Reference:
The Naval history of Great Britain:
from the declaration of war by France in 1793 to the accession of George IV
William James
London 1902.

On the 12th September the British 18-gun brig-sloop Frolic, (sixteen 32-pound carronades and two sixes,) Captain Thomas Whinyates, quitted the bay of Honduras, with about fourteen sail of merchantmen under convoy for England.
On arriving off Havana, the master of a Guernsey ship informed captain Whinyates of the war with America, and of the Guerriere's capture.
The Frolic, having been five years in the West Indies, and being very sickly in her crew, was by no means in a fit state to encounter an enemy's vessel of a similar class to herself. However, there was no alternative; and the brig proceeded on her voyage along the coast of the United states. On the night of the 16th October, in latitude 36° north, longitude 64° west, a violent gale of wind came on and separated the Frolic from her convoy, carried away her main yard, sprung the main topmast, and tore both topsails to pieces.
By dark on the evening of the 17th six of the missing ships had joined; and on the 18th, at daybreak, while the Frolic, in a very turbulent sea, was repairing her damages, a sail hove in sight to-windward, which was first taken for one of the convoy. The near approach of the stranger, and her not answering signals, soon marked her for an enemy: whereupon, removing her main yard from off the casks and lashing it to the deck, the Frolic hauled to the wind under boom-mainsail and a close-reefed fore-topsail, (her fore-topmast had been sprung previously to the gale,) in order to let her convoy pass sufficiently ahead to be out of danger.

At a few minutes before eleven o'clock the Frolic, apprehensive that the strange ship of war might pursue the merchantmen instead of herself, hoisted Spanish colours as a decoy; having two days before passed a convoy under the protection of a Spanish armed brig, and which convoy, it was imagined that the strange vessel might also have seen. The latter which was the United States' 18-gun ship-sloop Wasp, (sixteen 32-pound carronades and two brass long 12-pounders,) Captain Jacob Jones, five days only from Delaware, (where she had thoroughly refitted after returning from France with despatches,) immediately hoisted her colours, and bore-down fro the Frolic, then awaiting her approach on the larboard tack.

On arriving within sixty yards of the Frolic, the Wasp hailed: whereupon the former, quickly exchanging her colours to British, opened a fire of great guns and musketry. This was instantly returned by the Wasp; and, as the latter dropped nearer to her antagonist, the action became close and spirited. In less than five minutes after she had commenced firing, the Frolic shot away the Wasp's main topmast; and in two or three minutes more the latter's gaff and mizen to-gallant-mast came down. The sea was so rough that the muzzles of the guns of both vessels were frequently under water. Still the cannonade continued, with mutual spirit; the Americans firing, as the engaged side of their ship was going down, the British when their engaged side was rising. The consequence was, that almost every shot fired by the Wasp took effect in her opponent's hull; while most of the Frolic's shot passed among the rigging or over the masts of the former. The Frolic, being in a very light state from a deficiency of stores, and being unable, on account of the sprung state of her topmasts and the want of a main yard, to steady herself by carrying sail, laboured much more than the Wasp, and experienced, in consequence, greater difficulty in pointing her guns with precision.

In a minute or two after the Wasp's main topmast had come down, the Frolic's gaff head-braces were shot away. having now no sail whatever upon the main mast, the brig had lost the means of preventing the Wasp from taking a position on her larboard bow. Thus, in less than ten minutes after the action had commenced, the Frolic, chiefly by her previous inability to carry sail, lay an unmanageable hulk upon the water, exposed to the whole raking fire of her antagonist, without the possibility of returning it with more than one of her bow guns.
The Wasp continued pouring in broadside after broadside, until, believing, that he had so thinned the decks of the British brig, that no opposition could be offered, Captain Jones determined to board and end the contest. The Wasp accordingly wore, and, running down upon the Frolic, soon brought the latter's jib-boom between her fore and main rigging, and two of her own carronades in a direction with the bow ports of her defenceless antagonist. having so fine an opportunity of further diminishing the strength of his opponent, Captain Jones would not board until a raking fire was poured in: it was poured in, and swept the whole range of the Frolic's deck. A British seaman belonging to the Wasp was now about to spring on the brig's bowsprit and put a stop to the carnage; but Captain Jones, observing that some yet lived on the Frolic's deck, pulled him back, and ordered another broadside to be fired.
At length, when the action altogether had lasted forty-three minutes, the officers and men of the Wasp, led by lieutenant George Rodgers, boarded the Frolic.

USS Wasp boarding HMS Frolic
courtesy of Peabody Museum

With her masts entire, and a healthy, instead of a debilitated crew, the Frolic would have encountered a tolerably equal opponent.
As the matter stood, her officers and crew deserve great credit for maintaining a resistance so long after their vessel had become unmanageable and defenceless.
Surely, there was nothing in the result of this action, that could cast the slightest slur upon the British naval character; and yet, with the wonted exaggerations of American officers, the latter made it a victory over a superior force.
Captain Jones, however, was not allowed to carry his trophy, his "22-gun sloop-of-war", into port; for in the course of a few hours after the action, the British 74-gun ship Poictiers, Captain John Beresford, heaving in sight, captured one vessel and recaptured the other.