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.
Lewis Warrington.
From an engraving by Gimbrede of the painting by Jarvis.
The Peacock having made chase, the wind suddenly shifted to the southward, when the merchantmen made all sail to run away and the Epervier hauled close to the wind on the port tack, and stood toward the Peacock quite willing for the fight.
Diagram of the
PEACOCK-EPERVIER BATTLE.
The Peacock now had the best of the wind, and when, soon after 10 o’clock, the two ships were approaching each other end on, and had arrived within gunshot, she was headed off wind a bit in order to bring her starboard battery to bear on the Epervier and rake her. But Captain Wales, of the Epervier, was not to be caught by any such move as that. Putting up his helm, he eased off to meet the Yankee, and then shoving down his helm, he rounded to on the Peacock’s bow and delivered his starboard broadside, two shots from which struck the foreyard of the Peacock, entirely disabling that very important spar. The British captain had clearly outmanœuvred the Yankee up to this time, which was not far from 10.20 A.M.
Captain Warrington fired his starboard broadside as he passed the Epervier, and then ordered his men to load with bar-shot, bundles of scrap-iron (called langrage), etc., in order to cripple the British brig aloft, and reduce her to a sailing capacity as bad as his own. While the Yankees were doing this the Epervier might have sailed away and left the crippled Peacock, but Captain Wales was not that kind of a man. On the contrary, he tacked about as rapidly as possible, in spite of the fact that he had to risk a raking fire from the Americans, and then bore down with his port battery to the Peacock’s starboard.