USS United States vs HMS Macedonian

25 October 1812, About 500 miles south of the Azores

American victory; Macedonian captured

Stephen Decatur had sailed from Boston with Commodore Rodgers's squadron, then parted company to cruise alone. Near Madeira he met the 38-gun Macedonian under John Surman Carden. Carden kept to windward and closed slowly instead of coming straight in, which let the American's 24-pounders hit him at a range where his own 18-pounders could do little. Macedonian lost her mizzen topmast and then most of her rigging, and after about two hours, with 43 of her men killed and 71 wounded against 7 and 5 in United States, she struck. Decatur's men patched her up and sailed her home, and in December she came into Newport: the first British warship ever brought into an American harbour as a prize.