Combat· West Indies Anti-Piracy Campaign
USS Surprise captures privateer in Gulf of Mexico
A capture from the murky middle years of the campaign, when the distinction between privateer and pirate was nearly impossible to draw.
The USS Surprise took a privateer, variously reported as French- or Mexican-flagged, in the Gulf of Mexico, the Marine guard serving as boarding and security force. The vessel was one of many operating under the dubious commissions issued by the new Spanish-American revolutionary governments, papers that in practice often licensed indiscriminate plunder. American warships in 1818 spent much of their effort sorting genuine belligerent cruisers from raiders who were pirates in all but name. No casualties attended the capture. The action illustrates the legal and diplomatic tangle of the period as much as the fighting, with the Navy left to police a Gulf full of armed ships of uncertain loyalty and intent.
Record no. 270