Following Captain David Porter's passage of Cape Horn in USS Essex a year earlier, the United States Navy vessel focused on commerce raiding by attacking British whalers off the coast of South America.

He placed Lieutenant John Downes in command and gave him a crew of forty-two navy men and six volunteers, recently captured American sailors.

While nearing the island in the afternoon on May 28, lookouts aboard Georgiana sighted a mast and sails on the horizon.

[6] Downes ordered his men to give chase and raised the Union Jack to trick the whalers into believing that they were not under threat.

But just as the capture of Rose and Catherine was completed, a third vessel was spotted, it was Hector,[7] armed with eleven guns and crewed by twenty-five men.

The Americans then engaged and began raking the British vessel, ripping off its main mast and most of the rigging.

Lieutenant Downes was promoted on November 28, 1813, for gallantry in his many actions against the British and the natives of Nuka Hiva.