Capture of La Croyable 1798
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 7 July 1798 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1798 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | United States | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | North America | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Quasi-War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | USS Delaware, USS Retaliation | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 39.3050, -74.6470 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Capture of La Croyable, or the Action of July 7, 1798, occurred when the French privateer schooner La Croyable was taken by the American sloop-of-war USS Delaware on 7 July 1798 during the Quasi-War. The engagement resulted in the first capture of any ship by the United States Navy, which had been formed just months before the action.
Originally a merchant ship called Hamburgh Packet, USS Delaware was purchased by the United States Navy on May 5, 1798. With a complement of 180 men and twenty mounted long guns – sixteen 9-pounders (4.1 kilograms) and four 6-pounders (2.7 kilograms), she was given to Captain Stephen Decatur, Sr. to command. Delaware set sail from Delaware Bay on July 6 with instructions to join USS United States and USS Ganges and patrol the section of the Atlantic Coast between Long Island and Cape Henry.
On July 7 the day after her first sail, USS Delaware happened upon the American merchant vessel Alexander Hamilton, which had been carrying wine and brandy from New York City to Baltimore when she was stopped by a French privateer who ransacked her. She was reduced to limping across the Great Egg Harbor Bay. When Captain Decatur heard these reports from Alexander Hamilton's crew, he began scouting the bay for a potentially culpable French vessel.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Capture of La Croyable (revision 1375071750), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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