USS ''Adams'' was a 28-gun (rated) sailing

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and maneuvera ...

of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

. She was laid down in 1797 at

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by John Jackson and William Sheffield and launched on 8 June 1799. Captain Richard Valentine Morris took command of the ship.

Quasi-War with France

The frigate departed New York in mid-September 1799 and headed for the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

to protect American shipping from attacks by French

privateer A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...

s, during the

Quasi-War The Quasi-War was an undeclared war from 1798 to 1800 between the United States and the French First Republic. It was fought almost entirely at sea, primarily in the Caribbean and off the East Coast of the United States, with minor actions in ...

with France. She arrived at

Saint Christopher Saint Christopher (, , ; ) is venerated by several Christian denominations. According to these traditions, he was a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman Empire, Roman emperor Decius (), or alternatively under the emperor Maximin ...

on 10 October and soon began cruising nearby waters in search of French men of war and any prizes which had been captured by warships flying French colors. Later that month, she recaptured the brig ''Zylpha'' and assisted in taking an unidentified 4-gun French privateer and freeing an English

brig A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square rig, square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the l ...

and a schooner from Boston which that vessel had seized. On 12 November, she again teamed with ''Insurgent'' in recapturing the 14-gun English brig ''Margaret''. On the 20th, they cooperated in liberating the

schooner A schooner ( ) is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel defined by its Rig (sailing), rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more Mast (sailing), masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than t ...

''Nancy'' off Guadeloupe which had struck her colors on the 18th. On 20 November off Guadeloupe they recaptured schooner "Nancy", captured on 18 November by a French privateer. On 15 December, she took the French privateer ''Le Onze Vendémiaire''. On 10 January 1800, ''Adams'' and made the French schooner ''La Fougeuse'' their prize and, late in the month, ''Adams'' recaptured the schooner ''Alphia''. Sometime in January she captured schooner "Le Gambeaux". French schooner ''L'Heureuse Rencontre'' was captured, and privateer "General Massena" also, and "Isabella", a prize of Berceau was recaptured, in February. The following month, she freed the sloop ''Nonpareil'' and she did the same for the schooner ''Priscilla'' in April. But ''Adams'' most successful month came in May when she recaptured an unidentified schooner and teamed up with ''Insurgent'' once more in freeing a British

letter of marque A letter of marque and reprisal () was a Sovereign state, government license in the Age of Sail that authorized a private person, known as a privateer or French corsairs, corsair, to attack and capture vessels of a foreign state at war with t ...

. During the same month she also recaptured schooner ''Nancy'', schooner ''Grinder''(There is an unclear reference to HMS Unity in connection to this ship), and an unidentified brig, she captured the brig ''Dove'' and the schooner ''Renomie''. In need of repairs, ''Adams'' returned to New York on 3 June 1800, after briefly running aground off

Cape Hatteras Cape Hatteras is a cape located at a pronounced bend in Hatteras Island, one of the barrier islands of North Carolina. As a temperate barrier island, the landscape has been shaped by wind, waves, and storms. There are long stretches of beach ...

, On 18 August Capt. Thomas Robinson was made her new Captain replacing Capt. Morris. Early in the fall she headed back to the Caribbean. However, on this cruise she did not have the success which she had enjoyed under Capt. Richard Morris but for the most part was limited to patrol and escort duty. She did manage to recapture the British schooner ''Grendin'', but the date of the action is unknown. On 23 March 1801, the Secretary of the Navy ordered her home. She arrived prior to 7 June and was laid up at New York. DANFS, USS ''Adams'', 3rd section

First Barbary War

However, trouble in the Mediterranean prevented her respite from being long. The

Barbary states The Barbary Coast (also Barbary, Berbery, or Berber Coast) were the coastal regions of central and western North Africa, more specifically, the Maghreb and the Ottoman borderlands consisting of the regencies in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, a ...

