USS Lynx, a 6-gun Baltimore Clipper rigged schooner, was built for the United States Navy by James Owner of Georgetown, Washington, D.C., in 1814, intended for service in one of the two raiding squadrons being built as part of President James Madison's administration’s plan to establish a more effective Navy, one capable not only of breaking the British naval blockade, but also of raising havoc with the British merchant marine.

Though the War of 1812 ended by the time the schooner was completed, the ship was still placed in service in early 1815 and on 3 July sailed from Boston with the nine-ship squadron of Commodore William Bainbridge, bound for the Mediterranean to deal with the acts of the Barbary pirates against American commerce.

Arriving off the North African coast by the beginning of August, Lynx found that a squadron under Commodore Stephen Decatur had already achieved satisfactory agreements to American treaty demands.

The schooner remained in the Mediterranean, however, until late in the year as part of a show of force led by Commodore Bainbridge's flagship Independence, the Navy's first ship of the line, to encourage the Barbary States to keep the peace treaties just concluded.

Remaining off the southern coast through the end of the year, the Lynx departed St. Mary's, Georgia, on 11 January 1820, bound for Kingston, Jamaica, to continue her service suppressing pirates.