Chesapeake Affair

A naval confrontation between the United States and Great Britain. It involved the USS Chesapeake and the HMS Lion. The Lion set upon the Chesapeake in U.S. territorial waters just off Newport News, Virginia. The Chesapeake was stopped, boarded, and three U.S. sailors were taken off in an act of impressment.

An attack of this nature in the territorial waters of another power is an act of war. Many within U.S. Congress pressed for a declaration of war against Great Britain, but U.S. President Thomas Jefferson advocated a policy of economic coercion which was passed as the Embargo Act of 1807.