by Jane Cook
For two hours Beckford sailed the Horace along the Norwegian coast. Finally he saw it. Another ship came within view. Would she fire freely?
Her colors were Danish. Full speed ahead, he ordered. Before he could flee, the brig fired a signal requesting to inspect the Horace. Beckford’s impatience increased with each passing second as the curious ship took thirty minutes to pass the stern. She hailed the usual questions: Where are you from? Why are you in these waters? Where are you going?
After receiving Beckford’s answers, the ship suddenly lowered her Danish flag and hoisted English colors instead. Such mast maneuvering made her even more mysterious—and possibly dangerous. Not believing Beckford’s answer or understanding his signals, the mysterious ship’s captain sent a boat over to the Horace.
When an officer and four men boarded, they confirmed their ship’s identity. The sounds of a British accent were obvious in the officer’s voice. After examining Beckford’s papers, the Englishman notified his captain of the Horace’s identity and mission.
“The boat soon returned with an answer that we might proceed without interruption having a minister onboard,” Louisa documented.
They were allowed to proceed for one reason: John’s position as an envoy. Because the Horace’s mission was to deliver a diplomat to a distant shore, the British captain honored the law of customs and allowed them to continue. How many more times would they have to endure such inspections and intrusions? Would John’s paperwork continue to be their best olive branch? They could only hope.
Beckford’s wavy hair tightly framed his face as if wearing a bowl on his head. Under such duress, the sweat from his brow must have crusted his hair to his forehead as he worried about encountering a ship too cavalier to hold its fire.
Soon they came within sight of Kristiansand, Norway. Beckford made a decision. The horizon again looked troublesome, blackened by another storm.
Sailing ships with square sails must head into the wind from forty-five- to sixty-degree angles. Because the process of going into the wind is labor-intensive, Beckford decided that they should put in there or go into the harbor to replenish their supplies while they waited for the storm to pass and catch a more favorable wind. Seeing the shallow waters, he decided to hire help.
“We sent for a pilot,” Louisa wrote in her diary. In the preindustrial nautical world, a pilot was someone who knew the local waters. Just as regional drivers directed a coach on land from post to post, so pilots temporarily boarded and steered ships through their hometown’s shallow ports and channels, which were also called canals or grounds. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the term pilot to 1481.
A pilot quickly responded to Beckford’s signal and rowed out to the ship, but so did another vessel. Sweeping alongside the Horace was a smaller two-mast boat with a swivel gun. On board were twenty armed sailors.
The swivel boat signaled. Beckford complied. A Danish lieutenant came onto the Horace’s quarterdeck, the area reserved for officers. Instead of asking questions, he issued commands, ordering Beckford to go to Kristiansand.
“The captain became alarmed and declared he would not put [in] anywhere,” Louisa observed.
Volunteering to go to Kristiansand was one thing; being ordered to do so was another. Beckford directed his crew to turn the Horace around toward the sea.
The lieutenant countersignaled, ordering the twenty armed men on the swivel boat to board and take possession of the Horace. Carrying pikes in their tentacles, these sailors crept onto the deck.
Beckford signaled. The Horace’s crew drew their swords. Soon clear-eyed Danes and Norwegians stared into angry-eyed Americans. Sword to sword. Axe to axe. Pike to pike.
“I was perfectly indignant at being taken by this boat,” Louisa said.
What would it have been like for her in this moment? She certainly felt anxious for her own life, but as a mother, she felt even more protective of her son, the only one she had left to care for. Most likely she, Kitty, and Martha made sure the toddler was secured in their cabin. There they could hide him from the intruders. Charles likely didn’t see the drawn swords, but he must have heard the piratelike shouts above him.
Although shielding her six- and eight-year-old boys would have been even more challenging, Louisa would have gladly done so with the fierceness of the sirens of the sea just to have George and John with her. As single women, Kitty and Martha were at risk of assault. Under these circumstances, their cabin was the safest place of refuge.
“The lieutenant, however, made a signal to them to withdraw—He and the pilot were afraid the captain would carry them out to sea,” she noted.
Beckford was angry enough to drag those Danes into the deep. A near-international incident came within a pike’s pointed tip. Imagine what might have happened had the Danes captured or worse, sunk, the very ship carrying the newly appointed minister to Russia and the son of a former US president. War! Indeed.
The confrontation revealed the root problem of American-European relations. Though America was technically an independent power completely separate from England, it was hardly a power, much less a superpower. It was a country in name only, if that. Aye, there was the rub.
Years earlier as a young diplomat to Prussia, which was a German-run kingdom that included Germany and portions of Poland, John experienced a similar dilemma firsthand. When he and Louisa arrived at the gates of Berlin in 1797, a German soldier accosted him. He wouldn’t let them pass because he didn’t know “who the United States of America were.” Another soldier intervened, allowing them to enter Berlin. European perceptions apparently had not changed much since then.
The United States had lived under its Constitution only twenty years. Didn’t Americans and Britons speak the King’s English? Of course! Though the accents were different even at this early time, most Europeans considered anyone who spoke English to be British. This was the justification that English captains used to impress American sailors into the British navy and why the Danes were suspicious of US merchant ships.
