USS Lexington (1825)

USS Lexington off Smyrna in 1828 by R. Corsini
History
Name:	USS Lexington
Laid down:	1825
Commissioned:	11 June 1826
Decommissioned:	16 November 1830
Recommissioned:	31 May 1831
Decommissioned:	26 February 1855
Fate:	Sold 1860
General characteristics
Type:	Sloop-of-war
Tons burthen:	691
Length:	127 ft (39 m)
Beam:	33 ft 6 in (10.21 m)
Draft:	16 ft 6 in (5.03 m)
Propulsion:	Sail
Complement:	190 officers and enlisted
Armament:	24 × 24-pounder guns

The second USS Lexington was a sloop in the United States Navy built at the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York, in 1825; and commissioned on 11 June 1826, Master Commandant William B. Shubrick in command.

The new sloop was first stationed off Labrador to protect American fishing vessels. After returning to the United States, she was sent to Trinidad to return the body of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry who had died in schooner Nonsuch on 23 August 1819 while returning from Angostura, Venezuela, where he had arranged for Venezuelan help to suppress piracy off the Spanish Main.

In 1827 Lexington sailed to the Mediterranean Sea where she cruised for three years. In 1828, her commander, Benjamin W. Booth, likely commissioned the above painting while she was off the coast of Smyrna. Returning to Norfolk, Virginia in the fall of 1830, she decommissioned at Norfolk Navy Yard on 16 November. Recommissioning on 31 May 1831, Master Commandant Silas M. Duncan in command, she proceeded to São Paulo, Brazil, for duty with the Brazil Squadron until late 1836. Notably, in 1831 Duncan raided Luis Vernet's settlement at Puerto Luis in the Falkland Islands where the American ships Harriet, Superior and Breakwater had been captured in a dispute over fishing and seal hunting rights, prompting Duncan to take seven prisoners aboard the Lexington and charge them with piracy; which precipitated the re-establishment of British rule. She then sailed around Cape Horn to protect American commerce on the Pacific coast. On 1 March 1834 at Rio de Janeiro, diplomatist Edmund Roberts, then returning from his first mission aboard Peacock, boarded Lexington under the command of Captain M’Keever for return to Boston Harbor on 24 April.