United States Service
Frolic first put to sea on 18 February 1814 with Commander Joseph Bainbridge (younger brother of Commodore William Bainbridge) in command, standing out of President Roads in Boston Harbor at Boston, Massachusetts, for a cruise in the West Indies.
On 29 March 1814 she destroyed a British merchant ship, and later on the same day she sank an unnamed Spanish-American privateer, sailing from Cartagena in present-day Colombia after a brief action, in which nearly 100 of the privateer's crew drowned. (Privateers from several countries seeking independence from Spain were preying on ships of all nations in the Caribbean.)
Frolic sank another British merchant ship on 3 April 1814. (This may have been the Little Fex.)
While in the Florida Strait on 20 April 1814, Frolic encountered the British 36-gun frigate HMS Orpheus and 12-gun schooner HMS Shelburne. Frolic beat away to southward, making for the coast of Cuba as the two British ships gave chase. Frolic's men labored to lighten their ship, cutting away the starboard anchor, and casting overboard the guns mounted on her port (lee) side and small arms. Overtaken after six hours, Frolic was forced to surrender to the superior British force when about 15 miles off Matanzas, Cuba.
Read more about this topic: USS Frolic (1813)
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