Expeditionary· American Revolutionary War
Loss of Saratoga
The Continental sloop of war Saratoga, Captain John Young, disappeared at sea on March 18, 1781, while chasing an enemy merchantman.
Lieutenant of Marines Hugh Kirkpatrick had joined her in November 1780, relieving Lieutenant Abraham Van Dyke. On the passage to the Caribbean she captured the British privateer Resolution with a single broadside, then the letter of marque Tonyn after an hour in which the musket fire of Kirkpatrick's Marines on the quarterdeck contributed. On March 15, 1781, Saratoga left the West Indies with Confederacy, Deane and the privateer Fair American, escorting a convoy to the United States. On March 18 she captured one of two small vessels by noon, put a prize crew aboard and stood after the second. Midshipman Nathaniel Penfield, on board the prize, described her disappearing on the horizon. She was never heard from again, and Kirkpatrick and the remainder of her crew were apparently lost at sea. The loss of Confederacy and Saratoga left only three Marine detachments on board ships of the Continental Navy.
Record no. 150