prison to buy him a suit at Brooks Bro thers on Broadway. While the deputy marshal escorting the pair was trying on a suit fo r himself, Latham and his friend escaped in a carriage waiting outside. M ares John Wilso n and H ans Olsen denied knowledge that they were serving on a slaving voyage until they reached Africa. They pleaded guil ty to violating the act of 1800-a lesser crime of voluntary service aboard a slaver. The court sentenced them to ten months in prison with a fi ne of $5 00 each. Four other seamen were bro ught into court but their cases were dismissed. USS Constellation stayed on station, capturing one more slave ship- the brig Triton-o n 22 May 186 1. O n 11 August she set sail fo r the United States fo r reassignment to preserve the Union during the Civil War. O ccupied by a war on American soil, the Lincoln Administration fi nally allowed the Royal Navy to search American vessels suspected as slavers. The African Squadro n was no more. Constellation left the squadron with an impressive record; the navy achieved these results by increasing the number ofvessels on station, introducing smaller steam-powered vessels to the fleet, relocating the supply depot from the distant island of Porro Praya to Sr.
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Paul de Loando (south of the Congo River), and restricti ng the boundaries of the cruising gro und. More aggressive patrols and better cooperation with the Royal Navy West African Squadron may have contributed as well. Unfortunately, the Squadron's commanders were ordered to prioritize the pro tection of American commerce over the suppression of the slave trade, hampering their success with the latter. Nevertheless, USS Constellation remains a surviving witness to the horrors of the rra nsArl antic slave trade and a significant participant in the American effort to combat it in the years fo llowing its abolition. ,!,
6
American Colon ization Society. African Repository, vol. 37 (Washington: C. Alexander, 1861), 62.
j ohn Pentangelo, the former Chief Curator at H istoric Ship s in Baltimore, currently serves as a curator at the Naval War College M useum in Newp ort, Rhode Island. H e holds a masters degree in H istory M useum Studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program. Visit the USS Constellation at Pier 1, 3 01 East Pratt St., Baltimore, M D 2 12 02; Ph. 4 10 539-1797; www. historicship s.org.
NOTES: 1 W illiam Ambrose Leonard, "Items and Inciden ts in the Cruise of the U nited States Flagship Constellation on the W est Coast of Africa in the Years 1859, 1860 and 186 1. " Ms. (photocopy), 25September1 860, 122123, H istoric Ships in Baltimore Collection. 2Ibid. , 22-25 October 1859, 31-33 . 3"Squadron Letters: African Squadron" 184 1-1866. NARA, Microfilm File M89, Roll 110. 4 W ilburn H all, "Capture of the Slave Ship Cora," The Century 48, no. 1 (1 894): 11 6. 5Ibid ., 120. Historic , antique U .S. Coast Survey maps from the 1800s / Orig ina l lithographs, most American seaports and shores. Repri nts, too. Uni que framed, grea t gifts. Catalog, $1.00. Speci fy area.
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SEA HISTORY 132, AUTUMN 2010