https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/the-adventures-of-commodore-levy-u-s-n
A sailor of great professional skill and courage, he was proud, arrogant, and self-righteous.
Born April 22, 1792 (Nissan 30, 5552), Uriah Phillips Levy was 10 years old when he ran away to sea. He returned two years later, as he’d promised his mother, to prepare for his bar mitzvah. Then he apprenticed to a Philadelphia ship owner. In our day of wooden men and iron ships, “learning the ropes” is a cliché. To Levy, it was life and death. A square-rigger has more than 200 ropes (called lines), each has a name and a function, and Levy had to know them all. To confuse a clew line with a halyard, or a lee brace with a weather backstay, could mean a dismasted ship and the endangerment of all aboard her.
Within nine years, as Levy wrote, “I passed through every grade of service—cabin boy, ordinary seaman, able-bodied seaman, boatswain, third mate, second mate, first mate, to that of captain…” In 1809, while on shore leave in Tortola, a British press gang seized him. He was carrying his papers. However, a Royal Marine sergeant sneered, “You don’t look like an American to me. You look like a Jew.” Levy replied, “I am an American and a Jew.” “If the Americans have Jew peddlers manning their ships, it’s no wonder they sail so badly,” the Royal Marine replied. Levy hit him full in the face. Hitting a Royal Marine in the face is almost invariably a mistake. When Levy came to in the brig of HMS Vermeer, the officer of the watch was shoving a New Testament at him and demanding he swear himself into the Royal Navy. Levy refused, saying, “I am an American and I cannot swear allegiance to your king. And I am a Jew, and do not swear on your testament, or with my head uncovered.” Somehow, he gained an audience with Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, who agreed that his papers were valid and ordered him released.
In 1811, at 19, he became master and part owner of the brig George Washington. He nailed a mezuzah outside his cabin door, a small box containing Biblical verses that signified his cabin was a Jewish home. When the United States declared war on Great Britain in 1812, Levy entered the U.S. Navy as a sailing master. Levy was captured when his ship was taken by a British warship. He was imprisoned at Dartmoor for 16 months, during a winter so cold the Thames froze solid to the bottom. He learned French and fencing; he failed only in organizing a congregation among the prisoners for want of a minyan, the traditional quorum of 10.
