Indeed, it soon appeared that there was at least one provision,
the giving of the whole of certain prizes to captors on board of
Continental vessels, which the Agent of Marine disapproved. In June,
1782, Morris made a report to Congress in which he showed that,
owing to the government’s liberality to its officers and seamen,
it had lost ten thousand dollars on the late successful cruise of
the frigate “Deane,” during which she had captured five prizes of
considerable value. He thought that wages, bounties, and one-half of
prizes were quite sufficient inducements for manning the fleet. In
all cases, however, in which the capture of a vessel of the enemy
was especially meritorious, Morris would have Congress encourage and
stimulate effort and merit in the navy by giving the captors, by a
special act of Congress, the whole of their prizes. On July 10, 1782,
Congress passed an ordinance embodying Morris’s recommendations.[291]
When Morris, on September 7, 1781, became Agent of Marine, the
direction of the movements of the Continental vessels was vested in
him, but with a serious limitation; he was authorized to employ the
armed cruisers “according to such instructions as he shall, from time
to time, receive from Congress.” Morris could never abide indefinite
grants of power which confused authority; and he therefore, by means
of a cleverly written letter, elicited a resolution from Congress
giving him full power “to fit out and employ the ships of war
belonging to these United States, in such manner as shall appear
to him best calculated to promote the interest of these United
States.”[292]
When Morris fell heir to the duties of the Naval Department, in the
summer of 1781, the Continental navy was reduced to small numbers.
There were in active service only five captains and seven lieutenants
in the navy, and three captains and three lieutenants in the marine
corps. Including with these, those officers who were unemployed, were
in private service, were prisoners, or were on parole, there were
twenty-two captains and thirty-nine lieutenants in the navy, and
twelve captains and twelve lieutenants in the marine corps.[293] Only
three vessels were now in commission; the frigate “Trumbull,” 28, at
Philadelphia, and the “Alliance,” 36, and “Deane,” 32, at Boston. The
“America” and “Bourbon” were still on the stocks. About the first of
September, 1782, Morris purchased the ship “Washington,” 20, and in
October he took over into the Continental service in payment for a
debt the ship “Duc de Lauzun,” 20.
The movements of the fleet under Morris’s direction were marked, as
formerly, by bits of good and bad fortune, encounters with naval
ships, privateers, and merchantmen, and voyages to France and the
West Indies. From the summer of 1781 until the end of the war the
little fleet captured twenty prizes, some fifteen of which reached
safe ports. The last of his Majesty’s vessels to surrender to a
Continental ship was the schooner “Jackall,” 20, Commander Logie,
which was taken in the spring of 1782 by Captain Samuel Nicholson,
when in command of the “Deane,” or the “Hague,” as she was now
called. By a singular coincidence the first, and the last, valuable
prize captured by a Continental ship during the Revolution, were
taken by Captain John Manly. On one of the last days of November,
1775, he received the surrender of the brig “Nancy,” a transport; and
in January, 1783, while in command of the “Hague” he captured the
ship “Baille” of 340 tons burden, with a cargo consisting of sixteen
hundred barrels of provisions.[294]
One of the most interesting, varied, and fortunate cruises of the
war was made by Captain John Barry in the “Alliance,” 36, one of the
largest and best-built vessels of the Continental navy. Barry left
New London on August 4, 1782, and having visited the region of the
Bermudas, and the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, he sailed eastward
and overhauled a fleet of Jamaicamen, and arrived at L’Orient on
October 17. He had captured nine prizes, four of which he carried
into L’Orient. These four ships were Jamaicamen, and with their rich
cargoes of rum and sugar, they sold for £620,610, one of the largest
sums realized on any cruise during the Revolution. On December 8,
Captain Barry left France for the West Indies. Having made a call
at Madeira, Barry early in January, 1783, anchored at St. Pierre,
Martinique, where he found a letter from the Agent of Marine
ordering him to proceed to Havana and convoy the “Duc de Lauzun” to
Philadelphia. About the first of February the “Alliance” arrived
at Havana, after she had put into St. Eustatius and Cape Francois,
and had been chased by one fleet off Porto Rico and another off
Hispaniola. On account of the closing of the port of Havana, Barry
was detained here a month. After considerable correspondence with the
Governor of Havana, Barry on March 6 was permitted to sail with his
convoy, which had on board seventy-two thousand dollars in specie. On
March 10, 1783, Barry fell in with a British vessel, which is said
to have been the frigate “Sibylle,” 32, and he now fought the last
naval engagement of the Revolution. It lasted forty-five minutes,
ended indecisively, and resulted in the loss of ten men on board the
“Alliance;” the loss of the British is unknown. The two American
vessels now parted company, and each soon reached a safe port; the
“Alliance” arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, on March 20, and the
“Duc de Lauzun” anchored at Philadelphia on March 21. It was now
two months since the Preliminary Articles of Peace had been signed
at Versailles.[295] The naval movements of the Continental vessels
during the Revolution ended with the arrivals of these two vessels.
