In 1806, Cambrian came under the command of Captain John Nairne (acting). While under his command she, along with Leander and the ship-sloop , was engaged in searching American vessels coming from foreign ports, for enemy property and contraband.James (1837), Vol. 4, p.236. This gave rise to the so-called Leander affair with the result that on 14 June President Thomas Jefferson issued a proclamation ordering Leander, Driver, and Cambrian immediately to quit US waters and forbidding them ever to return. He extended the same prohibition to all vessels that their respective captains might command.Draft of Proclamation concerning "Leander" - Thomas Jefferson, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 10 (Correspondence and Papers 1803-1807) [1905], Ed. Paul Leicester Ford, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1904-5). On 26 April, the day after the affair, Leander, Cambrian, and Driver captured the American ship Aurora.
