I am trying to learn the whereabouts of a Cyril Brown of Cumberland RI in spring 1780. He entered the Navy in Dec 1779 on the frigate Deane under Capt. Elisha Hinman. He served 5 months. Cyril was the likely father of Cyrel Brown b. Attleboro 30 Dec 1780 to an unmarried woman named Ruth Sweetland.

I have learned that the Deane sailed in mid-Feb 1780 for the West Indies. Another report has it in Boston mid-April 1780. However, there was also a news article of a ship in Boston in March 1780. It had been sent there as a "prize of the Deane."

How did this work? If a ship was captured and became a prize, how was it then sent back to a port. Would some of the crew of the Deane have been responsible for getting the "prize ship" back to Boston? Would the Deane have normally come back with it, too?

I am trying to place Cyril in MA in late March or early April and therefore able to have fathered the child born 30 Dec 1780. By 1788/89 he was in Vinalhaven Maine where he married and eventually had a family with 7 children. Brown's head lighthouse on Vinalhaven was named for Cyril Brown.

Ruth Sweetland never married Cyrel's father - and didn't marry at all until 1796 when she m. John Bates. Her son Cyrel's death certificate gives mother as Ruth (no last name given) b. Attleboro and father as Cyril Brown b. Cumberland RI.