The first that got to sea was the _Frolic_. She was built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, famous for its fine ships in the days of wood. Under Master-Commandant Joseph Bainbridge she sailed from the home port in February and some time later fell in with a Carthagenian privateer that was cruising for Yankee merchantmen off the southern coast. The privateer refused to surrender, when called on to do so, and Bainbridge fired one broadside at her, and that one blast sank her so quickly that nearly one hundred of her crew were drowned. As the _Frolic_ carried only ten short thirty-twos in a broadside, it is certain that every shot struck the privateer below the water-line as she rolled to the swell. The fact is especially worth mentioning for the reason that it shows the great advantage of training the crew of a war-ship to shoot accurately. The career of the _Frolic_, however, was brief. On April 20, 1814, when off the extreme south point of Florida, she fell in with the British thirty-six-gun frigate _Orpheus_, Captain Pigot, and the twelve-gun schooner _Shelburne_, Lieutenant Hope. The enemy were to leeward, but both of them were swifter than the _Frolic_. For more than twelve hours she struggled to windward, cutting away her anchors and throwing over her guns, but all in vain, for the _Orpheus_ closed on her. The _Frolic_ had carried twenty short thirty-twos and two long twelves, while the _Orpheus_ carried sixteen short thirty-twos and twenty-eight long eighteens. Nevertheless, James, in commenting on the surrender of the _Frolic_, says: “We should not have hesitated to call a French, or even a British, captain, who had acted as Master-Commandant Joseph Bainbridge, of the United States Navy, did in this instance, a ----.” Another of the new corvettes with irritating names was the _Peacock_. She was built in New York City, and sailed under Master-Commandant Lewis Warrington, on March 12, 1814, bound south. Her cruise was without incident until April 28th, when, at 7 o’clock in the morning, a number of vessels were seen to windward. The _Peacock_ was at this time not far from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was learned later that the fleet sighted included two merchantmen under convoy of the British brig sloop _Epervier_, Captain R. W. Wales, of eighteen guns. They were bound from Havana for the Bermudas, and the _Epervier_ carried $120,000 in coin. Because of the result of the battle that followed it is worth mentioning the fact that the _Peacock_ class of Yankee sloops were designed with especial reference to the _Epervier_ class of brigs, just as the _Terrible_ class of cruisers were designed in Great Britain with a certain Yankee protected cruiser in mind, in these last years of the nineteenth century. [Illustration: Lewis Warrington. _From an engraving by Gimbrede of the painting by Jarvis._]