USS Lynx (1814)

Sail plan of USS Lynx
History
Name:	USS Lynx
Builder:	James Owner, Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Launched:	1814
Commissioned:	1815
Struck:	1820
Fate:	Lost at sea, January 1820
General characteristics
Type:	Baltimore Clipper
Displacement:	150 long tons (152 t)
Length:	80 ft (24 m)
Propulsion:	Sail
Complement:	50
Armament:	6 × guns

USS Lynx, a 6-gun Baltimore Clipper rigged schooner, was built for the US Navy by James Owner of Georgetown, Washington, D.C., in 1814, intended for service in one of the two raiding squadrons being built as part of President James Madison's administration’s plan to establish a more effective Navy, one capable not only of breaking the British naval blockade, but also of raising havoc with the British merchant marine.

Though the War of 1812 ended by the time the schooner was completed, the ship was still placed in service in early 1815 and on 3 July sailed from Boston with the nine-ship squadron of Commodore William Bainbridge, bound for the Mediterranean to deal with the acts of the Barbary pirates against American commerce.

Arriving off the North African coast by the beginning of August, Lynx found that a squadron under Commodore Stephen Decatur had already achieved satisfactory agreements to American treaty demands. The schooner remained in the Mediterranean, however, until late in the year as part of a show of force led by Commodore Bainbridge's flagship Independence, the Navy's first ship of the line, to encourage the Barbary States to keep the peace treaties just concluded. Returning to the United States, the ship made a preliminary survey of the northeastern coast during 1817, Lt. George W. Stover in command, at times carrying Commodore William Bainbridge, now Commandant of the Charlestown, Massachusetts, Navy Yard, and Brigadier General Joseph Gardner Swift aboard during her voyage.