The Danish lieutenant didn’t believe Beckford’s story for one simple reason. He feared that the Horace’s crew members, mostly local boys from Boston, were really English sailors in disguise.
As clear as the lens of a spyglass, this latest clash revealed the truth that John and Louisa now faced. Storms were not the only danger that might prevent them from reaching St. Petersburg. Pretension was just as powerful a force. Too many English ships paraded as American ones, hoisting the Stars and Stripes instead of Great Britain’s Union Jack flag. Though the Horace was as independent as the bald eagle, to Danish and English sharks, this eagle might as well have been a seagull—prey to be devoured, not respected as an independent creature.
8
Three Hundred Americans
AS SOON AS THE DANISH SWIVEL BOAT SPED AWAY, CAPTAIN Beckford set sail again, traveling southwest a mere four more miles and docking safely in Flekkerøy. Before them was an oasis: a fishing village set among jagged rocks, white sailing boats, and neat red-and-white wooden houses topped by steep red roofs. The charming sight was a welcome relief from the danger they had just faced.
The next morning Beckford and a few crew members boarded their rowboat and paddled to Kristiansand to present the ship’s papers to local authorities there. Though he returned to the Horace with a pass to proceed, he also brought Adams disturbing news from a man named Isaacson.
“They found the captains of nearly thirty American vessels, which have been brought into Kristiansand since last May by privateers, and are detained for adjudication,” John recorded of the outrage.
Using private boats to capture them, Danish authorities were detaining three hundred American sailors and captains against their will. “I went immediately to Mr. Isaacson’s.”
Mr. Isaacson lived in one of Kristiansand’s neat wooden fishing houses. Friendly to the Americans detained there, he explained to John what had happened. Over four months, the Danes had captured dozens of US merchant vessel
s and put their captains and crew on trial. A Danish lower court condemned half of their cargoes. They were waiting on their appeal to the admiralty court. The rest had yet to undergo a trial. Though not imprisoned or chained, no one was allowed to leave.
The reality was strong and clear. No wonder the Danish swivel boat officer ordered them to Kristiansand. That was why he was so quick to command his men to draw swords against them. He wanted to impound the Horace too. Capturing American ships and their valuable colonial cargo was as commonplace in Danish-controlled Norway as ice fishing in winter.
Adams also learned that the detained Americans were waiting for him. After reading about his appointment in newspapers, the captains sent letters addressed to Minister Adams in St. Petersburg. Anticipating he would stop in Norway or Denmark on his voyage, the captains also sent him letters to the US consul in Elsinore, about 250 miles away. In addition they mailed copies of their papers to Levitt Harris, the US consul in St. Petersburg, and to President Madison in Washington.
Adams’s banishment might be their salvation. He was their best hope.
The lawyer in John emerged with all deliberate speed and due process. With the help of his attachés Gray, Everett, and Smith, he immediately sent messages to the governor of the city, the commandant of the garrison, and the admiral of the nearby naval force. He tried to talk to any authority who would listen.
By dusk the final answer came. No one was available for a meeting. That night the Adams party dined at Isaacson’s house.
“Mr. Isaacson, an agent for American seamen, a very gentlemanly man,” Louisa wrote of her refreshing break from her nautical prison cell. “We all had a charming dinner in this little nook in Norway.”
Twenty of the detained Americans joined them that night, which allowed John to see the problem with his own eyes. What he saw horrified him, gripping his patriotic heart as much as the bombardment of the Chesapeake had two years earlier.
Possibly while drinking ale and eating mackerel, a fish common to the area, the captains showed John their condemnation sentences and minutes of their proceedings in the Danish courts. Esquire Adams peppered them with questions, such as:
Did you understand the charges against you?
No.
Did you have a translator?
No.
Did they think you were British in disguise?
Yes.
“The sight of so many of my countrymen, in circumstances so distressing, is very painful and each of them has a story to tell of their peculiar aggravations of ill treatment which he has received,” John wrote of his anguish.
He was indignant. What crime had these US sailors committed? Practicing the merchant trade? He expected to hear of such atrocities by the Brits, but not the Danes. These American sailors were merely guilty of speaking in their native tongue.
What also emerged was the evil side of economics. The Danes were requiring them to pay for their detainment, including their lodging, food, and ship-harboring expenses. All conveniently boosted the local economy.
The detainment of these three hundred Americans underscored the great overarching reality. Until the United States was allowed to freely trade with other nations, it would remain a country without true sovereignty.
“The desire of contributing to their relief is so strong in me, that I shall, without waiting for express authority from the government of the United States, use every effort of my power on their behalf to however little purpose it may be as to its success.” John concluded that if their cases were heard on their merits and appropriately translated, then the captains and crews should be freed from Kristiansand and allowed to resume their trade business.
At dinner he made a decision. He would stop in Elsinore along their planned route through the Kattegat. From there he would travel to Copenhagen by coach. No matter the delay. As much as he needed to reach St. Petersburg, he absolutely must go to Copenhagen.
