incident in time with the cruise of the "Wasp" was that of her
sister ship, the "Peacock"; like her also newly built, and named after
the British brig sunk by Captain Lawrence in the "Hornet." The finest
achievement of the "Wasp," however, was near the end of her career,
while it fell to the "Peacock" to begin with a successful action.
Having left New York early in March, she went first to St. Mary's,
Georgia, carrying a quantity of warlike stores. In making this passage
she was repeatedly chased by enemies. Having landed her cargo, she
sailed immediately and ran south as far as one of the Bahama Islands,
called the Great Isaac, near to which vessels from Jamaica and Cuba
bound to Europe must pass, because of the narrowness of the channel
separating the islands from the Florida coast. In this neighborhood
she remained from April 18 to 24, seeing only one neutral and two
privateers, which were pursued unsuccessfully. This absence of
unguarded merchant ships, coupled with the frequency of hostile
cruisers met before, illustrates exactly the conditions to which
attention has been repeatedly drawn, as characterizing the British
plan of action in the Western Atlantic. Learning that the expected
Jamaica convoy would be under charge of a seventy-four, two frigates,
and two sloops, and that the merchant ships in Havana, fearing to sail
alone, would await its passing to join, Captain Warrington next stood
slowly to the northward, and on April 29, off Cape Canaveral, sighted
four sail, which proved to be the British brig "Epervier" of eighteen
32-pounder carronades,[250] also northward bound, with three merchant
vessels under her convoy; one of these being Russian, and one Spanish,
belonging therefore to nations still at war with France, though
neutral towards the United States. The third, a merchant brig, was the
first British commercial vessel seen since leaving Savannah.

As usual and proper, the "Epervier," seeing that the "Peacock" would
overtake her and her convoy, directed the latter to separate while she
stood down to engage the hostile cruiser. The two vessels soon came to
blows. The accounts of the action on both sides are extremely meagre,
and preclude any certain statement as to manoeuvres; which indeed
cannot have been material to the issue reached. The "Epervier," for
reasons that will appear later, fought first one broadside and then
the other; but substantially the contest appears to have been
maintained side to s