Volante [Volant]	Commander Oliver Daniel
Armed Sloop	[June] 1778
Connecticut Privateer Sloop

Commissioned/First Date:	[June] 1778
Out of Service/Cause:

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Date Reported: Number/Caliber  Weight        Broadside   Total: Broadside: Swivels:

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(1) At sea in June 1778

Prizes:

(1) Sloop Ranger, June 1778

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Connecticut Privateer Sloop Volante (Commander Oliver Daniel) was at Charleston, South Carolina in June 1778. Among the other vessels there was Connecticut Navy Brig Defence (Captain Samuel Smedley), which had put in to port because of smallpox aboard. When word arrived in town that several British privateer sloops, from St. Augustine, were on the coast, an expedition was mounted with Defence.  The Volante, described as a “French Armed Sloop,” accompanied the Defence. Before nightfall the Americans fell in with two sloops, which were taken¹ and brought into Charleston.² Volante’s prize was the sloop Ranger, with eight guns and thirty-five men.³  Defence and Volante returned to Boston in August 1778.⁴

There is a record of a Volant being captured by the British in 1778. She was described as a French merchant vessel with a letter-of-marque, with Jean Le Roux as her commander. The capture seems to have been made in European waters. There is a small possibility that this might be the same vessel.⁵

¹ Allen, Naval History of the American Revolution, i, 323, quoting a letter from Charleston dated 26 June 1778.

² Allen, Naval History of the American Revolution, i, 323

³ Maclay, History of American Privateers, 116

⁴ Allen, Naval History of the American Revolution, i, 323

⁵ HCA 32/476/2/1-34

Posted 7 May 2010

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