#uss argus

[clove-pinks]

On board Pelican, the British fire was kept up 'with great spirit' and she received very little damage. Thus far none of her officers had been hit, although [Commander John F.] Maples had a close encounter: a spent canister shot struck one of his coat's buttons, rebounding harmlessly off.

— Nicholas James Kaizer, Revenge in the Name of Honour: The Royal Navy's Quest for Vengeance in the Single Ship Actions of the War of 1812

[ltwilliammowett]

British boarding parties, boarding USS Argus, 14 August 1813, War of 1812

The first USS Argus, originally named USS  Merrimack, was a brig in the United States Navy commissioned in 1803. She enforced the Embargo Act of 1807 and fought in the First Barbary War – taking part in the blockade of Tripoli and the capture of Derna – and the War of 1812. During the latter inflict, she had been audaciously raiding British merchant shipping in British home waters for a month, when the heavier British Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Pelican intercepted her. After a sharp fight during which Argus’s captain, Master Commandant William Henry Allen, was mortally wounded, Argus surrendered when the crew of Pelican were about to board.

[ltwilliammowett]

August 1813: HMS Pelican vs. USS Argus

After the outbreak of war, Argus continued her cruises off the U.S. Atlantic coast. During one cruise between 8 October 1812 and 3 January 1813, she captured six valuable prizes and eluded an entire British squadron during a three-day stern chase. Through clever handling, she even managed to take one of the prizes as she was fleeing from the overwhelmingly superior British force.

Under the command of Master Commandant William Henry Allen, Argus broke out of New York Harbor on 18 June 1813, eluding the British blockade. Her mission was not warlike to begin with; it was to deliver William H. Crawford to his post as Minister to the First French Empire. Argus arrived at Lorient in Brittany, France, on 11 July 1813, disembarked Crawford, and put out to sea again three days later to begin raiding British shipping in the English Channel and Irish Sea. During the next month, she captured nineteen merchant ships. Rather than weaken his crew by sending the captured ships to American, French, or neutral ports under prize crews, Allen set most of the captured ships on fire. The intense operations exhausted Argus’s crew.

The shipping losses soon caused insurance rates for merchant shipping to increase greatly. The cargo on the sunken ships was worth about two million dollars. The British Admiralty sent orders to all available ships to hunt down Argus. The British brig-sloop HMS Pelican had just arrived in Cork Harbour in Ireland, having escorted a convoy from the West Indies, and immediately put to sea again on 10 August 1813. Pelican’s captain was Commander John Fordyce Maple, an officer who had joined the Royal Navy when twelve years old in 1782, two years before William Henry Allen was born.

On 13 August, Argus took two final prizes. One of them was from Oporto, Portugal, and was carrying wine. Both American and British historians have suggested that Argus’s crew looted some of the cargo, and that their debauched state affected their performance during the coming battle with Pelican. As with Argus’s previous captures, the Americans set fire to the prize; unfortunately for them, Pelican was near enough to sight the smoke from the burning vessel and make for it.

At 05:00 on the morning of 14 August 1813, Argus and Pelican sighted each other five leagues (about 15 miles) west of St David’s Head. Argus was the faster but more lightly armed vessel, with eighteen 24-pounder carronades and a 12-pounder chase gun against the Pelican’s sixteen 32-pounder carronades, one 12-pounder long gun, and two 6-pounder long guns. Allen could have used Argus’s greater speed to escape. Instead, he accepted battle. Allen’s decision to accept battle against a heavier opponent stemmed from confidence gained while he was the first lieutenant of the frigate USS United States when she captured the British frigate HMS Macedonian on 25 October 1812; following his promotion he had said that he could “take any British 22-gun sloop-of-war in ten minutes.” The wind was from the south, giving Pelican the weather gauge (i.e. the windward position). Allen sailed westward on the port tack (i.e., with the wind to port) and opposed his port side battery to Pelican’s starboard battery.

Four minutes after the ships exchanged their first broadsides, Allen lost a leg. His first lieutenant was also badly wounded, and Argus’s rigging was badly cut up. Pelican tried to cross Argus’s stern to deliver raking fire but Argus’s second lieutenant, William Howard Allen (not related to the commanding officer), threw his sails aback to slow the American brig and instead raked Pelican. This did not fatally cripple the British vessel, and the two brigs continued to exchange broadsides, with Pelican now to leeward. After four more minutes, Argus’s rigging was too badly damaged for the Americans to prevent Pelican from crossing Argus’s stern and delivering several raking broadsides. The British prepare to board Argus

Finally, three-quarters of an hour after the action began, the two vessels came into contact, Argus’s bow against Pelican’s quarter. As British boarding parties mustered but before they could board Argus, the Americans surrendered.

Unusually for the War of 1812, the American gunnery in this engagement was comparatively ineffective, although Pelican’s sides were “filled with grapeshot” and two of Pelican’s carronades had been dismounted. British gunnery was “at least of the standard which had brought victory in a hundred victories against the French.”