The first USS Morris was a sailing ship in the Continental Navy in commission from 1778 to 1779. A party of Americans led by James Willing who had come downriver from Ohio captured the ship Rebecca on the Mississippi River during the American Revolutionary War. Oliver Pollock, the American commercial agent at New Orleans who had charge of naval affairs on the Mississippi during the American Revolution, purchased Rebecca for the Continental Congress. The ship was renamed Morris, manned, and fitted out for action under the command of Captain William Pickles.