Capture of USS Frolic (sloop)

The capture of USS Frolic on 20 April 1814, in the Florida Strait off the coast of Cuba, was a textbook illustration of the blockade’s strangling effect on American naval operations. A brand-new American sloop-of-war — one of three heavy flush-decked sloops built specifically to challenge British commerce — was run down by a British frigate and schooner after a six-hour chase during which the American commander threw his guns overboard in a desperate attempt to gain speed.

Frolic was a formidable vessel: a sister ship to USS Peacock and the second USS Wasp, designed by William Doughty and armed with twenty 32-pounder carronades and two long 18-pounders. Her commander, Joseph Bainbridge (younger brother of Commodore William Bainbridge, who had commanded Constitution against Java), had put to sea from Boston in February 1814 for a commerce-raiding cruise in the West Indies. The cruise had been productive: Frolic destroyed a British merchant vessel and sank a privateer before encountering Captain Hugh Pigot’s HMS Orpheus and the schooner HMS Shelburne.

Bainbridge recognised immediately that he could not fight a 36-gun frigate and chose to run. What followed was a six-hour chase in which Frolic’s crew laboured desperately to gain speed. The starboard anchor was cut away. The guns on the port side — the side away from the enemy — were heaved overboard. Small arms followed. Despite these measures, Orpheus gradually closed the distance. Approximately fifteen miles off Matanzas, Cuba, Bainbridge surrendered.

No casualties were suffered on either side — the action was a chase rather than a battle. But the capture was strategically significant. Frolic was one of the newest and most capable American warships, built specifically for the kind of commerce-raiding mission that was the American navy’s most effective strategy. Her loss before she could accomplish anything of consequence demonstrated how comprehensively the British blockade and patrol system had closed down American options at sea.

The Admiralty purchased Frolic and commissioned her as HMS Florida. She served in the Royal Navy until broken up in 1819. The irony of her name was not lost on contemporaries: the original HMS Frolic had been captured by USS Wasp in October 1812. The American Frolic, named to commemorate that victory, was herself captured barely eighteen months later. The war at sea had come full circle.