In the Earliest Mutiny Case We Know of Against a Jewish Captain and Ship Owner, President James Madison Stays a Sentence of Execution Against a Sailor Sentenced to Death

In 1802, at the age of 10, Uriah P. Levy ran away from home in the middle of the night to join the trading ship New Jerusalem as a cabin boy.   He accepted a 2-year appointment and returned to his family and synagogue just in time for his Bar Mitzvah at Mikveh Israel.  After trying and failing to convince the young Uriah to join the family business in retail trade, Uriah’s father in 1806 apprenticed him for four years to one of Philadelphia’s leading ship-owners and a close family friend, John Coultron.  Uriah served as a seaman on the schooner Rittenhouse. In 1807, President Jefferson imposed an embargo on all trade with Europe, idling the ships and leaving nothing for Uriah to do.  Mr. Coultron took this opportunity to send his young apprentice to a school for navigation led by an ex-lieutenant of the British Navy.  When the embargo was lifted, Uriah was off again to sea with far more skills and maturity than before.

By the time he was 18, Uriah had already made several profitable voyages, serving in all of the different capacities during his apprenticeship including cabin boy, ordinary and able-bodied seaman, boatswain, third, second, and first mates, and captain.  By the age of 19, Uriah had earned enough money to purchase a one-third interest in a trading ship, the new schooner called the George Washington, named for the first names of his two partners George Mesoncourt and Washington Garrison.  When not at sea, Levy was very careful to carry his certification of American citizenship, as British impressment gangs prowled the city looking for young men to force into service in the British Navy.  These “protection papers” were usually enough to thwart impressment, so Uriah wasn’t worried when a squad of British marines from the Vermyra approached him.  On showing them his credentials, they remarked “You don’t look like an American.  You look like a Jew.”  Uriah Levy replied, “I am an American and a Jew.”  After an insulting remark, the hot-headed Levy displayed the high-handed defensive spirit and refusal to be denigrated that shaped his stormy career throughout his life. He was pressed into service against his will and forced to serve on the Vermyra for a month before he was released.  During that time, the commander of the ship, recognizing Uriah’s skills and spirit, repeatedly demanded that Levy join the British Navy.  Levy refused, stating “Sir, I cannot take the oath.  I am an American and cannot swear allegiance to your king.  And I am a Hebrew and do not swear on your testament, or with my head uncovered.”  Finally, after an audience with the British Naval Commander in Jamaica, his papers were deemed to be in order and he was released on the condition that he find his own way home.

On one of his first trips commanding the George Washington, Levy picked up a cargo of corn which he sailed to the Canary Islands and sold for 2,500 Spanish dollars and fourteen cases of Teneriffe Canary wine.  On his way back to the States, his crew mutinied, stealing the ship, the money and the cargo.   Levy had gone to pay a visit to another ship, being rowed in by two of the men. When he sought to return, the ship was gone; a search revealed the cables had been cut. On board the schooner, chief mate Samuel Tully had taken over and ordered the men to hoist the sails, which the two rowmen refused to do and instead insisted on taking the small rowboat and leaving the ship. The cook John Owen wanted to join them, but Sully said no. Now there were just Tully, his helper John Dalton, a cook and a seaman named George Cummings. The ship put to sea. Cummings, who was not part of the plan to seize the ship, became uneasy with what was happening, and about two weeks into the venture fought with Sully. Sully and Dalton threw him overboard and left him to die at sea. Upon reaching port, the cook, also not involved in the scheme, was given a few dollars to keep him quiet, and Sully and Dalton kept the rest and concocted a cover story.

Using another ship and determined to bring the mutineers to justice, Levy hunted them down, finally finding and overtaking them in the Caribbean.  He brought them back to Boston.

The grand jurors returned three bills of indictment, one for piratically and feloniously running away with the schooner George Washington from the care of her master, and taking the casks of wine and cash on board; another was for the murder of George Cummings on the high seas; and the third for feloniously scuttling and casting away the vessel. The men plead not guilty. At the trial, Levy and the cook appeared as witnesses, and two men were convicted and sentenced to death. Dalton’s attorney had made the point that Dalton was not a principal, but an accessory, and should be treated differently than Sully; this distinction would in time save Dalton’s life. The executions were scheduled for December 10, 1812, in Boston. The trial is included in the book, American State Trials: A Collection of Important and Interesting Criminal Trials.

Dalton sought presidential intervention to prevent his execution. President Madison suspended Dalton’s execution in this Document signed as President, Washington, November 30, 1812. “Whereas it has been made appear to me that a certain John Dalton was at a Circuit Court of the United States lately held for the District of Massachusetts duly convicted of the offense of Piracy, and thereupon judgment of death was rendered against him, the said John Dalton… to be executed on the 10th day of December ensuing: Now be it known that I James Madison, President of the United States of America, for divers good causes and considerations do by these presents respite the execution…”  Also signed by James Monroe as Secretary of State.

Dalton would eventually be fully pardoned. Tully was hung as scheduled, with an estimated 15,000 people in attendance at the gallows. That would be almost half the population of the town at the time.

Levy went on to be the first Jewish commodore in the American Navy. He is one of America’s early great Jewish heroes.