Browse Delaware Authors: Lyter, Andrew J.

Arriving at Portsmouth, England, the Belvidera paid off her crew and the last members of the ship’s company were discharged. It was August 24, 1814. Four years, six months, and five days had passed since the crew first mustered at the Nore under Captain Richard Byron before sailing for the North Sea and later North America. Over the course of her tenure on active duty, twenty-two American tars called her lower deck home as they served under the British ensign. Their time in the Royal Navy, during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, coincided with an era of fluid nationalities on the waterfront and ambiguity for laborers at sea when it came to defining what it meant to be an American. As a result, these sailors often weighed national loyalties against a greater devotion to the seafaring livelihood. Through their collective service aboard the Belvidera, they would greatly influence the socio-cultural seascape of the trans-Atlantic world.