An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in long distance and high value trade.
USS Adams was a 28-gun (rated) sailing frigate of the United States Navy. She was laid down in 1797 at New York City by John Jackson and William Sheffield and launched on 8 June 1799. Captain Richard Valentine Morris took command of the ship.
Sir John Sherbrooke was a successful and famous Nova Scotian privateer brig during the War of 1812, the largest privateer from Atlantic Canada during the war. In addition to preying on American merchant ships, she also defended Nova Scotian waters during the war. After her conversion to a merchantman she fell prey to an American privateer in 1814. She was burnt to prevent her reuse.
HMS Fantome was an 18-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was originally a French privateer brig named Fantôme, which the British captured in 1810 and commissioned into British service. Fantome saw extensive action in the War of 1812 until she was lost in a shipwreck at Prospect, Nova Scotia, near Halifax in 1814.
HMS Belvidera was a Royal Navy 36-gun Apollo-class frigate built in Deptford in 1809. She saw action in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 and continued a busy career at sea into the middle of the 19th century. In 1846 she was reduced to harbour service, in 1860 she became a receiving ship, and she was finally disposed of in 1906.
HMS Niemen was a Royal Navy 38-gun fifth-rate frigate. She began her career as the Niémen, a 44-gun French Navy Armide-class frigate, designed by Pierre Rolland. She was only in French service for a few months when in 1809 she encountered some British frigates. The British captured her and she continued in British service as Niemen. In British service she cruised in the Atlantic and North American waters, taking numerous small American prizes, some privateers but mostly merchantmen. She was broken up in 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.
HMS Spartan was a Royal Navy 38-gun fifth-rate frigate, launched at Rochester in 1806. During the Napoleonic Wars she was active in the Adriatic and in the Ionian Islands. She then moved to the American coast during the War of 1812, where she captured a number of small vessels, including a US Revenue Cutter and a privateer, the Dart. She then returned to the Mediterranean, where she remained for a few years. She went on to serve off the American coast again, and in the Caribbean, before being broken up in 1822.
HMS Anaconda was an 18-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy during the War of 1812. She was cruising as an American privateer until sailors from HMS Sceptre captured her in 1813. She served briefly in the Royal Navy during the later stages of the War of 1812, especially at the Battle of New Orleans, before being sold in Jamaica in 1815.
HMS Sophie was an 18-gun Cruizer class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She served during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. During the War of 1812 Sophie participated in the economic war against American trade, capturing or destroying numerous small merchant vessels, and in an unsuccessful attack on Fort Bowyer, Alabama. Later, she moved to the East Indies where she served in the First Anglo-Burmese War. The Admiralty sold Sophie in 1825.
HMS Epervier was an 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, built by Ross at Rochester, England, and launched on 2 December 1812. USS Peacock captured her in 1814 and took her into service. USS Epervier disappeared in 1815 while carrying dispatches reporting the signing of a treaty with the Dey of Algiers.
The West Indies Squadron, or the West Indies Station, was a United States Navy squadron that operated in the West Indies in the early nineteenth century. It was formed due to the need to suppress piracy in the Caribbean Sea, the Antilles and the Gulf of Mexico region of the Atlantic Ocean. This unit later engaged in the Second Seminole War until being combined with the Home Squadron in 1842. From 1822 to 1826 the squadron was based out of Saint Thomas Island until the Pensacola Naval Yard was constructed.
The West Indies Anti-Piracy Operations were a series of military operations and engagements undertaken by the United States Navy against pirates in and around the Antilles. Between 1814 and 1825, the American West Indies Squadron hunted pirates on both sea and land, primarily around Cuba and Puerto Rico. After the capture of Roberto Cofresi in 1825, acts of piracy became rare, and the operation was considered a success, although limited occurrences went on until slightly after the start of the 20th century.
General Armstrong was an American brig built for privateering in the Atlantic Ocean theater of the War of 1812. She was named for Brigadier General John Armstrong, Sr., who fought in the American Revolutionary War.
HDMS Allart, a brig launched at Copenhagen in June 1807, was amongst the ships taken by the British after the second Battle of Copenhagen. In British service, she was recaptured by Danish-Norwegian gunboats after venturing too close inshore. Her subsequent service was in the Dano-Norwegian Navy's Norwegian Brig Division, which harried enemy frigates and convoys in Norwegian waters. In 1812, she was captained by Ulrich Anton Schønheyder. His father was after the mother's death married to Joachime Catharine Benzon (1757-1836). On the separation of Denmark from Norway in 1814, Allart transferred to the Norwegian navy, who sold her in 1825.
Comet, an American schooner, was built in 1810 at Baltimore, Maryland. She was owned by "a group of wealthy Baltimore investors." Under Captain Thomas Boyle, who was a part owner of the schooner, Comet sailed from July 1812 to March 1814 as a privateer, which was a type of ships licensed by the United States during the War of 1812 to harass the British merchant vessels and divest their cargoes.
Duke of Montrose was a Falmouth packet launched in 1804. She participated in six single-ship actions. During the Napoleonic Wars she captured a French naval schooner but a year or so later a French privateer captured her. She returned to British hands some nine months later. During the War of 1812 she was able to drive off American privateers twice. An American frigate captured her in 1813 but gave her up to her crew, also putting onboard the crews of other vessels the frigate had captured. Then a French frigate also captured her and gave her up after disarming her. She was wrecked at Barbados in 1815.
Lady Mary Pelham was launched in 1811 as a packet based in Falmouth, Cornwall for the Post Office Packet Service. She repelled attack by privateers in 1812 and 1813, the latter being a notable and controversial engagement with an American privateer. Another American privateer captured her in February 1815 in the West Indies. New owners retained her name and between 1815 and at least 1824 she continued to sail to the Continent and South America.
