THE YEAR 1779 IN AMERICAN WATERS
LUCKY RAIDS ON BRITISH TRANSPORTS AND MERCHANTMEN--DISASTROUS
EXPEDITION TO THE PENOBSCOT--THE _TRUMBULL’S_ GOOD FIGHT WITH THE
_WATT_--THE FIRST YANKEE LINE-OF-BATTLE-SHIP--WHEN NICHOLSON,
WITH A WRECKED SHIP AND FIFTY MEN, FOUGHT FOR AN HOUR AGAINST TWO
FRIGATES, EACH OF WHICH WAS SUPERIOR TO THE YANKEE SHIP--CAPTAIN
BARRY’S EXASPERATING PREDICAMENT IN A CALM--THE LAST NAVAL BATTLE
OF THE REVOLUTION.
While John Paul Jones was moving heaven and earth to get away to sea
with his famous _Bonhomme Richard_, the American naval ships in home
waters were by no means idle, even though British successes, with
combined land and naval forces, had seriously reduced the fleet.
On March 18, 1779, a squadron consisting of the frigate _Warren_,
thirty-two guns, Capt. John Burroughs Hopkins; the _Queen of France_,
twenty-eight guns, Capt. Joseph Olney, and the famous old _Ranger_, of
eighteen guns (she that whipped the _Drake_), under Captain Simpson,
sailed from Boston. A few days later a privateer was captured. From her
crew it was learned that a fleet of armed transports and storeships
had sailed with supplies from New York for the British army in the
South.
How the Yankee squadron crowded on sail in pursuit of this fleet; how
the ships of the fleet were sighted two days later, jogging along at
the ordinary pace of the slowest; and how they came to the wind or
squared away or tacked or wore ship in a confused effort to escape at
the sight of the Yankees would have been something worth seeing by any
one interested in ocean races.
There were nine of the transports, and seven were taken. These included
the _Jason_, twenty guns; the _Maria_, sixteen guns; the _Hibernia_,
eight guns, and four unarmed transports. Captain Campbell and twenty
other English army officers were in the fleet _en route_ to join their
regiments, and these were by no means an unimportant part of the
capture when one recalls the treatment Americans were receiving from
the British when captured.
The Captain Hopkins who had this good luck was a son of Esek Hopkins,
the first American naval captain. He carried his prizes into port at
once.
Then, in May the frigate _Queen of France_, under Capt. John P.
Rathbourne; the _Ranger_, under Simpson, and the _Providence_
(twenty-eight guns), under Capt. Abraham Whipple, went on a cruise.
Whipple, it will be remembered, was the leader of the party disguised
as Indians who, with paving stones as their chief weapons, captured
and destroyed the schooner _Gaspé_ in the first salt-water conflict
of the war (1772). Captain Rathbourne was he who, in the little brig
_Providence_, captured New Providence Island on January 27, 1778, with
six vessels that were in the harbor.
For two months this squadron did nothing, but early in July they fell
in with a great fleet of merchantmen escorted by a ship-of-the-line
(seventy-four guns) and a number of frigates. Notwithstanding the
efficiency of this guard, the Yankees cut out eleven of the merchant
ships and carried them into port. It is recorded that the cargoes of
these ships were worth over a million dollars in gold, and that this
cruise was financially the most profitable of the war.
Meantime there was a fight between brigs that shows at once the
wonderful courage and endurance of the Anglo-Saxon seaman, no matter
on which side of the Atlantic his home is found, and the further fact
that in 1779 the Yankee sailor was becoming somewhat skilled as a
man-o’-war’sman. The American brig _Providence_, Capt. Hoysted Hacker,
fell in with the English brig _Diligent_, Capt. Thomas Davyson, May
7th. At the end of an hour the _Diligent_ struck her colors, but
she had lost twenty-seven in killed and wounded out of her crew of
fifty-three before she did so. The _Providence_ lost only four killed
and ten wounded.
