The Slaving Sloop Betsey

As we have seen, at the time the Ganges cleared Philadelphia for the West Indies in late May 1800, Captain John Mullowney had the authority to interdict and seize American vessels engaged in the foreign slave trade. On May 10th, Congress had amended the 1794 anti slave trade law to explicitly allow it and, having been passed in Philadelphia, the captain would certainly have been aware of it, as the Ganges was in port at the time, not putting to sea until May 25th.

Even so, the Ganges was not the first United States ship to capture an American slaving vessel at sea, that distinction belonging to the armed schooner USS Experiment, Captain William Maley. A fast sailer, the Experiment cleared Baltimore in November 1799 and took up station off the coast of Haiti as part of Commodore Silas Talbot’s squadron. The Experiment acquitted herself well during her seven month voyage, capturing fourteen enemy ships. On January 1, 1800, for example, she successfully defended three American merchantmen in an extended engagement with eleven armed Haitian barges, all while becalmed in the Bight of Léogâne.1

The Experiment’s last engagement was on June 25, when she captured the Sloop Betsey, of Charleston, Captain Bateman Munro, off the coast of Cuba, enroute from the Rio Pongo to Havana with 85 enslaved Africans aboard.2 Maley appears to have seized the Betsey under the terms of the revised slave trade act, but it’s not clear how he would have known about it since the Experiment was at sea when the law was passed on May 10. However, given a sailing time of about three weeks from Philadelphia to San Domingue3, there was still time for the word to travel south by sea. Maley reported speaking with over 100 vessels during the Experiment’s seven month voyage and was stationed with Commodore Talbot’s squadron at Mole St Nicholas (San Domingue) in mid June.4

Though he brought them successes, the inexperienced and mercurial Maley was disliked by those aboard the Experiment — she was not a happy ship. His aggressiveness and short temper were directed at officers and crew as frequently as they were the enemy. This included a bitter argument with his First Mate, Lieut. Edward Boss, that resulted with the two officers going ashore to settle matters in a duel. Both returned to the Experiment, but we do not know how (or if) they actually settled matters.

Becoming aware of these circumstances, Commodore Talbot ordered the Experiment to Philadelphia5 and, soon after the capture of the Betsey, Maley headed north, but not before placing a prize crew aboard the Betsey — conveniently with Lieutenant Boss as prize master, accompanied by Captain Munro — and ordering her to Havana. In this way he guaranteed that upon arrival in Philadelphia, he would be able to make a case with his superiors first.6

Nor was Edward Boss a model officer. Both Captain Maley and midshipman John Roche accused him of chronic drunkenness on duty. Further, between 1786 and 1797, he had captained four slaving voyages out of Rhode island to Goree, Cape Mount and Gambia, then on to Surinam, Charleston and Savannah, landing more than an an estimated 300 slaves.7

While Edward Boss’s absence from the Experiment might have been convenient for Capt. Maley, it did not bode well for the 85 enslaved Africans aboard. Boss undoubtedly had commercial contacts in Havana and, with the Betsy’s Captain Munro accompanying him, it’s not surprising that nothing more is known of the fate of the Africans aboard. They were probably sold.

Weeks later, Lieut. Boss and the prize crew brought the Betsey into Charleston, sans slaves. She was condemned by the Federal Court on September 29 and, though not seaworthy, sold at auction to William Torry. for $615, with Maley ,Boss and the Experiment’s crew sharing the net prize money of $409.58.8

Meanwhile, the Experiment arrived at Fort Mifflin on July 9th9 and, considering the law’s failure to address the disposition of the enslaved people aboard captured vessels, concerns about the fate of the Betsey’s human cargo, now in Havana, quickly began circulating .

On July 14th, Navy Secretary Stoddard wrote Captain Maley a terse note suggesting his annoyance with Maley’s decision:10

I request you will be pleased to inform me why you sent the vessel [sloop Betsey] you took with Slaves to the Havanna.
You will take the direction of Mr Ingersoll, how to dispose of the Persons you took out of that vessel.

A few days before this, Samuel Hodgdon11 had consulted with Federal District Jared Ingersoll on the subject and, in a lengthy letter to former Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, he laid out Ingersoll’s thinking: 12

  • The slaves cannot be sold, the law and Constitution forbid it.
  • “Liberated where they are or indeed any where else they cannot be for no Government would allow it [emphsis mine]”
  • the only alternative is to return them to their own Country.

Hodgdon then goes on to draw a logical conclusion that there would be a great risk if the enslaved were returned home, that they could be recaptured and the entire traumatic cycle of kidnapping and enslavement repeated. Nonetheless, he concludes this to be the best alternative and suggests that the costs be fully borne by the enslavers as “Confiscation of property is not all that attaches to the Proprietors of the Vessel , each are liable to a fine of two thousand dollars and to this , I look for indemnity in sending the Black Men back to their own country.”

As an aside, the aforementioned suggestion by Hodgdon is the only documented instance I have found where someone seriously recommends returning the enslaved to Africa and proposes a way to pay for it.

