USS Richmond was a brig

Brig

A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...

 purchased for the US Navy in 1798 by the citizens of Richmond, Petersburg, Manchester and Norfolk, Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, while being built at Norfolk as Augusta for a Mr. Myers. Renamed Richmond, she was fitted out

Fitting-out

Fitting-out, or "outfitting”, is the process in modern shipbuilding that follows the float-out of a vessel and precedes sea trials. It is the period when all the remaining construction of the ship is completed and readied for delivery to her owners...

 in the fall of that year and in December stood out from Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk–Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia, United States...

 for the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

 with Captain Samuel Barron

Samuel Barron (1765-1810)

Samuel Barron was a United States Navy officer. He was an older brother of Commodore James Barron, also a US Navy officer.-Early Life:...

 in command for service in the Quasi-War

Quasi-War

The Quasi-War was an undeclared war fought mostly at sea between the United States and French Republic from 1798 to 1800. In the United States, the conflict was sometimes also referred to as the Franco-American War, the Pirate Wars, or the Half-War.-Background:The Kingdom of France had been a...

 with France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

Sailing south, the brig joined Thomas Truxtun

Thomas Truxtun

Thomas Truxtun was an American naval officer who rose to the rank of commodore.Born near Hempstead, New York on Long Island, Truxtun had little formal education before joining the crew of the British merchant ship Pitt at the age of twelve...

's squadron in the West Indies and operated with the ships of that squadron to protect American merchant shipping from French raiders - warships and privateers. Based at St. Kitts, Richmond convoyed merchantmen among the ports of the Lesser Antilles until June 1799, assisting, in May, in the capture of the French privateer, Louis.

On 10 June 1799, Richmond departed the West Indies with a convoy bound for Norfolk, whence she continued on to New York. Between 18 July and 6 October, she cruised off the east coast, from Boston to the Virginia Capes, in search of rumored French raiders, and, in February 1800, she returned to the Caribbean. Based at San Domingo for a year, she re-captured the American schooner Chance on 22 May and assisted in returning Thomas Chalkley to the American merchant fleet on the 28th.

After the end of the Quasi-War with France, Richmond sailed north and in February 1801 she arrived back at New York. In March most of her crew was detached; and on 1 April she was ordered turned over to the Navy agent at New York to be sold at auction.