The _Diligent_ was at once taken into the American service, but
disaster overtook the squadron in which she sailed. The enemy had
established a fort on the Penobscot for convenience as a base for
operating against Massachusetts. Accordingly 1,500 militia were sent
with a fleet of transports and privateers to capture it. With this
fleet went the frigate _Warren_, Capt. Dudley Saltonstall; the brig
_Diligent_, and the old brig _Providence_, that had seen service from
the first.
[Illustration: Signature of Hoysted Hacker.
_From a letter at the Lenox Library._]
The expedition reached the Penobscot on July 25, 1779, and found not
only a fort, but three warships, aggregating forty-nine guns, ready
for a fight. An attack was made, but the Americans were repulsed. They
then began the slower process of reducing the works by siege, but on
August 13th a British fleet of one ship-of-the-line (sixty-four guns),
three frigates of thirty-two guns each, three sloops-of-war aggregating
forty-eight guns, and a brig of fourteen guns, appeared.
At this the privateers scattered, each captain seeking safety as he
thought best, regardless of the safety of the others. The American
naval fleet, with the transports, retreated up the river, where all
were destroyed to prevent the enemy getting them. It was a very heavy
blow to the American naval forces.
Among the English squadron was the frigate _Virginia_ that had grounded
in the Chesapeake while trying to get to sea for the first time in
1778, when her commander, Captain Nicholson, abandoned her to the enemy.
[Illustration: _From a very rare engraving at the Lenox Library._]
While the British were approaching the Penobscot on this expedition,
this Captain Nicholson, in the thirty-two-gun frigate _Deane_
(sometimes called the _Hague_), and Capt. Samuel Tucker, in the
twenty-four-gun _Boston_, sailed on a cruise. They captured six prizes,
including a privateer of twenty guns, another of eighteen, and a
merchantman armed with sixteen guns. The eighteen-gun privateer was the
_Thorn_. After returning to port, Captain Tucker took the _Boston_
to Charleston, and when that place surrendered he was made prisoner,
but was soon after exchanged for the captain of the _Thorn_, whom he
had captured earlier in the year. Returning to Boston, he was ordered
to take command of the captured _Thorn_, and in the cruise that he then
made he took seven vessels. As he had captured thirty vessels before
he entered the navy, it is likely that Captain Tucker took more prizes
during the Revolution than any other commander.
When Charleston fell, there were lost with the _Boston_, just
mentioned, the frigate _Providence_, of twenty-eight guns; the _Queen
of France_, of equal metal, and the _Ranger_, in which John Paul Jones
captured the _Blake_. Thereafter, of all the ships that the Congress
had built or purchased and placed in service, only six remained in the
American navy. These were the _Alliance_, of thirty-two guns, in which
Landais had tried to betray John Paul Jones; the _Confederacy_ and the
_Deane_, of equal metal; the _Trumbull_, of twenty-eight guns; the _Duc
de Lauzan_, of twenty guns, and the _Saratoga_, of eighteen. Worse
yet, at the end of 1779 both officers and men were scarce because the
British, knowing that the supply of American seamen was limited, had
refused to exchange sailor prisoners in order that they might so keep
the American forces reduced. And of the seamen available for the
navy not a small proportion preferred to sail in privateers because of
the chances of great gains found in them.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _From a contemporary map at the Lenox Library._]
Because of this condition of affairs it happened that when Capt. James
Nicholson sailed in the _Trumbull_ on the last day of May, 1780, for a
cruise along the American coast his crew contained more landsmen--men
and boys who had never been outside of any harbor--than of seamen. With
such a mob as this in place of a crew, he fell in with a big British
privateer on June 2d.
[Illustration: Signature of Samuel Nicholson.