on the northern coast of Africa were capturing American merchantmen attempting to trade in that ancient sea and enslaving their crews. Capt. Edward Preble was ordered to New York to take command by the Navy Secretary on 12 January, 1802. In a letter dated 13 April, 1802 Preble asked for a furlough due to a rapid decline in his health since arriving in New York in January. His request was granted in a letter dated 16 April. Capt. Hugh G. Campbell was ordered to take command in a letter dated 17 April. On 10 June 1802, she departed New York and headed for the

Strait of Gibraltar The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa. The two continents are separated by 7.7 nautical miles (14.2 kilometers, 8.9 miles) at its narrowest point. Fe ...

carrying orders for Commodore Richard V. Morris, her first commanding officer who was now in command of the American Mediterranean Squadron. She arrived there on 22 July and remained in that port blockading the Tripolitan cruiser ''Meshuda'' lest she escape and prey on American shipping. It was not until 8 April 1803 that she was freed of this duty. She then joined the rest of Morris' squadron in operations off Tripoli. However, as a squadron commander, Morris seemed to have lost the dash and daring he had displayed in operations against the French in the West Indies while in command of a single ship. His indecisiveness in the Mediterranean prompted Washington to order his recall and he sailed for home in ''Adams'' on 25 September. The frigate carried Morris to Washington, arriving 15 November, 1803 and was placed in ordinary at the navy yard.

1805–1811

Capt. Alexander Murray was ordered to take command in a letter dated 9 July 1805. ''Adams'' cruised along the coast of the United States from New York to Florida protecting American commerce. In the autumn of the following year she was again laid up in Washington and – but for service enforcing the Embargo Act in 1809 – remained inactive at the nation's capital until the outbreak of the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

. In August 1811 she became the receiving ship at the

Washington Navy Yard The Washington Navy Yard (WNY) is a ceremonial and administrative center for the United States Navy, located in the federal national capital city of Washington, D.C. (federal District of Columbia). It is the oldest shore establishment / base of ...

War of 1812

In June 1812, ''Adams'' was cut in half amidships and lengthened 15 feet in the course of being completely rebuilt as a

sloop-of-war During the 18th and 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship of the Royal Navy with a single gun deck that carried up to 18 guns. The rating system of the Royal Navy covered all vessels with 20 or more guns; thus, the term encompassed all u ...

of 26 × 18-pounder guns. Commanded by Capt. Charles Morris, she was ready for action by the end of the year, but was bottled up in the

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by blockading British warships until she finally managed to slip out to sea on 18 January 1814. She cruised in the eastern Atlantic and along the African coast and took five merchantmen prizes before putting in at

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, in April. Underway again in May, she headed for the Newfoundland Banks and ultimately sailed eastward to waters off the

British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...

. During this cruise, she took five more merchant ships chased two more into the

River Shannon The River Shannon ( or archaic ') is the major river on the island of Ireland, and at in length, is the longest river in the British Isles. It drains the Shannon River Basin, which has an area of , – approximately one fifth of the area of I ...

, and barely managed to escape from a much larger British warship. She captured ''Woodbridge'', which was sailing from India to Britain, but had to give her up when and arrived on the scene while escorting a convoy to the . Near the end of her homeward passage, ''Adams'' ran aground on the Isle au Haut on 17 August 1814 and was damaged seriously. Skillful seamanship aided by a rising tide managed to refloat the ship and despite heavy leaking she made it into the

Penobscot River The Penobscot River (Abenaki: ''Pαnawάhpskewtəkʷ'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 22, 2011 river in the U.S. state of Maine. Including the river's W ...

and reached

Hampden, Maine Hampden is a town on the Penobscot River estuary in Penobscot County, Maine, Penobscot County, Maine, United States. The population was 7,709 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Hampden is part of the Bangor, Maine, Bangor metropolita ...

(then part of the District of

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

under Massachusetts). There on 3 September 1814, during the Battle of Hampden, she was scuttled and set ablaze to prevent capture by a British squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Edward Griffiths supporting British offensive operations in Maine. The crew largely escaped, walking overland to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Quasi-War with France

First Barbary War

1805–1811

War of 1812

See also

Citations

Further Information

Further reading