Combat· West Indies Anti-Piracy Campaign
USS Boxer vs Comet
An early capture in the West Indies anti-piracy campaign.
The brig USS Boxer took the pirate schooner Comet in Caribbean waters, the Marine guard aboard providing musketry and the boarding force that secured the prize. The action was bloodless, one of the routine captures that made up the daily work of the squadron rather than a pitched fight. It is notable mainly as among the first of the long series of such seizures that would run on into the 1820s as the Navy and Marines worked to choke off the piracy spawned by the collapse of Spanish authority in the region. Small actions like this one, individually minor, were the substance of a campaign that gradually made the Caribbean safe for American merchant shipping.
Record no. 269