_From a letter at the Lenox Library._]
Nicholson had his sails trimmed like a merchantman’s, and the
privateer drew near to inspect, but soon saw that the _Trumbull_ was
a man-o’-war. At that, although he carried thirty-four guns to the
Yankee’s twenty-eight, he made sail to escape. But Nicholson was after
him with a swifter ship, and fight he had to. A right stubborn fight
it was, too. It began at a range of 100 yards, and it was soon carried
on with yardarms interlocked. The blazing gun-wads of the enemy were
several times blown through the open parts of the _Trumbull_, and she
was twice set on fire. But at the end of three hours, and just when
the enemy’s fire had slacked away to the point of surrendering, the
_Trumbull’s_ mainmast went by the board, dragging the fore topmast and
the mizzen after it, and there she lay helpless.
The privateer might have riddled her then, but he had had enough, and
was glad to get away.
It was learned afterward that the enemy was the _Watt_, a privateer
especially designed and fitted to whip any American frigate. She lost
ninety in killed and wounded. The _Trumbull_ lost thirty-nine in killed
and wounded.
Perhaps the most curious fact about this fight was this, that a very
large proportion of the _Trumbull’s_ crew were suffering from the worst
stage of seasickness when she opened fire. The _Trumbull_ made port,
but was unable to see service again until August of the next year.
Meantime the _Saratoga_, under Capt. James Young, sailed from
Philadelphia in October, 1780, and on the 8th fell in with three
vessels. By hoisting English colors, the largest, a heavily armed ship,
was decoyed alongside, where she reported herself as a merchantman
called the _Charming Molly_, from Jamaica. At this the _Saratoga_
hoisted the American flag, gave her a broadside, and crashing
alongside, threw grapnels over her rail and rigging and held her fast.
The first lieutenant of the _Saratoga_, at this time, was Joshua
Barney, whose exploit in the _Hyder Ali_ has already been described.
At the head of a party of fifty boarders Barney climbed over the rail
of the merchantman, and after a sharp fight cleared her deck. Then it
was learned that she carried ninety men. She was manned by a prize crew
under Barney, and sent in. The _Saratoga_ then made sail after the
other two, who had been fleeing down the wind to escape. It is not hard
for a sailorman to picture their hopeless race as the long Yankee, with
a cloud of canvas aloft and the white foam roaring away from her bows,
came a-whooping after them. It was a hopeless race because they were
only brigs, the one carrying fourteen and the other four guns. They
were taken without resistance, and manned and sent toward port.
Nevertheless, that was a most disastrous cruise for the _Saratoga_.
With her prizes she sailed for the Delaware, but she fell in with
the _Intrepid_, a ship of seventy-four guns, on duty there. Ordering
her prizes to scatter, she made all sail, and with success, for
she got away. But she found an enemy more powerful even than a
ship-of-the-line. She found, doubtless, an October hurricane, for
she was never heard of after she disappeared from the view of the
_Intrepid’s_ lookouts. The prizes, too, were all recaptured.
So five warships only were left to carry the American flag. Another
was building at Portsmouth, New Hampshire--the _America_, a
seventy-four-gun ship-of-the-line. John Paul Jones was assigned to her,
but before she was launched, the French ship-of-the-line _Magnifique_
was wrecked in the Massachusetts Bay, and the Congress, to show its
appreciation of what the French had done to help the United States,
presented the _America_, while still on the ways, to the French king.
That act was crushing to John Paul Jones; but when all was ready for
the launching, he hoisted the flags of both nations, and so sent her
into the water. And that was the last service he rendered his adopted
country. No other ship fit for the head man of the navy remained
afloat, and the Congress could not build another like the _America_.
And then came the end of the war, when Jones entered the Russian
service, subject to a call at any time from the American Congress, and
without sacrificing his American citizenship, and there he became a
rear admiral. Leaving that service, he was appointed American consul to
Algiers, a most important post, as will appear further on; but before
the slow mail brought his commission he died in Paris on July 18, 1792.
