Combat· Quasi-War with France
Delaware vs English privateer at Havana
By early 1801 the Quasi-War was winding down, but word of peace had not reached every deployed ship, and the operational tempo continued.
At Havana the USS Delaware had a skirmish with an English privateer that attacked her while she lay at anchor. Because the enemy came in under the Delaware's stern, her great guns could not be brought to bear, and as her Marine officer First Lieutenant Thomas Wharton reported to the Commandant on 15 February, whatever injury the attacker suffered "was done by the Marines." Wharton wrote that his men acquitted themselves extremely well. There were no American casualties. The action is a small but vivid illustration of the Marine detachment's value: with the ship's broadside useless in the cramped position, it was the Marines' musketry that did the fighting and drove the attacker off.
Podcast episodes on Quasi-War with France
Record no. 190