While Morris had the direction of the fleet, only one vessel was
captured by the enemy, and this before he became Agent of Marine. In
July, 1781, he ordered the “Trumbull,” 28, Captain James Nicholson,
to proceed to Havana with despatches, letters, and a cargo of flour.
The “Trumbull” had scarcely cleared the Capes of the Delaware, on
August 8, when she was chased by the frigate “Iris,” 32, Captain
George Dawson. Encountering a storm, the “Trumbull” was dismasted,
and thus crippled she was overtaken by the “Iris.” The “Trumbull’s”
crew were a sorry lot; some of them were British deserters, and
others were cowardly and disaffected. It was late in the evening when
the fight began. Many of the crew now put out their battle lanterns
and flew from their quarters. Captain Nicholson and his officers,
with a handful of seamen, bravely defended their ship against
impossible odds for an hour before they surrendered. Nicholson lost
sixteen men; two of his lieutenants were wounded. It is recalled that
the “Iris” was originally the “Hancock,” of the Continental navy, and
that she was the first of the thirteen original frigates to surrender
to the enemy. The “Iris” was a fast ship, and is said to have made
the fortunes of all the British captains that commanded her. It was
the irony of fate that the first of the thirteen frigates to be
captured should receive the surrender of the last remaining one. A
letter from New York, dated August 11, 1781, informs us that “this
day arrived the celebrated rebel frigate named the Trumbull.”[296]
The attempts of Morris, in 1782, to obtain an increase in the
naval force of Congress, form one of the most interesting and
characteristic parts of his naval work. The surrender of Cornwallis
on October 19, 1781, was not considered by many contemporaneous
Americans as an event that must necessarily end the Revolution.
Indeed, the final outcome of the war was in doubt for more than a
year. The Agent of Marine was too cautious and conservative to count
on peace before its actual accomplishment had been sealed by a formal
treaty. After the surrender of Cornwallis he not only continued to
send the Continental cruisers against the enemy, but whenever an
occasion presented, he vigorously urged on Congress the necessity
of a naval increase. To the mind of Morris the need of a navy in
1782 was greater than it had been at any previous time during the
Revolution. He conceived that up to this time Britain had attempted
to conquer the Colonies on land by means of her army; since she had
been defeated in this, it was now her purpose to starve the Colonies
into submission by means of her navy and superior sea-power. The
United States must meet the enemy’s change of tactics by building a
navy.