To return once more to the frigate _Trumbull_, it must be said that if
any doubt as to his courage or persistency was created in the minds of
the American people when he abandoned the grounded _Virginia_ without
firing a gun in her defence, Captain Nicholson redeemed himself in his
last battle in the _Trumbull_, even though he lost her.
The _Trumbull_ sailed in August, 1781, as an escort for a fleet of
twenty-eight merchantmen. If her crew was inefficient when she fought
the privateer _Watt_, it was now well-nigh the worst conceivable
for the occasion; for in numbers she lacked 200 men of a full
complement--she had less than half the number needed to work and fight
the ship--while of the hundred and odd men she did carry, many were
landsmen, and a lot more were Englishmen, who, on learning that she
was certain to go to sea short-handed, shipped in her in the hope of
finding opportunity for a mutiny. This was not an unusual circumstance
during the Revolution, for the British Parliament had passed an act
offering a large bounty to her “loyal subjects” who, after making
oath to support the American Constitution, should be able to carry an
American ship into a British port.
When off the capes of the Delaware this worse than half-manned
_Trumbull_, in a gale lost her fore topmast and main topgallantmast--a
misfortune unquestionably due to the misconduct of her English crew.
She was then not only worse than half-manned, but she was worse than
half-found in sails.
While in this condition (and it should be remembered that the
_Trumbull_ carried but twenty-eight guns) the British frigate _Iris_
(formerly the American frigate _Hancock_), of thirty-two guns, ranged
up on one side of her, and another British ship, name unknown, on the
other.
Instead of surrendering, as he would have been justified in doing,
Captain Nicholson cleared the ship for action, and the battle
began. And then at the first broadside the Englishmen to a man, by
preconcerted action, fled to the hold and succeeded in frightening the
landsmen into following them, so that but fifty men were left to fight
the enemy.
[Illustration: _After a miniature in the possession of Miss Josephine
L. Stevens._]
But among those fifty were Richard Dale from the deck of the _Bonhomme
Richard_, and one Christopher Raymond Perry, who will be heard of
later, and the summons to surrender was scorned. Never before had such
a fight as this occurred--a fight wherein fifty men in a crippled ship
of twenty-eight guns struck back at a thirty-two-gun ship carrying
seven times as many men and helped by another ship that was itself
undoubtedly more than a match for a cripple. And yet for an hour James
Nicholson, Richard Dale, and Christopher Raymond Perry kept their men
at the guns. Sixteen men were killed and wounded out of the valiant
fifty. Even then the flag was still flying. There is no telling how
long the desperate conflict would have continued; but a third British
ship, the _General Monk_, came into the fight and in a position to rake
the American at short range. It was a case then of surrender or sink,
and the flag of the _Trumbull_ was hauled down.
In March of 1781 the _Alliance_, under Capt. John Barry, was found in a
most exasperating position off the British coast. She had sailed from
Boston in February, and after taking a privateer called the _Alert_,
reached L’Orient safely. There she was joined by a French privateer of
forty guns, called the _Marquis de la Fayette_. Sailing on March 31st,
they captured the British privateers _Mars_, of twenty-six guns, and
the _Minerva_, of ten, the two carrying crews aggregating 167 men. Then
the _Alliance_ went on alone, and on May 28th fell in with two smaller
vessels that boldly attacked her.
It had been a quiet day, but as the two smaller vessels approached,
the _Alliance_ lost the wind altogether, while the others, with the
aid of big oars, came on, took safe positions at short range under
her quarters, and opened fire. Captain Barry could bring only three
nine-pounders to bear on each of the enemy, while they were delivering
heavy broadsides of eight and seven guns, respectively. Captain Barry
was so badly wounded by a grapeshot that he was carried below; but just
when the surrender of the _Alliance_ seemed inevitable a breeze filled
her sails, and swinging around, she ran in between the two enemies,
and with broadsides from her eighteen-pounders quickly brought down
their flags. One was the sixteen-gun brig _Atalanta_, and the other the
fourteen-gun brig _Trepassy_. They lost ten killed and thirty wounded
between them. The _Trepassy_ was sent to England with prisoners, and
the _Atalanta_ to the United States, but she was recaptured off Boston.
