Johnston Blakeley

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. The Wasp went on the month-long voyage across the Atlantic. Blakeley’s goal was the English Channel, where British ships, presumably safe in home waters, formed their convoys for outgoing voyages and scattered upon their return for their various home ports. The Wasp arrived on station in late May and on June 2 took and burned her first prize, the bark Neptune. 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.[2]

Over the following weeks the Wasp seized another four ships- the brig William, the brig Pallas, the galliot Henrietta, and the 325-ton ship Orange Boven. 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.[3]

On June 28, Blakeley sighted two sails and chased them. The Wasp identified a vessel as the British vessel HMS Reindeer. Reindeer was commanded by William Manners. After a sea combat of broadside bombardments, cannon shooting, and maneuvering. Captain Manners wounded in both legs turned the Reindeer toward the Wasp, crashing into her port side. The British swarmed to the rail to board the Wasp but were repeatedly beaten back by the “cool and deliberate” American musket fire. Manners who led the van got shot down. Then he got shot in the head by an American marine sharpshooter. At Blakeley’s order, the Americans stormed the Reindeer. After the Americans won, the Americans had 9 killed and 15 wounded. While the British had 25 killed and 42 wounded. Blakeley had the prisoners and the British twelve pounders, the Reindeer was burned at Blakeley’s orders.[4]

Blakeley then set course for the nearest neutral port, L’Orient in France. Capturing en route two more British merchantmen. Independence day was celebrated by burning the brig Regulator, laden with port wine, and two days later the schooner Jenny was scuttled. During a 3-week interlude in hospitable L’Orient. Blakeley was having his vessel repaired while he sent 79 prisoners to England on a cartel ship.[5]

On August 27, Blakely on the resupplied Wasp headed back to her former cruising ground in the English Channel. Blakeley destroyed two prizes in the first two days on station, the brigs Lettice and Bon Accord.[6]

On September 1, Blakeley encountered a Gibraltar-bound convoy of ten merchantmen protected by the seventy-four-gun Armada. 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.[7]

Continuing south toward Gibraltar, the Wasp sighted four sails in the late afternoon. Blakeley ordered pursuit of the nearest vessel. After a lot of cannon fire and combat, the enemy vessel surrendered. But three more enemy vessels came by. Blakeley, judging that the risk was too great, decided to slip away in the gloom. The vanquished but rescued British vessel was the brig HMS Avon. The Avon sank with 10 killed and 29 wounded. While the USS Wasp escaped with 3 wounded.[8]

Muster USS Wasp, 1813 -1814, recap signed Johnston Blakeley & Lewis Fairchild

The Wasp continued south, taking and sinking two more brigs which were the Three Brothers and the Bacchus. 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. Blakeley entrusted the command to American Midshipman David Geisinger. David Geisinger was ordered to take the prize to the United States, and the two ships parted company near the island of Porto Santo. The Wasp sailed before the trade winds, on October 9, 1814, she encountered a neutral Swedish brig, the Adonis. 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. Geisinger arrived with the Atlanta in Savannah, Georgia on November 4, 1814. Then Wasp under Blakeley mysteriously disappeared out of sight, probably foundered in a storm. Blakeley received the Thanks of Congress, a gold medal, and posthumous advancement to the rank of Captain for his last cruise. [9]

Three ships have been named USS Blakely in Captain Blakeley's honor:

• USS Blakely (TB-27), a new class of torpedo boat in 1904 for the United States Navy
• USS Blakeley (DD-150), a Wickes-class destroyer during World War II
• USS Blakely (FF-1072) Knox-class destroyer escort, later to be reclassified as a frigate, named for both Captain Johnston Blakely and Vice Admiral Charles Adams Blakely

• Blakely, Georgia, county seat of Early County[10]
• Blakely, Pennsylvania
• Port Blakely, named by Charles Wilkes during the Wilkes Expedition of 1838-1842[11]
• Blakely Island, part of the San Juan Islands in Washington state

Also part of the San Juan Islands chain are a group of islands to which Wilkes bestowed the name "Wasp Islands" after the Wasp. 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.[12]

• Capt. Johnston Blakely Elementary School in Bainbridge Island, Washington