USS ''Active'', a

brigantine A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel with a fully square-rigged foremast and at least two sails on the main mast: a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail (behind the mast). The main mast is the second and taller of the two masts. Older ...

-rigged packet built at Marshfield, Massachusetts, on the orders of the

Continental Congress The Continental Congress was a series of legislative bodies, with some executive function, for thirteen of Britain's colonies in North America, and the newly declared United States just before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War. ...

, was launched in July 1779.

Service history

Under the command of Captain Corbin Barnes, ''Active'' made voyages to Bilbao, Spain, in 1780 and to

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

, France, in 1781. On 23 March 1782, while sailing from Philadelphia to Havana, Cuba, she encountered the British man-of-war and was captured. The British warship took her into Jamaica where she was condemned as a prize and sold.

Notes

;Citations

Bibliography

;Online sources * {{DEFAULTSORT:Active (1779) 1779 ships Brigantines of the United States Navy Captured ships Packet boat Ships built in Marblehead, Massachusetts