The Leander Affair exposed compromised neutrality

British warships watched French vessels sheltering at New York and stopped American merchantmen outside territorial waters to search for French goods. At the same time, those British ships bought large quantities of provisions in the very American port whose traffic they were policing, revealing a striking layer of mutual expediency. On 25 April 1806, a routine warning shot from Leander travelled into the harbour and killed the coastal sloop helmsman John Pierce. Public display of Pierce's body, seizure and charitable redistribution of twenty cartloads of British provisions, and the temporary protective detention of British officers turned the accident into a political event. Thomas Jefferson eventually barred the ships and captains from American waters, while Leander's captain was acquitted at court martial, leaving the episode as one of the accumulating grievances before the War of 1812.