1839: The Caroline Incident
After being laid up for more than two years, the frigate was recommissioned on 2 August 1839, Capt. William C. Bolton in command; and, once outfitted, sailed for the Mediterranean on 22 October.
This cruise was enlivened by tension with Great Britain over the Caroline incident. In 1837, when many people in the United States had sympathized with Canadian rebels, some Canadian loyalists had captured the steamboat Caroline from the American side of the Niagara River. In November 1840, a Canadian had been arrested and charged with murder in Lewistown, New York, after drunkenly boasting that he had taken part in the cutting out of Caroline and had killed an American.
Feelings on both sides of the Atlantic deepened during the spring of 1841, and the American minister to the Court of St. James's wrote to Commodore Hull urging him to leave the Mediterranean lest war break out and his squadron be trapped there.
Read more about this topic: USS Brandywine (1825)
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