Talk:Little Belt affair

ship or sloop-of-war?
I have a problem with this part of the article: "the British sixth-rate HMS Little Belt, a sloop-of-war, which had originally been the Danish ship Lillebælt ". If it was a sixth rate, it was a ship and not a sloop-of-war. Later in the sentence it is called a ship, and not a sloop. It can not be both. A sloop-of-war was unrated, a sixth rate is a ship, according to the article on the British rating system. I can be mistaken of course. That is why I put this in the talk and I didn't editing the article. Ikbentbeu (talk) 08:44, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've other material which variously calls her a corvette. What I can do today is take a survey of my library and see how most of my books term the Little Belt. Auror (talk) 11:31, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * In the article on Arthur Bingham, it states that he was "Commander of the Little Belt" and that "Bingham was promoted to Post-Captain on 7 February 1812". This would mean that he was a Master-and-Commander when he was aboard the Little Belt, so it would be considered a Sloop.  The statement that it was a Corvette would make sense: it would be ship rigged (3 square rigged masts), but flush decked.  If I remember my British Naval history correctly, it was possible for a vessel of that small size to be rated a sixth-rate, but only with a true Captain aboard.  While Arthur Bingham was in command it would have been considered a sloop-of-war.  --Zed Orkin (talk) 19:12, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup
The article was in very poor shape when I first saw it today. It appeared that some people had been editing it in sections, with no regard to the rest of the article. The result was numerous redundancies and conflicts. There was one incorrect date, and the battle was incorrectly (I believe) placed at Cape Hatteras. The timeline was so convoluted that it seemed to be taking place in broad daylight. Certain parts took one side's story at face value. Most egregious of all was an argumentative and implausible introduction stating that after four years of waiting, John Rodgers went out with the intention of settling a score on the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair.

There were no references at all. Unfortunately, only one of my resources has enough detail on the event to be of use. Somehow that lone reference looks even more pathetic than the hearsay that preceded it. I also added an external link. I hope that others will contribute more.--Geometricks (talk) 15:54, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Following up those earlier edits, I see that the chase began off Virginia, but there was enough time for them to reach North Carolina, so I changed the location back. While doing that, I noticed that Creighton was said to have boarded the Little Belt in order to apologize. That seems highly unlikely given his own captain's official version of the events. At any rate, it conflicts with Bingham's account of the conversation, so that too has changed.

Looking through the article history, I see that the President's number of guns was at some point changed from 58 to 44. Although the President and her sister ships were rated 44, they all typically carried many more. Fifty-eight is not at all unlikely, but I do not have a reference to support it. Does anyone else?--Geometricks (talk) 17:39, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I recently brought the USS President article to FA. If you read USS_President_(1800) there is cited information there. One of the reasons why I didn't refer to this article is the condition it was in until you started fixing it. I have trouble locating British accounts of the encounter so I was left with trying to tone down the American pov. --Brad (talk) 18:18, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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The Affair, Battle
"President returned and Rodgers asked Bingham if he had struck." - Struck what? Markpd (talk) 11:27, 23 June 2020 (UTC)