuba escorting 43 merchant sails. Off Florida, senior squadron officer CAPT Thomas Truxtun detached CAPT Isaac Philips in BALTIMORE to range ahead along the Georgia/Carolina coast. In doing so Philips stumbled across the path of CAPT Samuel Nicholson in the frigate CONSTITUTION, 44. Despite Philips’ standing orders from Truxtun, Nicholson ordered Philips into his squadron. Thus, on 24 October 1798, BALTIMORE departed Charleston in company with CONSTITUTION escorting 11 merchant ships to Cuba.
Truxtun was furious that his force had been depleted of BALTIMORE–even more when he was advised Nicholson had sailed without orders. True, Nicholson was senior to Truxtun on the Navy’s list of Captains, and shortly CONSTITUTION’s departure orders did arrive from Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert–directing CONSTITUTION to Boston for refitting. Official records do not describe the motivation for Nicholson’s diversion south. Perhaps the entreaties of local businessmen who sought protection for their ships softened the Captain’s heart. More likely according to some historians, Nicholson had learned of a large sum of gold waiting in Havana for shipment north. The transport of specie was a legitimate endeavor for a Navy frigate, especially considering the dangers upon the open ocean in that day. The government rate was 1/2% on the first $10,000, and 1/4% on the remainder. But it’s known that captains in that day often privately negotiated additional “carrying charges.” It has been speculated that Nicholson stood to profit handsomely and took BALTIMORE along as insurance.
BALTIMORE had been constructed in 1795 as the merchant trader Adriana, but had been purchased and armed by Stoddert’s Navy Department in response to the quasi-war with France. She had left Baltimore months earlier to meet CONSTELLATION–so hastily that her commissioning papers and Philips’ captaincy appointment were still hung-up in the mail from Washington. She was 35 men short of a full crew, and only 12 aboard had any experience as seamen.
Philips’ voyage with Nicholson quickly went sour. Four days out CONSTITUTION sprang her bowsprit and had to return to Charleston. BALTIMORE was instructed to continue southward with nine merchantmen of the convoy–“shanghaied” from her standing orders, on a dubious mission, under an inexperienced crew, and unable to prove she was a commissioned vessel of the US Navy. Perhaps Philips could have anticipated the disaster that awaited him this day, nineteen days hence.
Continued tomorrow…
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 1 “A-B”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1959, p. 88.
Palmer, Michael A. Stoddert’s War: Naval Operations during the Quasi-War with France, 1798-1801. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1987, pp. 59-65.