In September, 1744, there met at Philadelphia, then our foremost
city, representatives of each of the thirteen colonies, called
together on account of the increasing difficulties which had arisen
with the mother country. These difficulties arose mainly from the
tendency of parliament to govern the colonies as it would, say,
any county of England. This right the Americans denied. They were
good subjects of the King, but they objected to parliamentary rule.
The underlying idea which governed the action of the Americans was
thus that of a federalism which only in these latter days has laid
hold in any considerable degree of the minds of the English, who
now debate the possibility of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa becoming states of a
federation somewhat akin to our own. But at the time of the outbreak
of our Revolution there was no widespread idea of separation. It
was, however, in the air, and by some openly advocated. Had there
been a complete renouncement of the right of parliament to make laws
governing the colonies there would, for the time at least, have been
a reconciliation. It was upon this principle we divided. Thus the war
began.
There was at this time on our coast a British naval force of four ships
of from seventy to fifty guns (these at Boston), and twenty from twenty
to six guns distributed from New Hampshire to Florida. The whole was a
very moderate force considering the long-standing discontent and the
difficulties of the existing situation. The British navy, in which, as
in the administration of every other department of the British public
service of the period, inefficiency and dishonesty reigned to an almost
unbelievable degree, had been allowed to run down sadly after the Seven
Years’ War which ended in 1763. The total number of ships was but 270
and the number of seamen but 18,000. Before the war closed the ships
were to number 468, of which 174 were ships-of-the-line (carrying from
sixty to one hundred guns), and the seamen were to number 110,000.
The situation of the United States was much akin to that of the
Southern Confederacy. Its resources were too meagre to carry on a war
without the importation of much that was necessary to keep an army in
efficiency. Thus the true plan of England was a strict blockade and the
reduction to inanition of our forces, such as we ourselves carried on
against the South in our Civil War. This action was advocated strongly
by Viscount Barrington, the Secretary for War, who urged that the navy
only should be employed, and that the ships should take possession of
all our ports and establish a complete blockade. Fortunately for the
revolutionists, his advice was not heeded.
On April 19, 1775, at Concord and Lexington, the long-prepared fagots
of revolution were lighted into flame. Two months later, June 17th,
came Bunker Hill and the immediate assembling near Boston (where lay
almost the whole of the British force in America) of a multitude of
country people ill-provided with everything that goes to make the
efficiency of an army but high determination and spirit. By a stroke of
prescience which would seem a providence, Washington was appointed the
commander-in-chief.
* * * * *
There had been fights afloat between the Americans and the British
some years before the actual outbreak of the Revolution. In 1769 the
sloop _Liberty_, employed in revenue protection, had been seized and
burned by the people of Newport, Rhode Island; in 1772 a schooner,
the _Gaspee_, used for similar service in Narragansett Bay and which
had grounded while in chase of a suspected vessel near Providence,
was boarded by a party of men who burned her, and but a month after
the first fights ashore occurred there were attacks with some loss of
life upon an armed schooner and barges which attempted the seizure of
livestock on the islands of Boston Bay. The lively fights at Machias in
June, 1775, in which the inhabitants had captured the sloop _Unity_ and
another which had been sent to Machias for lumber and which were under
the escort of an armed tender, the _Margaretta_, were, however, the
first of the actual War of the Revolution. They are proud recollections
of local history and have caused the name of the town to appear on the
navy list as that of a small cruiser of to-day. On August 9, 1775, the
_Falcon_, sloop-of-war under Captain Linzee, pursued into Gloucester
harbor two schooners bound from the West Indies; one he seized, and the
other succeeding in getting into the harbor was attacked by boats from
the _Falcon_. The militia and inhabitants gathered, and the action
which came on and which lasted several hours resulted in the capture of
thirty-five of the _Falcon’s_ men who had come into the harbor in the
captured schooner and in their own boats, both schooners remaining in
the hands of the Americans.
To Washington himself was due the first organized force of the
Americans in the Revolution upon the sea. Throughout his career he
recognized the importance of its control, and immediately on his
arrival at Cambridge to take the command of the American army then
collected before Boston, he began to look into the question of a naval
force, with a view to capturing the enemy’s supplies. Such capture
would not only be a deprivation to the British forces, but a much
needed aid to the Americans who needed everything which goes to support
an army, excepting food, which the surrounding country supplied for the
moment plentifully enough. But arms, both small and great, clothing,
ammunition, and tentage were imperatively needed. Such in quantities
were on the ocean on their way to America for the British army, and
the first need was to bring them into American hands. Washington thus
established a little navy of his own, with a prize court necessary
to pass upon the propriety of the capture and commissioners to take
charge of captured material. He continued such efforts even after the
transfer of the army to New York, and did not cease from them until the
Continental Congress took the subject in hand.