Since the Experiment arrived back in Philadelphia well before the Betsey was condemned at Charleston, Maley got to tell his side of the story first. Nonetheless, things did not go well for him. At Secretary Stoddert’s urging, he resigned to avoid a public court martial.13 Lieut. Edward Boss left the Navy the following April as peace was established and Naval forces reduced. Boss appears to have returned to the slave trade in 1806, signing as first mate aboard the schooner Commerce of Newport, Captain Joseph Stevens, bound for Africa.14 Boss died suddenly in Charleston in 1809.15

  1. Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval documents related to the quasi-war between the United States and France & Naval Operations From January1800 to May 1800, Washington : U.S. G.P.O., 1938. Vol. 5, p. 5. [Hereafter: Naval Documents 5] ↩︎
  2. Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval documents related to the quasi-war between the United States and France & Naval Operations From June 1800 to November 1800, Washington : U.S. G.P.O., 1938. Vol. 6, p. 85. [Hereafter: Naval Documents 6] “Those taken out of the vessel” were presumably the members of the Betsey’s crew taken on board the Experiment off Havana. ↩︎
  3. James Alexander Dunn, American Trade with Revolutionary Haiti, online, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/59e4b43f83124238bbd274a97bb54c33, accessed 10 June 2025. The author reports that the typical sailing time for a merchant vessel from Philadelphia to San Domingue was between 19 and 23 days. ↩︎
  4. Naval Documents 6, page 299. ↩︎
  5. Talbot to Stoddert, 13 June 1800, United States. Court Martial Records Jun 27, 1799–Aug 15, 1805. ↩︎
  6. Naval Documents 6, page 85. ↩︎
  7. David Eltis, Trans Atlantic Slave Database, online, https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/database , accessed 10 June 2025. Filtering the database for captain “Edward Boss” returns the four voyages. ↩︎
  8. Naval Documents 6, page 429. ↩︎
  9. Gazette Marine List, The North American, Philadelphia, 9 July 1800, page 3. ↩︎
  10. Naval Documents 6, page 151. ↩︎
  11. Samuel Hodgdon (1745-1824) , former Quartermaster General and Superintendent of Military Stores in 1800, stationed at Philadelphia. He was a friend and business partner of Timothy Pickering. See: “5th Quartermaster General.
    Mr. Samuel Hodgdon, Quartermaster General | March 1791 – April 1792, US Quartermaster Corp, online, https://quartermaster.army.mil/bios/previous-qm-generals/quartermaster_general_bio-hodgdon.html , accessed 14 January 2025. ↩︎
  12. Naval Documents 6, pages 133-134. Here’s the full, pertinent section:

    Captain Maley has arrived, he has acquit himself so as to meet the applause of all his last act was the capture of a Vessel [sloop Betsy ] from Charleston South Carolina to Africa with Eighty five Slaves , within three hours sail of her destined Port . He has sent her to the address of our Consul in the Havanna near which place she was captured Believing it to be a novel case I called on Mr Ingersol for information respecting it He says my doubts are well founded for no Law has made provision for such a case The law strikes at the outfit of a Vessel for that trade but makes no provision for the crime in case of evasion of the Law in the instance before us the Clearance was for the Cape de Verd Islands – but the Vessel never intended to go there , her voyage was for Africa and the slave trade returning after the disposition of her slaves , she was to go to the Cape de Verds, and take in a load of Salt & all would be well- But under circumstances how are the slaves to be disposed of to be sold they cannot , both Constitution and Law forbid this- What then is to be done – liberated where they are or indeed any where else they cannot be for no Government would allow it the only alternative is to return them to their own Country this will be right as it respects our Goverment but will it make the condition of the slaves any better? — will they not again be snatched up as Prisoners , and sold to some other unprincipled Nation or People where their case will be more injurious from more cruel treatment My heart sickens at the thought the World in arms against slavery and the most free running every risque of fortune and character to Make the most innocent the most wretched surely there is a Providence that Governs all – but how, or where , a solution of such conduct can be found to comport with the justice of its Laws , and the Benevolence of its Goverment , or the permission of such crimes I am at a loss to determine -perhaps Pope was right when he said “whatever is is right ” – But Maley has done right in making the capture let the event be what it may a general indignation is already excited against the monsters that planned the voyage – And death with loss of property is declared to be their due ‘ tis however a curious case Confiscation of property is not all that attaches to the Proprietors of the Vessel , each are liable to a fine of two thousand dollars and to this , I look for indemnity in sending the Black Men back to their own country- ↩︎
  13. Entry for William Maley in Edward W. Callahan, ed.,”List of officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps, from 1775 to 1900″, page 384. Records Maley’s resignation on 12 November 1800. ↩︎
  14. National Archives, Crew Lists for Newport, RI, 1803-1930_4492374, RG-36, Records of the US Customs Service, Container 1A_1804-1810; online, FamilySearch, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSWP-7B49?view=explore&groupId=TH-909-60095-24984-30&lang=en , image 350. ↩︎
  15. “Death Notice for Edward Boss”, The Charleston Daily Courier
    Charleston, South Carolina, Fri, Mar 31, 1809, Page 3. ↩︎