Name of Vessel:

Adventure

Master of Vessel:

Captain Lawrence Sandford

Rig of Vessel:

Virginia Navy Brig

Date of Capture:

11 January 1777

Place of Capture:

16 miles SE of Cape Henlopen, Delaware

Captor:

HM Frigate Roebuck

Home Port:

Alexandria, Virginia

From What Port:

Cap Nicola Môle, Sainte-Domingue [Guadelupe]

To What Port:

Alexandria, Virginia

Cargo:

11,200 pounds gunpowder, sail cloth

Tonnage:

110

Battery:

Crew:

9 [total]

Owners:

Prize master:

Prize crew:

Ordered Into:

Antigua, British West Indies

Into What Port:

Antigua, British West Indies

Date Arrived:

27 January 1777

Date Tried:

18 February 1777

Date Sold:

Action:

No

Recaptured:

No

Comments: Virginia Navy Trading Brig Adventure (Captain Lawrence Sandford) sailed sometime after 18 October 1776 bound for Dunkerque, France, with a cargo of tobacco. Sandford either went to the West Indies or carried false papers showing that he had cleared from there. As Adventure returned to America, she was sighted by HM Frigate Roebuck (Captain Andrew Snape Hamond) at 0700, away to the southeast, while Roebuck was sixteen miles southeast of Cape Henlopen. Roebuck chased but Adventure was hard to stop. Finally Hamond’s men put a 9-pounder on the gangway and fired several shots at Sandford, upon which he hove to. Adventure was escorted into Antigua by Roebuck. She was condemned there on 18 February 1777 and her cargo of gunpowder purchased by the government to prevent the Americans buying it again at a public sale. By 30 May 1777 Sandford was in Alexandria, Virginia.

[NDAR, VI, 1296-1297, 1326; VII, 932 and note, 1048-1049 and 1049 note, 1303; VIII, 82-83, 1045, 1053-1063; IX, 132; XI, 124-130 [where the master’s name is given as Langford]]