Name of Vessel:

Active

Master of Vessel:

Commander Thomas Misnard [Mesnard]

Rig of Vessel:

Brig

Date of Capture:

25 May 1780

Place of Capture:

Near Cape Henlopen, Delaware, Delaware Bay

Captor:

HM Frigate Iris

Home Port:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

From What Port:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

To What Port:

St. Eustatius, Netherlands West Indies

Cargo:

Tobacco

Tonnage:

Battery:

14x

Crew:

41 [estimated]

Owners:

Prize master:

Prize crew:

Ordered Into:

New York, New York

Into What Port:

New York, New York

Date Arrived:

29 May 1780

Date Tried:

[June] 1780

Date Sold:

[June] 1780

Action:

No

Recaptured:

No

Comments: Pennsylvania Privateer Brig Active (Commander Thomas Misnard [Mesnard] sailed from Philadelphia in late May 1780, bound for St. Eustatius in the Netherlands West Indies with a cargo of tobacco. She was captured, near the Delaware Capes, on 25 May, by HM Frigate Iris (Captain James Hawker). Iris was then bound from Charleston, South Carolina to New York, New York, with dispatches announcing the fall of Charleston to the British. Active was present at the battle between Pennsylvania Privateer Ship Aurora and Iris on 26 May.

Active, and prizes General Lincoln and Aurora, arrived in New York with Iris on 29 May. The New-York Gazette reported her arrival on 5 June 1780. She had been tried and condemned by 1 July 1780, when the payment of prize money for the capture was advertised in the New-York Gazette. She is listed in the High Court of Admiralty records in 1781, with her master listed as Thomas Mesnard.

[NRAR, 218; Freneau, Philip, Some Account of the Capture of the Ship “Aurora,” M.F. Mansfield and A. Wessels, New York: 1899, 15; Freneau, The British Prison-Ship, 1780; HCA 32/275/1/1-32; The New-York Gazette, June 5, 1780 and July 1, 1780]