USS Frolic (1813)

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Career (United States) 100x35px
Name: USS Frolic
Namesake: A "frolic" is a happy and festive occasion
Builder: Josiah Barker, Charlestown, Massachusetts
Launched: 11 September 1813
Fate: Captured 20 April 1814
Career (UK) Royal Navy Ensign
Name: Florida
Acquired: By capture 20 April 1814
Fate: Broken up May 1819
General characteristics
Type: Sloop-of-war
Tonnage: 509 tons
Length: 117 ft 11 in (35.94 m)
Beam: 31 ft 6 in (9.60 m)
Depth: 14 ft 6 in (4.42 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Complement:
  • American Service: 170
  • British Service: 135
Armament:
  • American service
  • 20 x 32-pounder carronades
    2 x 12-pounder guns

    • British service

    18 x 32-pounder carronades

    2 x 12-pounder guns

    USS Frolic was a sloop-of-war that served in the United States Navy in 1814. The British captured her later that year and she served in the Royal Navy in the Channel and the North Sea until she was broken up in 1819.

    Career

    Frolic was launched on 11 September 1813 by Josiah Barker at Charlestown, Massachusetts.

    Frolic first put to sea on 18 February 1814 with Commander J. Bainbridge in command, standing out of President Roads in Boston Harbor at Boston, Massachusetts, for a cruise in the West Indies during the War of 1812.

    On 29 March 1814 she destroyed a British merchant ship, and later on the same day she sank an unnamed privateer after a brief action. She sank another British merchant ship on 3 April 1814.

    While in the Florida Strait on 20 April 1814, Frolic encountered the British 36-gun frigate HMS Orpheus and 12-gun schooner HMS Shelburne. Frolic beat away to southward, making for the coast of Cuba as the two British ships gave chase. Frolic's men labored to lighten their ship, cutting away the starboard anchor, and casting overboard the guns mounted on her port side and small arms. Overtaken after six hours, Frolic was forced to surrender to the superior British force when about 15 miles off Matanzas, Cuba.

    British service

    After her capture, the Admiralty purchased Frolic for ₤8,211.1.7d and took her into the Royal Navy as the Sixth Rate Post ship HMS Florida.[1][2] She was commissioned in June at Halifax under Capt. Nathaniel Mitchell.[1] She arrived at Woolwich on 30 August 1815. She was recommissioned in September under Captain William Elliot and fitted for Channel service on 22 December.

    In April 1816 she sailed for the North Sea under Capt. Charles Hawtayne, where she was employed in searching for and catching smugglers. In February 1818 she was re-rated as a 22-gun sloop.[1] On 11 May she captured St Thomas, a galley out of Calais with a crew of 12 men. In making the capture, Florida's master's mate, Mr. Kieth Stewart shot and killed one of the smugglers in self defense.[3]

    Fate

    She was broken up at Chatham in May 1819.[1]

    References

    1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Winfield (2008), p. 243.
    2. Rea (1981), pp.201-2.
    3. Chatterton (1912), pp.276-83.
    • This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
    • Chatterton, E. Kemble (1912) King's cutters and smugglers, 1700-1855. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co.; London: G. Allen & Co.).
    • Colledge, J.J. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy From the Fifteenth Century to the Present. Naval Institute Press: Annapolis, Maryland, 1987. ISBN 0-87021-652-X.
    • Rea, Robert R. (Oct., 1981) "Florida and the Royal Navy's Floridas". Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 2, pp. 186-203.
    • Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.