The young twenty-eight-year-old Captain Nicholas Biddle was in command of the thirty-six gun Randolph at the time, having received orders from John Rutledge to break the enemy blockade of Charleston, South Carolina. A large number of merchantmen had been trapped there so after breaking the blockade, Biddle was to sail south into the South Atlantic. Four other armed ships accompanied the Randolph in this mission, the General Moultrie, Notre Dame, Fair American and the Polly. However, after sailing out to meet the British off Charleston on February 14, the enemy was nowhere in sight so the American fleet headed for the West Indies where Biddle would raid commerce. On February 16, the fleet burned a British ship which had been dismasted by a privateer and on March 4, the Polly captured a smal