USS Vixen (1803)-- Part 5: Service in First Barbary War

Service During the First Barbary War:

1803

3 August-- Left Baltimore

14 September--  Arrived off Gibraltar

7 October--  Arrived off Tripoli with the USS Philadelphia

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1804

18 July--  Closed on Tripolitan Coast with USS Argus, Constitution, Syren, Nautilus, Enterprise,  and Scourge.    Later in August, the USS John Adams and Intrepid joined.  Multiple bombardments of Tripoli were initiated  in the following weeks.

September to November--  Syracuse, Tripoli, Malta, Syracuse and Messina.

7 November--    Arrived at Port of Syracuse.  USS Essex, John Adams, Argus, Constitution and Congress  were there as well.

--Brock-Perry

The First USS Vixen

From Wikipedia.

As I said earlier, there was a previous USS Vixen to the one captured by the HMS Belvidera. I found out a lot about the first Vixen, but very little about the one the Belvidera captured.

THE FIRST USS VIXEN: Was 83-feet long, mounting 14 guns and a crew of 111. Commissioned in 1803 and fought in the First Barbary War off the coast of Tripoli, but was not there when the frigate USS Philadelphia was captured. It did participate in bombarding Tripoli on four different occasions.

From 1806-1807, it was in ordinary at the Washington Navy Yard. After that, it operated along the Atlantic coast under the command of Lt. James Lawrence (later commander of the USS Chesapeake and the famous "Don't Give Up the Ship" words.

It was captured 22 November 1812 by the 32-gun British frigate HMS Southampton under Captain James Yeo, later commander of the British Lake Ontario fleet.

Both vessels were later lost by Concepcion Island, Bahamas, when strong westerly currents wrecked them on uncharted submerged rocks off the island in the Crooked Island Passage.

On the Rocks As They Say. --Brock-Perry

HMS Belvidera-- Part 3

Between June 1812 and Dec. 14, 1812, the HMS Belvidera captured seven American merchant ships In February 1813, she captured the letter of marque (privateer) Lottery which went on to become the HMS Canso.

The Belvidera continued capturing ships. On December 25, 1813, mentioned in my timeline, it captured the USS Vixen, a 14-gun brig commissioned for the Americans in that same year. The Vixen was sailing from Wilmington, NC, to Newcastle, Delaware, without armament or stores. This was an earlier USS Vixen which was captured by the HMS Southampton.

--Brock-Perry

War of 1812 Timeline-- December 23-25: 1813

DECEMBER 23RD:

U.S. forces attack the Muscogee (Creek) Nation village at Eccanachaca, Mississippi territory.

DECEMBER 25TH:

HMS Belvidera captures USS Vixen off coast of Delaware.

And that ends the first full year of warfare between the United States, Britain, Canada and the Indians. The war had been fought for a year and a half now and had one more year to go.

--Brock-Perry