USS Cyane (1796)

The first USS Cyane was a captured sailing frigate.

She was built in 1796 at Frinsbury[?], England, for the Royal Navy. She was captured with HMS Levant[?] 20 February 1815 by Constitution, after a 40-minute night engagement off Madeira. With Constitution's second lieutenant Hoffman as prize master[?], she successfully escaped recapture by a pursuing British squadron 12 March and arrived in America 10 April. She was adjudicated by a prize court[?] and purchased by the Navy.

Cyane cruised off the west coast of Africa from 1819-1820 and in the West Indies from 1820-1821 protecting the Liberian colony and suppressing piracy and the slave trade. She cruised in the Mediterranean 1824-1825, and on the Brazil Station[?] 1826-1827. Laid up at Philadelphia Navy Yard, she sank in 1835 and was raised and broken up the following year.

See USS Cyane for other Navy ships of the same name.

This article includes information collected from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.