James Lucas Yeo British Shipbuilding on Lake Ontario

James Yeo joined the Royal Navy in 1782 at the age of ten. Promoted to lieutenant in 1797, he soon acquired a swashbuckling reputation by leading daring expeditions against Cesanatico Harbour in 1800 and Muros Harbour in 1805. At Muros Harbour, he stormed a fort with 50 men and captured the French privateer, the Confiance. He was then promoted commander of the Confiance and became captain in 1807. Yeo conquered the French stronghold of Guiana for the prince regent of Portugal in 1809, when he lead a combined British-Portuguese force of 400 against a fort garrisoned with 1200 men and 200 cannon. This action earned him a Portuguese knighthood. In March of 1813, Yeo became commodore and commander-in-chief of the British naval forces on the Canadian lakes. In late May of 1813, Yeo’s squadron supported Sir George Prevost’s attack on Sacket’s Harbour, New York, but failed to destroy the American ship, General Pike. In June, Yeo collaborated with General John Vincent in the action at Stoney Creek that threw back a U.S. invasion. Yeo’s fleet, now consisting of six brigs, several schooners, and two new ships, Wolfe and Royal George, engaged the American fleet under Isaac Chauncey in several running actions in August and September. None of these engagements were conclusive, but this type of hit and run battle fit in well with Yeo’s strategy of preserving his squadron for the defense of Upper Canada, rather than seeking to engage his enemy in all-out battles. To quote James L. Mooney, both Yeo and Chauncey “suffered from a common naval malady, fearing defeat more than they desired victory.” An ambitious shipbuilding program was initiated by Yeo in the winter of 1813. The Americans under Isaac Chauncey, were frantically building new ships, and Yeo wanted to stop them from taking control of Lake Ontario. This shipbuilding race would continue until the end of the war. Yeo’s ever increasing demand for men and supplies on Lake Ontario denied Robert Heriot Barclay on Lake Erie, and George Downie on Lake Champlain, sufficient seamen and military equipment to maintain British naval control of those lakes. Other initiatives by Yeo helped frustrate U.S. invasions, one along the St. Lawrence River in 1813, and another through the Niagara Peninsula in 1814. Late in 1814, Yeo was recalled to England to prefer court martial charges against various officers, including Sir George Prevost for the loss of the British Lake Champlain squadron. Yeo was knighted at the end of the war and appointed to command the naval base at Portsmouth and then the African fleet. He died of fever while en route from Jamaica to England on August 21, 1818.