Service History
Lieutenant Francis Gregory commanded Grampus on her first cruise as part of the West Indies Squadron, which took her to the Antilles in pursuit of pirates. In the company of Hornet, Enterprise, Spark, Porpoise, and Shark, Grampus engaged in convoying merchant vessels throughout 1821, the presence of the squadron having a marked effect on piratical activity among the islands.
On 16 August 1822, Grampus fought a brig flying Spanish colors, but which Lt. Gregory suspected was a pirate. When he called upon her commander to surrender, he was met with cannon and small arms fire. Grampus answered in turn, and reduced the bogus Spaniard to a floating wreck in 3½ minutes. The brig struck her colors and Lt. Gregory discovered that she was Palmyra, a Puerto Rico-based pirate carrying the papers of a privateer as a subterfuge.
In 1825, Captain John D. Sloat — commander of Grampus — engaged another Puerto Rican pirate, Roberto Cofresí, in battle. Cofresí was captured along with eleven members of his crew, and they were turned over to the Spanish government. Cofresí was jailed in El Castillo del Morro in San Juan.
Grampus had a small part in the Amistad trials: in November-December 1839, the U.S. government had Grampus standing by in New Haven Harbor, so that if the court ruled in favor of the slaves' Spanish "owners," they could deport the Africans to Cuba before they could file an appeal. However, the district judge ruled that the Africans had been illegally enslaved and must be returned to Africa. It was the government that appealed on behalf of the slaveholders, and Grampus was not needed.
Grampus continued her duties in the protection of shipping in the Caribbean Sea and in the South Atlantic Ocean until August 1841, when she was detached from the Africa Squadron while lying at Boston Navy Yard and attached to the Home Squadron at Norfolk, Virginia on 23 January 1843.
Grampus was last spoken to by Madison off St. Augustine, Florida on 15 March 1843. She is presumed to have foundered in a gale off Charleston, South Carolina with all hands.
Read more about this topic: USS Grampus (1821)
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