newest ships and best sailors and officers in an attempt to disrupt British commerce in the early stages of the war. One such squadron was sent in April 1793 to the United States, carrying the French ambassador to the United States, Edmond-Charles Genêt. After the ambassador disembarked, the squadron, under the command of Captain Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart, dispersed to raid British shipping along the coast, capturing or destroying more than 60 merchant vessels before retiring to American ports for repairs. The French threat on the American Seaboard was met by Royal Navy frigates operating out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, under orders to watch and blockade French movements in American ports. One such ship was the 32-gun frigate HMS Boston, a small and old vessel under the command of Captain George Courtenay. Courtenay was under orders to watch New York City, where one of the frigates was known to be at anchor. On 28 June 1793, Boston arrived off New York, Courtenay deliberately disguising his ship to resemble a French vessel by having the French-speaking members of his crew talk loudly on the quarterdeck while an American pilot boat was within earshot. The French ship in New York was Bompart's ship Embuscade, a large and powerful vessel that had been built less than three years before and carried a combined broadside weight of , more than that of Boston. Sighting the strange ship off the harbour, Bompart sent a boat with his lieutenant, an American from Boston named Whitynow, and twelve men to investigate. Although he was suspicious of the strange vessel, Whitynow was finally convinced that the ship was a French vessel after conferring with the pilots, and came aboard only to discover his error when Courtenay seized him and his men as prisoners of war. Courtenay suggested to his prisoner that he would be keen to meet Bompart in battle, and he agreed to send a message into New York via the pilot boat with a challenge for Bompart to bring Embuscade out of the neutral harbour and meet Boston off Sandy Hook. The pilot was initially unable to locate the French captain, and so instead posted the challenge in a coffeehouse in the city, from where the news spread rapidly. Bompart came to learn of it, and spent the next two days preparing his warship; historian Edward Pelham Brenton has claimed that Bompart was joined by 100 armed American