Battle of Delaware Bay
1782 naval battle of the American Revolutionary War
The Battle of Delaware Bay, or the Battle of Cape May, was a naval engagement fought between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United States during the American Revolutionary War. A British force of three vessels attacked three American privateers that were escorting a fleet of merchantmen. The ensuing combat in Delaware Bay near Cape May ended with the American sloop Hyder Ally capturing the British sloop-of-war HMS General Monk.
Background
Twenty-three-year-old Lieutenant Joshua Barney of the Continental Navy commanded the privateer sloop Hyder Ally during the battles. She was owned by Pennsylvania businessman John Willcocks and was issued a letter of marque. The sloop was armed with 16 six-pounders and had a crew of about 110 men, officers and marines, and was named after Hyder Ali, the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore and a British enemy. With Lieutenant Barney were two privateer sloops: 10-gun Charming Sally and 12-gun General Greene.
Barney's first command was to escort a rebel fleet of five merchantmen to Delaware Bay. During this cruise, three British ships were sighted and a battle began. The three ships were the 32-gun frigate HMS Quebec under Captain Christopher Mason, the 18-gun sloop-of-war HMS General Monk under Captain Josias Rogers, and a Loyalist privateer brig named Fair American from New York.
The public source identifies “Battle of Delaware Bay” as 1782 naval battle of the American Revolutionary War. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Battle, Delaware and naval.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q421399. Authority coordinates are 39.083, -74.967. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Delaware Bay” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.