“They request my interposition with the Danish government in their behalf, and although having no authority from my government to speak officially to the court of Denmark, my good offices may probably be of little or no avail to them. I propose, however, to attempt a representation in their favor at Copenhagen.”
John could hardly wait. He didn’t have to be in St. Petersburg to duel in diplomacy. This protagonist had a new mission: advocate for his fellow countrymen in Denmark.
“We are ready to proceed upon our voyage, and I shall put to sea the first moment that wind and weather will permit,” John wrote with captain-like control.
Louisa was also touched by their plight. She may have been going to St. Petersburg against the wishes of her heart, but the stories of these sailors reminded her of a different truth: she was not under legal confinement. She wasn’t in jeopardy of losing her cargo and only source of income. She wasn’t in danger of becoming a beggar on the street without enough money to pay for a return voyage home.
Weather would not permit an immediate voyage to Elsinore, however. The date was September 21, 1809, near the day “when the sun crosses the line.” This was the autumn equinox, the time of year when the days and nights grow closer and closer in length until equal. Then they slowly switch, with nights becoming longer and days shorter. Unfavorable sailing winds or “equinoctial gales” prohibited the Horace from sailing immediately. Heavy wind and continual rain confined them. As anxious as they were to leave Norway, nature now imprisoned them.
“Mr. Isaacson to his great inconvenience accommodated us all with lodgings, where we were compelled to stay until the next evening,” Louisa explained.
John was so ready to sail that by 2:00 p.m. the next day, he decided they were leaving Isaacson’s house anyway, despite the wily weather.
“Mr. Adams obliged us to return to the ship in a heavy gale, and that night we sailed,” she wrote of his Noah-like determination.
Hence they set sail under poor weather conditions into one of the most difficult waterways in the world, the Kattegat Sea. The name comes from the Dutch words for cat and hole, called a gat. Kattegat simply means “cat hole.” During medieval times captains described these straits and their many reefs as so narrow and shallow that not even a cat could squeeze through them.
Not long after their departure, Louisa made an interesting observation: “We saw four or five vessels ashore.”
No one else was out gallivanting in the cat hole. She was not surprised at her husband’s skipper-like decision to go forward. Public service was more important to him than anything else. John was as predictable as his timepiece. His purpose in life, his very existence, was to be useful to mankind. Serving the public, especially seeking justice for others, was paramount. Mrs. Adams understood her husband’s motivation to get to Copenhagen. Justice was a respectable ambition, something the son of John Adams could not refuse.
As the Horace sailed for Elsinore, the pounding of the ship was greater than at any previous time in their voyage. The ship rolled, pitched, and heaved all at the same time. Once again turbulence tossed them about as if they were as light as sand. Unknown to the impassioned diplomat, whose wife’s anxiety and physical suffering increased with each crashing wave, a more stubborn headache was ahead.
“In the midst of the passage of the sound, we saw a ship of war at anchor—And a sloop with several other vessels anchored near them,” Louisa recorded.
Instead of waiting to be stopped, Beckford hailed the man-of-war. Soon a British officer and a few sailors rowed to them. “And a lieutenant from her soon came on board.”
With the audacity of a pirate, the English officer ordered the crew of the Horace to line the deck. One by one as if inspecting prisoners, he compared each sailor with the ship’s paperwork and written descriptions of the crew. Cameras, of course, did not exist in 1809. The sailors didn’t carry photographic identification cards or even pencil sketches of their faces.
One of Beckford’s written descriptions didn’t match, at least in the lieutenant’s view. Silence filled the boat as the
Brit questioned the young sailor.
Where are you from? Charlestown, the young man may have answered. Charlestown was the hallowed site of the Battle of Bunker Hill during the Revolutionary War, which John watched burn from a distance when he was eight years old. No matter if the towns were adjacent, if the paperwork said Boston and the lad answered Charlestown, then the lieutenant had what he wanted—a discrepancy and justification to haul off the young man.
The interrogation could have continued with more “discrepancies.” What, blond hair? Says here, brown. Say that again? Your English smacks of Liverpool.
“[The lieutenant]—who on examining the papers of the crew was very troublesome and threatened to take one of them off,” Louisa recalled.
They were witnessing the practice of impressment. For all they had endured, so far no one had questioned the nationality of an individual sailor or threatened to kidnap him.
Would the crewman from Charlestown be taken off? Hadn’t his hair simply lightened with exposure to the sun? Worse, would he be impressed to serve in the British navy? Is this what the crew of the USS Chesapeake had suffered?
Seeing Mr. Adams, suddenly the lieutenant had a bigger fish to catch than a freckled-face crab from Charlestown. The officer became even more indignant as he questioned John.
What? No passport? An American commission to Russia? Hardly a substitute. A diplomatic mission? The smell of coffee beans below deck is stronger than your pathetic story. Why would a merchant ship be going to Russia on a diplomatic mission? Didn’t the United States have military boats for that purpose? All are highly suspicious.
John’s paperwork seemed as foreign to this English officer as the Russian alphabet. As he bombarded John with questions and threatened them with a pirate’s pike, all the passengers could do was watch, wait, and pray.
