Brought to the United States as a child in 1783, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a member of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies, in 1800, then joined the Navy and was appointed a Midshipman in 1800.

The USS Wasp under Johnston Blakeley departed Portsmouth on May 1, 1814, at four o’clock in the afternoon, cleared the American harbor at dusk, and set off into the Atlantic under a fresh breeze.

Unlike privateers who expected to seize property for profit, Blakeley was a commerce raider who had orders to destroy his prizes after looting them for needed supplies and provisions.

All of these prizes were burned or scuttled, except the Henrietta, whose cargo was overboard so that she could be used as a cartel ship to convey paroled prisoners to England.

The British swarmed to the rail to board the Wasp but were repeatedly beaten back by the “cool and deliberate” American musket fire.

The swift Wasp easily outsailed and outmaneuvered the lumbering ship-of-the-line, darting in and cutting out and burning the brig Mary, which carried a valuable cargo of cannon and military stores.

By 21 September the Wasp was about 75 miles east of the Madeira Islands when she captured the brig Atlanta, armed with eight guns.

The valuable cargo of wine, brandy, and silk induced Blakeley to keep the prize for the first time on the cruise.

David Geisinger was ordered to take the prize to the United States, and the two ships parted company near the island of Porto Santo.

Two American officers, passengers on the Adonis, transferred to the Wasp, which sailed into the vast central Atlantic toward home by way of the West Indies.

Their namesake, however, was not the same vessel commanded by Blakely, but an earlier Wasp, also a sloop-of-war, which was commissioned in 1807 and captured by the British in the early months of the War of 1812.