USS Constitution vs HMS Java

29 December 1812, Off São Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

American victory; Java destroyed

Constitution, now under William Bainbridge, had sailed for the South Atlantic with the sloop Hornet, and was cruising off Bahia when she met Java, bound for India with the new governor of Bombay, Sir Thomas Hislop, aboard. Java was faster and handier, and for an hour Captain Henry Lambert outmanoeuvred the American, raking her and shooting away her wheel; Bainbridge was twice wounded. But Constitution's heavier guns slowly wrecked Java's masts and rigging, and when Lambert tried to board, his bowsprit and then his foremast went. Lambert was mortally wounded, and after three hours, with Java a dismasted wreck, she struck. Bainbridge took off the prisoners and burned her. It was the third time in four months a British frigate had surrendered to an American one, and the Admiralty ordered its frigates not to fight the American 44s alone.