In April, 1782, Morris took steps to have the frigate “Bourbon”
completed. Congress was not convinced of the expediency of this, and
was inclined to sell the frigate in its unfinished state. Morris
wrote reprovingly to Congress that the most economical thing to do
was to complete the vessel; and that “there is also a degree of
Dignity in carrying through such measures as Congress have once
adopted, unless some change of circumstances renders the execution
improper.” He then added: “The present circumstances of the United
States I apprehend to be such as should induce our attention to the
re-establishment of a Naval Force, and altho’ former attempts have
proved unfortunate, we must not take it for granted that future
Essays will be unsuccessful. Altho’ the Naval Force of our enemy is
powerful, and their Ships Numerous, yet that Force is opposed by
equal Numbers, so as to give them much more employment than at the
time our infant Fleet was Crushed.”[297]
On May 10, 1782, in response to a request of Congress, Morris
submitted an exhaustive report on the state of American commerce.
Referring to the intentions of the British, he declared that having
been compelled to abandon the idea of conquest, their avowed design
was to annihilate the American commerce. The plans of the enemy could
be frustrated and the American trade protected by so small a fleet
as two ships of the line and ten frigates. The ships of the line,
together with two frigates, should be stationed in the Chesapeake, to
cruise as occasion might require. The frigates should be divided into
two equal squadrons, each of which should serve as a convoy of the
American trade between the United States and France. By each squadron
making two round trips a year, a quarterly communication both ways
between these two countries would be established. The United States
of course could not provide this service, but the ships which the
plan required might be detailed from the French or Spanish fleet.
“It is to be hoped,” Morris said, “that if the war continues much
longer, the United States will be able to provide the necessary force
for themselves, which at present they are not, tho’ if the above
arrangements take place, they might now provide for the trade from
America to the West Indies.” Congress authorized Morris to apply to
both Spain and France for the needed vessels.[298]
But a more extensive naval plan than this was in Morris’s mind,
and one which could be undertaken independent of foreign ships. On
July 30, 1782, he submitted to Congress an estimate for the public
services of the United States for the year 1783, amounting in all
to eleven millions of dollars. More than one-fifth of this sum was
to be spent on the navy. “Congress will observe,” he said, “that
the estimates for the Marine Department amount to two Millions and
a half, whereas there was no Estimate made for that Service in the
last year any more than for the civil list.” Morris based this most
remarkable recommendation for a naval increase on the belief that
the enemy had changed his mode of warfare, and that it was now his
purpose to annihilate the commerce of America, and thus starve her
into submission. With this sort of a campaign, conducted by the
enemy, an American army without a navy would be burdensome without
being able to accomplish anything. With a navy, we could prevent
the enemy from making predatory excursions, ruining our commerce,
and capturing our supplies; he would either be compelled to keep a
superior naval force in this country, which would give our allies a
naval superiority elsewhere; or else he must permit the balance of
naval strength in America to be on our side; in which latter case we
could protect our trade, annoy his commerce and cut off the supplies
which he would be sending to his posts in America. Then, concluded
Morris in words which remind one of the annual report of some recent
Secretary of the Navy asking for the yearly quota of battleships: “By
oeconomizing our Funds and constructing six ships annually we should
advance so rapidly to Maritime importance that our enemy would be
convinced not only of the Impossibility of subduing us, but also of
the Certainty that his forces in this Country must eventually be lost
without being able to produce him any possible Advantage;” and we
should in this way regain the “full Possession of our Country without
the Expence of Blood, or treasure, which must attend any other Mode
of Operations, and while we are pursuing those Steps which lead to
the Possession of our natural Strength and Defence.”[299]
The signing on November 30, 1782, of the Provisional Articles of
Peace between the United States and Great Britain, news of which
reached America early in the spring of 1783, removed the necessity
of a naval increase, and in the minds of many the need of a navy at
all. Morris did not at once give up the notion that the government on
a peace footing should maintain a respectable marine. In May, 1783,
he asked Congress to relieve him of his naval duties. “The affairs of
the Marine Department,” he writes, “occupy more time and attention
than I can easily spare. This Department will now become important,
and I hope extensive. I must therefore request that Congress will be
pleased to appoint an Agent of Marine as soon as their convenience
