Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Spence, Robert Traill

SPENCE, Robert Traill, naval officer, b. in Portsmouth, N. H., about 1785; d. near Baltimore, Md., 26 Sept., 1827. He became a midshipman in the U. S. navy in 1800, and was serving under Decatur on the captured Tripolitan gun-boat, “No. 8,” when, on 7 Aug., 1804, she was blown up by a hot shot that was sent through her magazine. After the explosion, with her stern blown to pieces and under water, Spence kept on loading the long 26-pounder gun forward, fired it, and, with his crew of eleven survivors, gave three cheers, and, sitting astride his piece and waving his cap, went down into the water, but was rescued. His father, Kieth Spence, purser of the U. S. frigate “Philadelphia” when she grounded and was captured, as a prisoner in Tripoli was witness of his son's valor. Robert was made a lieutenant in 1807 and master-commandant in 1813. He was highly commended by Com. Rogers for his promptness and ingenuity in laying obstructions in the way of the British fleet off Baltimore, 30 Sept., 1814, and was made a post-captain in 1815 at the age of twenty-seven. In 1822, on the “Cyane,” as the senior American naval officer in the West Indies, he issued a protest against Francisco Morales, who had threatened death to Americans in the Spanish Main—an act as much applauded at home as it was effective at the time and place of danger. In Africa he built the first fort at Mesurado, in Liberia. He was ordered to command the West India fleet in 1826, but died before sailing.—Capt. Spence's sons, Carroll and Charles Lowell Stewart, were afterward in the diplomatic service of the United States, the former being minister to Turkey under President Pierce, and the other secretary of legation, and afterward envoy to Persia. His sister became the mother of James Russell Lowell.