The ship-rigged sloop of war USS Wasp forced the Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Reindeer to surrender after far more than half the brig's crew, including the Captain, were killed or wounded.

[2] Blakely's orders were to raid British commerce in the mouth of the English Channel, following the spectacular though short-lived successes of USS Argus the previous year.

Reindeer also mounted two 6-pounder bow chase guns, but the brig's boat carried a 12-pounder carronade, which Commander William Manners was to use effectively.

[5] Reindeer had been beaten into a wreck, and Blakely set it on fire before putting some of the wounded prisoners aboard a neutral ship and proceeding into Lorient.

After the abdication of Napoleon I, France was officially neutral in the quarrel between Britain and the United States, although French sympathies were decidedly with the Americans.

When USS Wasp emerged from Lorient, she won further victories in the Channel before vanishing in the South Atlantic, probably falling victim to bad weather.