The _Alliance_ reached port safely.
A little later (June 22, 1781) the _Confederacy_ was captured by
the English. She was employed as a government packet to keep open
communication with France, but while returning home laden with military
supplies a two-decker and a frigate, the _Orpheus_ and the _Roebuck_,
overtook her, and her commander, Capt. Seth Harding, had to strike his
colors.
The last naval action (the _General Monk_ was captured later by a
privateer) of the Revolutionary war was fought by the _Alliance_, Capt.
John Barry. He had sailed from Havana with a large quantity of specie
for the United States. This was March 7, 1782. She had the _Duc de
Lauzan_ in company. When not long out of port three British frigates
were encountered. The Yankees started to run for it, and the _Lauzan_,
a slow sailer, was ordered to throw her guns overboard.
However, a French ship of fifty guns hove in sight on the weather bow,
and at that Captain Barry waited for the leading English frigate,
supposing the Frenchman would join in, of course. A fight that brought
glory to Barry and credit to the Englishman followed, but at the end
of fifty minutes the Englishman had out signals of distress. As the
Frenchman held aloof, Captain Barry was compelled to let the Englishman
haul off under cover of his consorts.
The English ship was the _Sybille_ (sometimes written _Sibyl_), of
thirty-eight guns--a heavier ship than the _Alliance_. She lost
thirty-seven killed and fifty wounded, while that of the _Alliance_ was
three killed and eleven wounded.
The significant feature of this fight is in the wide margin between the
two lists of killed and wounded. The Yankees had at last learned to
handle cannon effectively. But now the end of the war had come.
Four months before this last naval fight of the American Revolution
Lord North, the British premier, on hearing of the surrender of Lord
Cornwallis at Yorktown, had strode up and down his room with his arms
frantically waving above his head, while he cried:
“Oh, God! it is all over. It is all over. It is all over.”
The “most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unjust, and diabolical”
war known to the history of the English-speaking people was over, and
during the latter end of March, 1782, “Lord North bowed to the storm
and resigned.”
On July 4, 1776, when the Congress declared the independence of the
colonies, the American navy consisted of twenty-five vessels, all
sizes counted, mounting 422 guns. Thereafter other ships were built,
and some were purchased and some were captured from the enemy and put
into service. But because the enemy at all times had more than five
guns afloat and in service on the American coast to every one that the
Americans mustered in the naval list, the American ships, one by one,
fell into the hands of the enemy, or were destroyed to save them from
such a fate, or were lost at sea. When the war ended but three naval
ships, bearing eighty-four guns between them, remained. The American
navy had almost perished, but, like Arnold’s fleet on Lake Champlain,
it had given the Englishman an opportunity to see the face of the
enemy. Even as in the fight which the _Bonhomme Richard_ waged, it won
victory even when it was so shattered as to all but disappear while yet
the smoke of battle hung over the water. For without the aid of the sea
power the war of the Revolution would have failed. From that glorious
day before Boston when the hearts of the Continentals were fired by the
long wagon-train, loaded with war material, captured by an American
cruiser from the enemy, until the last service of the _Alliance_ in
bringing specie from Havana, there was never a time when the sea power
did not render helpful and glorious service to the struggling patriots
ashore.
[Illustration: An Old Naval Order.
_From the original at the Lenox Library._]
In the 800 ships that were captured from the enemy were found the
materials that succored the life of the nation. Not one American
cruiser was captured by English privateers, while sixteen English
cruisers were taken by American privateers, which were manned in
many cases for the most part by boys and haymakers, while in many an
American victory the odds in weight of metal and number of men were
greatly in the favor of the British. By their daring and persistence
the Yankee cruisers made Yankee prowess known throughout Europe and
even to the yeomanry of England.