HMS Mackerel was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. Given that she served entirely during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, she had an unusually peaceful and uneventful career, primarily on the Newfoundland Station, before she was sold in 1815. Service She was commissioned in May 1804 at Bermuda under Lieutenant Peter S. Prieur for the Newfoundland station. Later that year Lieutenant Richard Williams, who had received his promotion on 13 December 1804, assumed command, after serving as a Master's Mate on . Williams joined Mackerel in Bermuda, where he fitted her out. One of her initial accomplishments was to salvage the main deck guns and bower anchor from when Tartar grounded in Murray's Roads, Bermuda. (Tartar was later refloated.) Next, Mackerel, with 57 French prisoners on board, narrowly escaped being wrecked in gale in the Bermudas. For his services he received the thanks of Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchel, chief of the Halifax, Nova Scotia, station. Mackerel then patrolled the southwest coast of Newfoundland. Williams seized the cargoes of whale oil of two American vessels poaching there and ordered the Americans to leave British waters. During this time Mackerel twice had the honour of bearing the flag of Admiral Sir Erasmus Gower. In 1805 Lieutenant John G.M'B. McKillop succeeded Williams. His replacement, in 1807, was Lieutenant Thomas Bishop. In November 1808 he sailed her to Britain. On the way she encountered a gale and had to throw all her guns overboard to lighten her. Between 22 November 1808 and 19 February 1809 Mackerel was in Portsmouth, refitting. In February Lieutenant William Carter took command at Spithead and sailed her back to Newfoundland. Late in the year Lieutenant Thomas Lee assumed command and sailed her on the Newfoundland station on coast patrol and fisheries duties. By 1812 Lieutenant Parker had taken command of Mackerel, and on 15 April 1812 sailed for South America. Apparently, she called at New York in June to deliver some official dispatches. The acting commander reported that her commander had been killed when a sailor fell from a mast and landed on him. As Mackerel left New York on 18 June she passed the USS United States under Captain Stephen Decatur. Apparently war had been declared two days earlier,