Samuel Humphreys designed these cutters for roles as diverse as fighting pirates, privateers, combating smugglers and operating with naval forces.

[2] One badly wounded survivor managed to make a difficult 60-mile trek to the head of Tampa Bay, where he reported the disaster to the garrison commander at Fort Brooke, Florida, Captain Francis S. Belton.

Belton, expecting an imminent attack by the Seminoles, took the precaution of ordering noncombatants — mostly women and children — to take refuge on board the merchant ships in the harbor.

Going ashore again on 10 February, Washington's landing force ascertained that the 10 men and three canoes had been in the employ of a local friendly Spaniard that lived in the vicinity.

At 1230, men in the revenue cutter heard the reports of heavy guns to the southeast side of the bay and spotted two canoes full of Indians "who appeared to be retreating from the scene of action."

The following day, Jones reported to the Secretary, "I have been cooperating since 11 January, having half my battery and crew on shore at Fort Brook (sic) a part of the time and have rendered such service as the emergency of the case required.

On 16 March, Master Commandant Webb, the local senior officer present afloat, directed Washington to reconnoiter a reported Indian encampment in the neighborhood of the Manatee River.

Late in the afternoon of that same day, 16 March, Jones landed a force of 25 men under the command of Lieutenant William Smith, USN, of Vandalia.

Washington, her sister revenue cutters Dallas and Dexter, and the sloop-of-war Vandalia continued to perform valuable services in cooperation with Army units against the Seminoles, on patrol duties into the spring of 1836.

Washington later carried dispatches from Governor Call to Master Commandant M. P. Mix in Concord — the ship that had relieved Vandalia — in early July, before she transported a company of Army volunteers from Pensacola to St. Marks.

A party of men from Washington, under the command of Lieutenant Levin M. Powell, USN surveyed the coast around New River from Cape Sable to Charlotte Harbor and, while he penetrated 15 miles into the trackless Everglades, found no Indians during their trip.

Commodore Alexander Dallas, in overall command of the naval forces operating in the Seminole War, highly commended Powell and his men, citing their "perseverance and exertions under circumstances of privation and exposure ... in open boats."