will admit.”[300] He became convinced however that not much could
be done for the navy until the finances of Congress were placed
on a better and more permanent basis. In July, 1783, Morris made
a report on a proposition of Virginia offering to sell her naval
ship “Cormorant” to the United States. Congress agreed to his
report, which was as follows: “That although it is an object highly
desirable, to establish a respectable marine, yet the situation of
the public treasury renders it not advisable to purchase ships for
the present, nor until the several states shall grant such funds for
the construction of ships, docks, naval arsenals, and for the support
of the naval service, as shall enable the United States to establish
their marine upon a permanent and respectable footing.”[301]
Meanwhile, Congress had been rapidly going out of the naval business,
by formally ending the war at sea, by providing for the settlement
of marine accounts, and by disposing of its naval stock. On March
24, 1783, it ordered the Agent of Marine to recall all armed
vessels cruising under the American colors. On April 11 it issued a
“Proclamation, Declaring the Cessation of arms, as well by Sea as
by Land, agreed upon between the United States of America and His
Britannic Majesty; and enjoining the observance thereof.” On April 15
it ordered the Agent of Marine to set free all the naval prisoners of
the enemy.[302]
During the last year of the Revolution and for several years
after its close, one of the principal administrative tasks of
the government was the settling of the outstanding accounts of
the several executive departments. This was a work fraught with
extraordinary difficulties. The administration of a government
founded and conducted amid the distractions of war was necessarily
marked by irregularities in official procedure, the lack of system
in accounting, and in general by haphazard ways of business. On
February 27, 1782, Congress acting on the recommendation of Morris
authorized him to appoint five commissioners with full power and
authority to liquidate and finally settle the Revolutionary accounts.
Each commissioner was paid $1,500 a year; he was permitted to employ
a clerk. The states were recommended to empower the commissioners to
examine witnesses under oath. Each commissioner was given charge of a
certain class of accounts; to one of the five men fell the settling
of the accounts of the Naval Department. Owing to Morris’s caution
in making appointments, and to the obstacles that stood in the way
of a wise choice, the “commissioner for settling the accounts of
the marine department” was not selected until June 19, 1783, when
Joseph Pennell, the paymaster of the Marine Office, was named for the
place.[303] By the fall of 1783 Pennell was settled in his work, and
was complaining of its arduousness. He soon found himself involved
in a dispute with the members of the old Naval Committee. He said
that they had received money from Congress for which they had not
accounted; and that, according to the vouchers, they had paid one
debt twice. He found that the members of the Marine Committee were
individually charged with the moneys they had received; and that when
they left the Committee, they made no settlement. In many instances
vouchers were lacking. Statements from members of the Navy Boards and
from the naval agents could be obtained only with great difficulty,
as these men were now discharged, and they were often scattered. He
discovered that the prize agents made no uniform charge for their
services; some exacted five, and others two and a half per cent on
the receipts from the sale of prizes. Offices for settling the naval
accounts were opened in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. On the
retirement of Morris, Pennell became responsible to the new Board of
Treasury.[304]
In the last year of the war Congress began to dispose of its naval
craft. On September 3, 1782, the 74-gun ship “America” now at last
almost ready for launching was on the recommendation of the Agent of
Marine given to France to replace the ship of the line “Magnifique,”
74, which the French fleet had recently lost in Boston harbor.
Congress, “desirous of testifying on this occasion to his Majesty,
the sense they entertain of his generous exertions in behalf of
the United States,” directed the Agent of Marine to present the
“America” to Luzerne, the French minister at Philadelphia, for the
service of His Most Christian Majesty.[305] It was a gracious act of
international friendship. In April, 1783, the “Duc de Lauzun” was
lent to the French minister to carry home some French troops, after
which service she was to be sold.[306] In July Morris ordered the
“Hague” to be sold, and recommended to Congress a like disposition
of the “Bourbon,” which latter ship in all probability had been
recently launched.[307] In March, 1784, Morris recommended the sale
of the “Alliance,” as she was “now a mere bill of costs;” and also
the “Washington,” because much money would be required to repair her,
and there was no need to employ her as a packet, since the French
and English had established a mail service.[308] Lieutenant Joshua
Barney, acting as the agent for the Naval Department, sold the
“Washington” in Baltimore in the summer of 1784.