The beginning of Washington’s fleet was the schooner _Hannah_, which
sailed under Captain Nicholas Broughton from Beverly, Massachusetts,
on September 5, 1775, and returned two days later with a prize.
Naturally many of the improvised army assembled at Cambridge, which was
mainly made up of New Englanders, were men of the sea, and thus soon
there were eight small vessels, officered and manned from the army in
service. The administration of this improvised navy was not an easy
task. Washington, writing to the President of the Congress on December
4, 1775, says: “The plague, trouble, and vexation I have had with the
crews of all the armed vessels is inexpressible. I do not believe there
is on earth a more disorderly set.” Successes came, however, and with
these greater contentment among the crews. Captain John Manley was
particularly successful, especially in the capture of the brigantine
_Nancy_, which carried ordnance stores of the highest value to our
poorly equipped army. The inventory of her cargo gives, among other
things, 2,000 muskets, thirty-one tons of musket shot, 3,000 round
shot, a considerable quantity of powder, and a thirteen-inch mortar,
which was promptly mounted in Cambridge and called the “Congress.”
The British evacuated Boston through want of food, on March 17,
1776, going first to Halifax and thence to New York. Washington had
already transferred his army thither and continued his navy, such as
it was, until he himself retreated from New York as the result of the
unfortunate battle of Long Island.
Rhode Island had, however, taken action toward a sea force several
months before Washington had formed his little fleet. The Rhode Island
Assembly had, on June 15, 1775, two days before the battle of Bunker
Hill, ordered the chartering of two sloops and had appointed Abraham
Whipple to the chief command. Whipple was prompt to act, for on the
same day he captured the tender to the frigate _Rose_, the first prize
of the war. His evident courage and vigor caused his appointment later
as captain in the regular navy which was soon to come.
Rhode Island has also the honor of being the first state to take
action toward the establishment of a national navy. Her delegates
were instructed on August 26, 1775, to bring the question of a fleet
before Congress. This was done on October 3d. The subject received an
almost immediate impetus through the arrival of information of two
brigs which had left England for Quebec with arms, powder, and stores.
A committee of three was proposed to prepare a plan to intercept
these, but the idea met with strong opposition as being initiatory
to a Continental navy, as in fact it was. It was declared by some
opposed to be the “most wild, visionary, mad project that had ever
been imagined. It was an infant taking a mad bull by the horns, ...
it would ruin the character and morals of our seamen; it would make
them selfish, piratical, mercenary, bent wholly upon plunder.” Much
of such criticism of the project might have been spared. Our seamen
had been living through an age of privateering, and one in which the
latter often recked but too little of legal capture, and they had too
long been accustomed to the general system of illicit commerce with the
islands of the West Indies belonging to France and Spain to have their
morals upset by fighting for their country. The better sense prevailed
and the three men who had urged most strongly the proposed action were,
on October 5, 1775, appointed a committee to report a scheme of action.
These were John Adams of Massachusetts, John Langdon of New Hampshire,
and Silas Deane of Connecticut.
The immediate advice of the committee which was to instruct Washington
to procure two cruisers in Massachusetts, one to carry ten, and the
other fourteen, guns, for the purpose of intercepting the two brigs
mentioned, was soon changed in a report of October 30, 1775, advising
to add two more vessels, one to mount not more than twenty, the other
not more than thirty-six, guns, to be employed “for the protection and
defence of the United Colonies.” The question of the capture of special
ships had been dropped; the subject had become national.
On December 14, 1775, the “Naval Committee” was replaced by a committee
of thirteen chosen by ballot. The membership was remarkably like that
of some naval committees of later times. Scarcely any on it were really
conversant with matters of the sea, but it held one man, Robert Morris
of Pennsylvania, whose energy, resource, and ability caused Congress
to put in his sole control, before the war ended, all the affairs
of the navy. Agents were employed to superintend construction, and
prize agents were appointed. On November 6, 1776, Paul Jones wrote in
his usual vigorous way to Robert Morris, declaring the necessity of
a Board of Admiralty, and on October 28, 1779, one was established.
Two of the members were to be members of Congress; the other three,
called commissioners, were to be men possessing knowledge of naval
matters. The Marine Committee then came to an end, but the navy boards
at Philadelphia and Boston, each of “three persons well-skilled in
maritime affairs,” appointed by Congress “to execute the business of
the navy under the direction of the Marine Committee,” in what became
known as the Middle and Eastern districts, and the navy agents were
retained under this reorganization. The Board of Admiralty, however,
never materialized. On February 7, 1781, Congress resolved that naval
affairs should be under a single person, to be called the Secretary of
Marine. The office was never filled. Naval matters had, as just said,
gradually drifted into the efficient hands of the Superintendent of
Finance, Robert Morris, and there they remained until the navy of the
Revolution disappeared in the sale of the last ship, the _Alliance_, in
August, 1785. The fact is that naval affairs in the Revolution suffered
equally with those of the army through the ineptitude and inefficiency
of a Congress which was rather a board of advice than a government,
even when the Articles of Confederation were adopted, which was not
finally done until March 2, 1781.
