The activity of American privateers as well as Continental ships in
British waters during 1777-1779 was very great, that of the _Reprisal_,
_Lexington_, _Dolphin_, and _Revenge_ (the first two, Continental
brigs) being particularly notable.
France was at this period (1777) made a basis for the fitting out of
Continental vessels and privateers, and for the supply of men in a way
which would be far from possible to-day. Captain Lambert Wickes of the
Continental brig _Reprisal_ and Gustavus Conyngham of the Continental
lugger _Surprise_ and cutter _Revenge_, both of which latter were
bought and fitted out by our commissioners in France, were two of those
most active and prominent in the operations on the British coast. Their
names have come down to this day as specially brave and adventurous
men. The former had cruised very successfully on our own coast and
in the West Indies in 1776, and had been the first, as mentioned, to
carry a ship of the regular navy to Europe, December, 1776, though
privateers had preceded him. Two prizes taken into Nantes caused strong
protests from Great Britain. The treaty of Utrecht, 1713, expressly
closed the ports of either power to the enemies of the other, so that
the British case had a very sound basis. Vergennes unquestionably,
before our alliance, had to hold a course favoring the Americans which
was full of difficulties. The details of the diplomacy of the moment
cannot be entered upon. Suffice that the _Reprisal_ refitted went to
sea early in 1777, and brought in five prizes to add to Vergennes’s
difficulties. The British Ambassador, Stormont, demanded their release.
He was answered that both captor and captured had been ordered to leave
port and were probably already at sea, to which Stormont was later able
to make reply that the _Reprisal_ was undergoing repairs at Lorient,
and that the five prizes had been sold. The questions were bandied to
and fro between the American commissioners, the French Minister, and
the British Ambassador, with the result that the _Reprisal_ received
orders not to cruise near the French coast, but apparently the prizes
remained in the hands of the purchasers. On May 28th Wickes sailed in
the _Reprisal_ from St. Nazaire with the Continental brig _Lexington_,
Captain Henry Johnson, and the cutter _Dolphin_, Captain Nicholson, all
under Wickes as senior officer, for a cruise through the Irish Channel.
They were back in St. Malo on June 27th, having captured twenty prizes,
of which three were released and seven sunk. In July the commissioners
were obliged to give orders that the _Reprisal_ and _Lexington_ should
return directly to America, for which the _Dolphin_ had already sailed
as a packet, and to cruise no longer in Europe. They left in September;
when only two days out the _Lexington_ was captured. The _Reprisal_ was
lost on the Newfoundland Banks, but one man being saved. The loss of
her enterprising captain was keenly felt and deplored.
Gustavus Conyngham had been selected to command the lugger _Surprise_
fitting at Dunkirk, and was given one of the commissions, of which
a number had been sent out in blank signed by Hancock, President of
Congress, and dated March 1, 1777. He got to sea by May and, returning
almost at once with two prizes, was, on the demand of the British
Ambassador, with most of his crew, put in prison. His vessel was
seized and the prizes released. His commission was taken from him
and not returned. Released, he was at once put in command of a newly
purchased cutter, the _Revenge_, with a crew of 106 men. He was given
a new commission which was dated May 2, 1777. He cruised off the coast
of Spain with remarkable success and then went to the West Indies. He
was reported to have captured, by the time of his arrival there, sixty
vessels, twenty-seven of which had been sent into port and thirty-three
sunk or burned. After cruising successfully in the West Indies he
arrived at Philadelphia on February 21, 1779. The _Revenge_ was sold,
but the purchaser fitted her out as a privateer with Conyngham in
command, using his Continental commission, dated May 2, 1777; this
nearly caused Conyngham to lose his life, for he was captured by a
British frigate in April, taken to New York, confined in irons, and was
sent to England under an accusation of piracy in that his cruise and
captures in the _Revenge_ early in 1777 had been before the date of
this commission. In November, 1779, he escaped from Mill prison, where
he had been confined. His active career, however, was ended.[8]
In 1779 occurred one of the great naval disasters of the war. Some 800
British troops convoyed by ships-of-war had in June taken possession
of Penobscot Bay to establish there some of the many loyalists who had
gone to Halifax, their chief refuge during the war. Maine was then a
part of Massachusetts, and it was this state which took on the burden
of dislodging the enemy. The Navy Board at Boston lent the _Warren_,
32; the _Providence_ (sloop), 14; and the _Diligent_, 12. These and
three state brigantines, of 14 or 16 guns each, and thirteen privateers
(insured by the state) made up the naval part. In all they mounted 324
guns and were manned by over 2,000 men. Captain Dudley Saltonstall was
in chief command. There were about 1,000 militia commanded by General
Solomon Lovell. This carefully prepared effort was a complete failure
through the incompetency and want of push of Saltonstall. Arriving in
the bay on July 25, 1779, the attack on three British vessels present
and on the fort which was now ready was so dilatory and ineffective
that at length, on August 13th, a British fleet which had had time
to come from New York appeared and drove the American vessels up the
river, where all except two, which were captured, were burned. The
American loss was 474 men. The remainder had to find their way back
with great hardship through the Maine woods. This humiliating affair
cost Massachusetts a debt estimated at $7,000,000.
The year 1779, however, had been the most brilliant of the war for
the small American navy. The exploits of John Paul Jones, of Gustavus
Conyngham and Lambert Wickes in European waters made an undying page
of history; nor should those of our small frigates, the _Queen of
France_, _Deane_ (later the _Hague_), _Warren_, _Boston_, and _Ranger_
on our own coasts as well as of the swarms of privateers in this year
(289 of which were commissioned by Congress alone) and whose sweeping
captures of the enemy’s commerce went so far to supply the needs of our
ever-dwindling army, be forgotten.
* * * * *
American affairs were now (at the beginning of 1780) at their lowest
ebb. The struggle had lasted nearly five years. It was with difficulty
that an army, nominally of 6,000 men, could be kept together. The men
were “half-starved, imperfectly clothed, riotous, and robbing the
country people ... from sheer necessity. Desertion was continual, from
one to two hundred men a month going over to the enemy.... Only a
miracle, thought Washington, could keep America from the humiliation
of seeing her cause upheld solely by foreign arms. Throughout the land
there was a weariness of war, a desire for peace at any price.”[9]
At least a third of our population is estimated to have been
loyalist, and another third lukewarm. At several periods there were
more loyalists in the British service than in our own. Nor was this
situation wholly confined to the army, for in 1779 there were fitted
out at New York one hundred and twenty-one privateers in British
employ, thirty-four of which carried from twenty to thirty-six guns.
The whole were manned by between 9,000 and 10,000 men.
The navy was reduced almost as much as the army. The _Boston_,
_Providence_, _Ranger_, and _Queen of France_ had arrived at Charleston
on December 23, 1779. The first three fell into the hands of the enemy
on the surrender of Charleston on May 11, 1780, and became part of the
British navy, the fourth along with the South Carolina ships _Bricole_,
44; the _Truite_, 26; _General Moultrie_, 20, and _Notre Dame_, 16,
had been sunk in the river, as also two small French ships-of-war
_L’Aventure_ and _Polacre_. There thus remained in the latter part of
1780 but one of the original thirteen frigates, the _Trumbull_, which
with the _Dean_, _Confederacy_, _Alliance_, and _Saratoga_ (the last
a sloop-of-war), formed in this year the entire Continental navy in
service. The _Deane_ (renamed the _Hague_) and the _Alliance_ were the
only two of these to survive the year.