The members of Congress were not unanimous on the question of
the proper disposition of the “Alliance.” On January 15, 1784, a
committee of three reported: “That the honour of the Flag of the
United States and the protection of its trade and coasts from the
insults of pirates require that the Frigate of Alliance should be
repaired.”[309] A committee in March, 1784, and another in May,
1785, recommended her sale.[310] Finally, on June 3, 1785, Congress
directed the Board of Treasury “to sell for specie or public
securities, at public or private sale, the frigate Alliance, with
her tackle and appurtenances.”[311] In August, 1785, the Board of
Treasury sold this vessel for £2,887, to be paid in United States
certificates of public debt. The purchasers afterwards sold the
“Alliance” at a great profit to Robert Morris. In June, 1787, this
vessel sailed for Canton, China, as a merchantman.[312] From the
sale of the “Alliance” until the establishment of a new navy under
the Constitution in 1794 it was left to the stars and stripes
floating from American merchantmen to familiarize foreign ports and
seas with the symbol of the new Nation.
Congress did not formally end the naval establishment by act or
resolution, unless one considers that such was the effect of the
resolution of January 25, 1780, which provided that the pay of all
naval officers except those in actual service should cease. After
this date it would seem that as the vessels were captured, sold, or
thrown out of commission, the names of the officers were taken from
the pay-roll. In September, 1783, an unsuccessful attempt was made in
Congress to discontinue the Agent of Marine.[313] Morris continued in
office until November 1, 1784, when he retired from public service.
Congress made no move to fill his place as Agent of Marine, for there
was little need for such an official. Certain unimportant naval
business, chiefly concerned with the settlement of naval accounts,
remained, however, to be transacted. This for the most part naturally
fell to the Board of Treasury, organized in the spring of 1785. This
Board, aided by the commissioner for settling the marine accounts,
and by James Read, the efficient secretary to the Agent of Marine,
with whom Morris on retiring left the books and papers of the Naval
Department, wound up the small, unimportant, and dwindling business
of the navy.
FOOTNOTES:
[266] Ford’s Washington, IX, 75-76, Washington to James Duane,
December 26, 1780; 33-5, Washington to John Sullivan, November 20,
1780; 125, Washington to R. R. Livingston, January 31, 1781; 131-34,
Washington to John Sullivan, February 4, 1781; 246, Washington to
John Sullivan, May 11, 1781.
[267] Hamilton’s Hamilton, I, 127, note, Hamilton to Robert Morris,
1780; 154-55, 159, Hamilton to James Duane, September 3, 1780.
[268] Sparks’s Gouverneur Morris, I, 229-30.
[269] Sparks’s Gouverneur Morris, I, 227-28; Reed’s Reed, II, 296.
[270] Journals of Continental Congress, January 10, 1781.
[271] Wells, Samuel Adams, III, 127, Adams to Lee, January 15, 1781;
128, extract from a letter of Luzerne, French minister to the United
States.
[272] Journals of Continental Congress, February 7, February 9, 1781.
On October 1, 1781, the salary of the Secretary of Marine was fixed
at $4,000 per annum, payable in specie.
[273] Journals of Continental Congress, February 27, March 30, 1781.
Three states were willing to accept McDougall on the conditions he
proposed. Samuel Adams and his friends voted against acceptance.
[274] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 47, 55,
Morris to President of Congress, June 22, 1781; Ibid., 28, p. 145,
Report of Committee respecting “America”; journals of Continental
Congress, June 23, 1781.
[275] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 77;
Journals of Continental Congress, July 11, 1781.
[276] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 137, Morris
to President of Congress, September 10, 1781.
