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NavSource Online: "Old Navy" Ship Photo Archive

Alert (I)

Sloop of War:
  • Laid down in 1803 as the collier Oxford, in England
  • Purchased by the Royal Navy in May 1804, and converted to a 20-gun sloop of war, renamed HMS Alert
  • Captured after a brief battle by USS Essex, CAPT. David Porter USN, in mid-Atlantic west of the Azores being the first British ship to surrender to a fighting ship of the United States during the War of 1812.
  • Porter loaded a large number of prisoners taken from merchantmen and the British sailors from Alert and ordered her to carry them to Canada for prisoner exchange, including 200 homesick American sailors who were delivered safely to New York in the early autumn Alert was condemned by the New York Admiralty Court and sold to the United States Navy
  • Alert was found to be unfit for cruising and was converted to a storeship by the New York Navy Yard were she served untill 1818
  • In 1818 she was fitted out for duty as a receiving ship, serving in that capacity ended 1829
  • Final Disposition, broken up in 1829 at the Norfolk Navy Yard
    Specifications:
    Displacement 325 t.
    Length unknown
    Beam 29'
    Depth of Hold unknown
    Draft 11'
    Speed unknown
    Complement 100
    Armament
    two 12pdr guns
    eighteen 32-pdr carronades
    Propulsion sail
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    For Full Size Image    		Size Image Description Source
    Essex (I) 286k USS Essex, CAPT. Porter, engages HMS Alert, CAPT. T.L.P. Laungharne, in a brief engagement in the Atlantic, 13 August 1812.
    US Naval History and Heritage Command NH 55432    		 US Naval History and Heritage Command
    Essex (I) 235k USS Essex, captures HMS Alert after a brief engagement in the Atlantic, 13 August 1812.
    US Naval History and Heritage Command NH 55433    		 US Naval History and Heritage Command
    Essex (I) 277k USS Essex capturing HMS Alert, 13 August 1812. From "Our Country in War" by Murat Halstead (1898). Robert Hurst
    Essex (I) 28k <"The [U.S.S.] ESSEX [commanded by David Porter] capturing the British ship ALERT"
    Illus. in: Memoir of ... David Porter, 1875, opp. p. 94     		Tommy Trampp
    Alert (I)
    Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS)
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    This page is created and maintained by Gary P. Priolo
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    Last Updated 19 July 2019