and 3 January 1813, she captured six valuable prizes and eluded an entire British squadron during a three-day stern chase. Through clever handling, she even managed to take one of the prizes as she was fleeing from the overwhelmingly superior British force. Capture by HMS Pelican Prelude Under the command of Master Commandant William Henry Allen, Argus broke out of New York Harbor on 18 June 1813, eluding the British blockade. Her mission was not warlike to begin with; it was to deliver William H. Crawford to his post as Minister to the First French Empire. Argus arrived at Lorient in Brittany, France, on 11 July 1813, disembarked Crawford, and put out to sea again three days later to begin raiding British shipping in the English Channel and Irish Sea. During the next month, she captured nineteen merchant ships. Rather than weaken his crew by sending the captured ships to American, French, or neutral ports under prize crews, Allen set most of the captured ships on fire. The intense operations exhausted Arguss crew. The shipping losses soon caused insurance rates for merchant shipping to increase greatly. The cargo on the sunken ships was worth about two million dollars. The British Admiralty sent orders to all available ships to hunt down Argus. The British brig-sloop had just arrived in Cork Harbour in Ireland, having escorted a convoy from the West Indies, and immediately put to sea again on 10 August 1813. Pelicans captain was Commander John Fordyce Maple, an officer who had joined the Royal Navy when twelve years old in 1782, two years before William Henry Allen was born. On 13 August, Argus took two final prizes. One of them was from Oporto, Portugal, and was carrying wine. Both American and British historians have suggested that Arguss crew looted some of the cargo, and that their debauched state affected their performance during the coming battle with Pelican. As with Arguss previous captures, the Americans set fire to the prize; unfortunately for them, Pelican was near enough to sight the smoke from the burning vessel and make for it. Battle and capture At 05:00 on the morning of 14 August 1813, Argus and Pelican sighted each other five leagues (about 15 miles) west of St David's Head. Argus was the faster but more lightly armed vessel, with eighteen 24-pounder carronades and a 12-pounder chase gun against the Pelicans sixteen 32-pounder carronades,