[277] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 28, p. 135,
Resolutions of M. Smith.
[278] Ibid., p. 133, Report of Committee on Smith’s resolutions.
[279] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 28, p. 149,
Resolutions of Committee; Journals of Continental Congress, July 6,
1781.
[280] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 28, p. 147, Report
of Committee on July 18; Journals of Continental Congress, July 18,
1781.
[281] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 28, p. 157;
Journals of Continental Congress, August 29, 1781.
[282] Journals of Continental Congress, September 7, 1781.
[283] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 133, Morris
to President of Congress, September 8, 1781.
[284] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, II, 183.
[285] M. I. J. Griffin, Commodore John Barry, 169.
[286] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 233, Morris
to President of Congress, November 17, 1781; Journals of Continental
Congress, November 20, 1781.
[287] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 543, Report
of Morris, June 3, 1782; Journals of Continental Congress, June 12,
1782.
[288] The 29th article of Adams’s rules as adopted by Congress in
1775 fixed penalties for desertion and cowardice. It is not likely
that the numbering was changed. I know of no earlier instance of the
sentencing of a seaman in the American navy to be hanged.
[289] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 367,
Finding of Court Martial, dated June 28, 1781; 365, Morris to
President of Congress, March 25, 1782, containing extract from
Brown’s letter.
[290] Journals of Continental Congress, December 4, 1781, January 8,
1782.
[291] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 559, Morris
to President of Congress, June 20, 1782; Journals of Continental
Congress, July 10, 1782.
[292] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 137, Morris
to President of Congress, September 10, 1781; Journals of Congress,
September 12, 1781.
[293] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 37, p. 473.
[294] Boston Gazette, January 27, 1783.
[295] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, II, 103;
M. I. J. Griffin, Commodore John Barry, 162-248, prints many
contemporaneous papers relating to Barry’s cruise.
[296] Clowes, Royal Navy, IV, 72, 73; Pennsylvania Packet, August 16,
1781.
[297] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 415, Morris
to President of Congress, April 24, 1782.
[298] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 447, Report
of Morris, May 10, 1782.
[299] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, I, 713,
Estimate for public services for 1783, July 30, 1782.
[300] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, II, 425,
Morris to President of Congress, May 3, 1783.
[301] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, II, 725,
Report of Morris, July 31, 1783; Journals of Continental Congress,
August 5, 1783.
[302] Journals of Continental Congress, March 24, April 11, April 15,
1783.
[303] Journals of Continental Congress, February 27, 1782, June 19,
1783.
[304] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, III, 651, 655,
Morris to President of Congress, May 26, 1784, enclosing extract of
letter of Pennell.
[305] Journals of Continental Congress, September 3, 1782.
[306] Ibid., April 21, 1783.
[307] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 137, III, 677,
Report of Morris, July 22, 1783.
[308] Force Transcripts, Library of Congress, 137, 3, p. 243, Report
of Morris, March 19, 1784.
[309] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 28, p. 221, Report
of Committee, January 15, 1784.
[310] Ibid., 28, pp. 213, 225-27, Reports of Committees.
[311] Journals of Continental Congress, June 3, 1785.
[312] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 140, II, 45, Board
of Treasury to President of Congress, August 5, 1785; M. I. J.
Griffin, Commodore John Barry, 258-59.
[313] Journals of Continental Congress, September 16, 1783.
