Combat· Aegean Anti-Piracy Campaign
USS Warren vs Austrian brig prize
A recapture that underscored the international character of the campaign.
The USS Warren retook an Austrian brig that pirates had seized as a prize in the Cyclades, the Marines aboard providing the boarding party. The recapture was bloodless. American warships in the Aegean were not protecting United States shipping alone; the pirates of the Greek islands preyed on the merchantmen of every nation, and an American sloop returning an Austrian vessel to its owners was a natural act in a situation where all the trading powers had a common interest in clearing the sea. Operations like this gave the American intervention a quasi-policing role on behalf of European commerce generally, much as the West Indies campaign had served the shipping of several nations at once. The recovered brig was one more prize taken back from the raiders in the Warren's busy October cruise.
Record no. 292