Battle of the Delaware Capes

Capture of the American Frigate South Carolina by the British frigates Diomede, Quebec and Astrea, c.1925, National Archives of Canada

Date	20 - 21 December 1782
Location	Delaware Bay, Cape May, United States
Result	British victory

Belligerents

Great Britain

United States

South Carolina

Commanders and leaders

Captain Thomas Frederick

Captain John Joyner

Strength

3 fifth-rate frigates

1 frigate, 2 brig's, 1 schooner

Casualties and losses

Light

1 frigate & 2 brigs captured
14 killed or wounded, 530 captured

United States

The Battle of the Delaware Capes or the 3rd Battle of Delaware Bay was a naval engagement that was fought off the Delaware River towards the end of the American Revolutionary War. The battle took place on 20 and 21 December 1782, some three weeks after the signing of the preliminary articles of peace between Great Britain and the former American colonies, and was an engagement between three British Royal navy frigates HMS Diomede, Quebec and Astraea on the one side, and the South Carolina Navy's 40-gun frigate South Carolina, the brigs Hope and Constance, and the schooner Seagrove on the other. The British were victorious with only Seagrove escaping capture.

The inactivity of the British, American and French armies, meant that the Royal Navy was free to concentrate on enemy trade. One group of British frigates, HMS Diomede under Captain Thomas Frederick and the sister 32-gun frigates - HMS Quebec under Captain Christopher Mason, and HMS Astraea under Captain Matthew Squires, was blockading the Delaware Bay. On 20 December 1782 they spotted a number of vessels coming out of the bay and chased after them. Frederick was told by the officer of watch that one of the vessels was a large frigate. This was the forty-gun South Carolina.

South Carolina, under Captain John Joyner, was built at Amsterdam in 1780. She originally was named Indien and belonged to France but the Americans hired her. The ship was the most heavily armed warship to sail under American colors during the revolution. Joyner was attempting to dash out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, through the British blockade on 19 December with several vessels. As well as the large South Carolina, the privateer brig Hope, commanded by John Prole of ten guns and carrying tobacco and flour, another privateer brig Constance, under Commander Jesse Harding, and the six-gun schooner Seagrove, under Captain Benjamin Bradhurst, which had joined them for protection. On 19 December Seagrove hailed a merchant vessel entering the river. Her master learned that three large sail had been seen patrolling off the Cape May Channel. With this information Joyner decided to proceed down the main channel and go straight out into the ocean. On 20 December, in the early evening, the four vessels sailed down the channel and out into the Atlantic.

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