Protector-Admiral Duff Engagement

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Protector-Admiral Duff Engagement

PROTECTOR-ADMIRAL DUFF ENGAGEMENT. 9 June 1780. Massachusetts constructed the twenty-six-gun frigate Protector for her state navy in 1779, probably following the design of the Continental Navy's Boston. On 9 June 1780, during her first cruise, she ran into the thirty-two-gun privateer Admiral Duff from Liverpool, a converted East Indiaman. The engagement off the banks of Newfoundland was unusually fierce and ended only when the Admiral Duff sank with only fifty-five survivors. Captain John Foster Williams's frigate was also badly damaged, and was almost captured by the Royal Navy's Thames (thirty-two guns) in a running fight on her way back to Massachusetts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Millar, John F. American Ships of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods. New York: Norton, 1978.

                         revised by Robert K. Wright Jr.