On November 2, 1775, $100,000 was voted for ships, and the committee
was authorized to select officers and seamen. On November 10th were
authorized two battalions of marines. The first intention was to take
them from the army, but Washington objecting to such weakening of
his force, they were to be raised independently and, with a curious
misunderstanding of their use, it was provided that they should be
“such as are good seamen.” Rules for the government of the navy were
passed November 28th, and the offices of Captain, Lieutenant, Master,
Master’s Mate, Surgeon, Chaplain, and Warrant Officer established. The
monthly pay of captain was $32; of able seaman $6.67, later raised to
$8. A prize court was established. The rules, naturally, were taken
from those of the British service, and throughout the whole existence
of our navy there has run a strong similarity, until of late years
when there have been many changes in the nomenclature of the ratings
of the enlisted men. Both services had the “Banyan day,” when no meat
was served,[1] though in the American navy this soon ceased to be an
actuality. Such phrases as “Chips” (the carpenter) and “Jimmy Legs”
(the master-at-arms) were among the many common to both services; but
one, “Jack-of-the-Dust” (an adjunct of the paymaster’s department),
which is to-day a rating in the American navy, is no longer a part of
British ratings.
On December 13, 1775, Congress authorized the building of thirteen
frigates, and next day, December 14th, a committee of thirteen was
chosen by ballot to superintend their construction and equipment;
five of these were to be of 32 guns; five of 28; and three of 24.
The _Raleigh_, of 32 guns, was built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire;
the _Hancock_, 32, and _Boston_, 24, at Salisbury and Newburyport,
Massachusetts; the _Warren_, 32, and _Providence_, 28, at Providence,
Rhode Island; the _Trumbull_, 28, at Chatham, on the Connecticut
River; the _Montgomery_, 24, and _Congress_, 28, at Poughkeepsie,
New York; the _Randolph_, 32, _Washington_, 32, _Effingham_, 28, and
_Delaware_, 24, at Philadelphia; the _Virginia_, 28, at Baltimore. Six
of these--the _Montgomery_, _Congress_, _Washington_, _Effingham_,
_Delaware_, and _Virginia_--never got to sea, all being destroyed to
prevent capture except the _Virginia_ which, having grounded and lost
her rudder in the Chesapeake, was taken by a British force in the bay.
These ships were to cost on the average but $66,666, and the whole were
expected to be ready by March, 1776. They varied from 121 to 132 feet
in length on the gun deck, with a breadth of from 32.6 to 34.5½. Their
armament was that of the frigates of the day: 12-pounders on the main
deck and 6-pounders on the quarter deck and forecastle. All should
have been ready by the time named, for the _Raleigh_ was launched at
Portsmouth but two months after her keel was laid. But ill-luck pursued
them throughout, and particularly in that the free life and greater
gains of the privateersman made it almost impossible to get crews.
Thus the four ships the purchase of which was authorized on October
30, 1775, were the first of our navy. These were the _Alfred_, of 24
guns; _Columbus_, 20; _Andrew Doria_, 14, and the _Cabot_, 16.
Such was the beginning of the Continental navy which was to have a
life of but ten years. A few words will complete our story of naval
construction. On November 20, 1776, Congress resolved to build
“immediately” a 74 in New Hampshire; a 74 and a 36 in Massachusetts;
a 74, a brig, 18, and a packet boat in Pennsylvania; two frigates,
36 each, in Virginia; and two frigates, 36 each, in Maryland. But
in July, 1777, on account of the high cost of wages and material,
Congress authorized stopping work on such as the committee might judge
proper, and the final result was the completion and getting to sea of
but three: the _Alliance_, 36, the _General Gates_, 18, both built in
Massachusetts, and the _Saratoga_, 16, in Pennsylvania. Only one 74 was
built. This was the _America_, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and she
was not launched until the war had practically ended.
During the early part of 1776 there were built on Lake Champlain, under
the direction of Benedict Arnold, two schooners with eight 6 and 4
pounders; a sloop with ten guns of like calibre; a cutter with one 12,
one 9, and two 6; one galley with two 18-pounders and eight 12, and
two others of nearly equal armament; eight gondolas with three 8 and 9
pounders, and two other small craft. These, as will be seen later, were
to fight a memorable action.