Combat· Aegean Anti-Piracy Campaign
USS Warren vs pirate brig off Greece
One of the larger captures of the Aegean campaign.
Off the Greek coast, the sloop USS Warren under Lawrence Kearny took a pirate brig, a more substantial vessel than the small boats that made up most of the region's piracy, the Marines aboard furnishing the boarding party. The capture was bloodless. The presence of an armed brig among the pirates reflected how, in the lawlessness of the Greek war, some freebooters had acquired sizable craft capable of taking merchantmen by force rather than mere stealth. Kearny's Warren, the flagship of the small American effort in the Aegean, ranged through Greek and Cycladic waters that autumn taking such vessels and breaking up the pirate operations one by one. The seizure of the brig was part of the steady pressure by which the squadron made the islands less hospitable to the raiders preying on American and other commerce.
Record no. 291