West Florida was patrolling on Lake Pontchartrain when it encountered Morris, which had set out from New Orleans with a Spanish and American crew headed by Continental Navy Captain William Pickles.

The larger crew of Morris successfully boarded West Florida, inflicting a mortal wound on its captain, Lieutenant John Payne.

[1] Pollock effectively acted as an agent of the Continental Congress, negotiating with the Spanish governor, and taking other actions, including spending some of his own fortune, on Patriot activities along the lower Mississippi River.

In January 1779 Burdon was replaced at her helm by Lieutenant John Payne, who had been engaged in survey duty along the West Florida coast and knew the area well.

On that day Bernardo de Gálvez, the governor of Spanish Louisiana, launched an expedition to gain control of British military posts on the Mississippi, and the boat was captured by his men.

[10] Pollock used commissioning authority granted him by Congress to give command of Morris to Continental Navy Captain William Pickles.

[13] According to the report of Lieutenant Peter George Rousseau, Pickles' second-in-command, this ship was a schooner armed with five small (2.5 pound or less) cannon and ten swivel guns, and that it lacked barricades to protect the men on deck from gunfire.

The Americans and Spaniards then threw grappling hooks to bring the ships together and opened fire with their swivel guns while Lieutenant Rousseau prepared a boarding party.

Pickles then assisted Gálvez in the Battle of Fort Charlotte, which resulted in the capture of Mobile, before sailing her to Philadelphia for sale.