CHAPTER IX
NAVAL DUTIES OF AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES
On the outbreak of the war between the Colonies and the
mother-country, Congress turned with true political insight to France
for aid. The self-interest of no other country in Europe gave so
good a basis for friendship and alliance with America. To France,
the success of the revolting British Colonies meant the humbling
of a victorious rival, the turning of a part of Britain’s valuable
colonial trade into French channels, and probably a reopening of the
trial at arms of the Seven Years’ War and a reversal of some of its
humiliating decisions. Common interests led the two countries to
coöperate in achieving and furthering their objects and ambitions;
and this led to the establishing of intimate diplomatic, commercial,
and naval relations between them. Many of the duties that grew
out of these three classes of relations had to be transacted in
France, and they therefore necessitated the appointment of American
representatives to be resident in that country. The naval duties of
these representatives were numerous and important. They involved the
renting, purchase, and building of naval vessels; the officering,
manning, and fitting out of vessels; the directing of cruises;
the purchase of naval supplies; the disciplining of officers; the
paying of officers and crews; the disposing of prizes; the devising
of naval plans; the commissioning of privateers; the caring for
naval prisoners and the negotiating for their exchange; and the
disseminating of naval intelligence. The vesting of these duties in
the American representatives in France virtually constituted the
establishment of a Brandi Naval Office at Paris.[314]
Besides the above duties, which may be considered strictly naval in
character, the American representatives had other business closely
related to their admiralty work, but which was also intimately
connected with their diplomatic and commercial work. For instance,
dealings with breaches of neutrality committed by American ships
had to do equally with diplomatic and naval affairs. The selling of
colonial products which the Commercial Committee of the Continental
Congress exported to France, and the buying of French manufactures
which the American representatives shipped to America, were of course
commercial duties. These transactions, however, came into contact
with naval affairs when the goods purchased in France happened to be
naval stores, or when naval ships carried the goods or convoyed the
merchantmen which carried them. For the sake of obtaining a complete
view of the admiralty work of the American representatives in
France, this chapter will touch upon naval duties of all sorts even
though their diplomatic and commercial aspects stand out the most
prominently.
The first naval business of the Colonies in France fell to Silas
Deane, a political and commercial agent of the Continental Congress,
who arrived at Paris in July, 1776. In December, 1776, Deane was
succeeded by three American commissioners to the Court of France,
Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee. These three men
shared the naval duties of their office until the spring of 1778,
when Deane was superseded by John Adams. In February, 1779, Franklin,
who had been chosen Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of France,
fell heir along with the other duties of the commissioners to those
of a naval character; and he continued in this office until the end
of the Revolution. Of the first three commissioners Silas Deane had
the most to do with the naval business. He says that the management
of the Continental ships of war and of their prizes which was a “most
complicated and embarrassing part of our affairs” fell entirely upon
himself.[315] When Deane was superseded, it would seem that his
naval duties fell to Franklin rather than to Adams. Franklin had at
all times the chief part of the work of exchanging naval prisoners
with Great Britain; and Adams excelled the other commissioners in
transmitting to the home government naval intelligence.
The headquarters of the Naval Office were of course situated at
Paris, several hundred miles from the ports frequented by the
Continental vessels. This was a great disadvantage, as it caused
delays in communicating with the naval officers and naval agents,
besides other inconveniences. The Office gave its orders as a rule
by letter, but now and then when its officers and agents visited
Paris, it communicated with them by word of mouth. Its official
correspondence with the home government was carried on almost
exclusively with the “Foreign Office” at Philadelphia—that is, at
first with the Committee of Secret Correspondence, then with the
Committee of Foreign Affairs, and finally with the Secretary for
Foreign Affairs. A few letters passed between the Naval Office at
Paris and the Naval Department in America. The secretary and the
clerks, first of the Commissioners, and later of the Minister at the
Court of France, assisted in transacting the naval business.
The American representatives at Paris employed agents in a number
of the chief Atlantic ports of France to transact their naval and
commercial business. The principal agencies were at Nantes, L’Orient,
Bordeaux, Brest, and Dunkirk. There were also agencies at Bilbao,
and Coruña, Spain; and in Holland. It is difficult to separate the
naval and commercial duties of these agencies, as they were vested
in the same men. The whole subject is exceedingly complicated. For
transacting naval business, Nantes was the most important agency,
although L’Orient was not far behind it. At Nantes in 1777 within
a comparatively short period of time one finds Thomas Morris, a
half-brother of Robert Morris, William Lee, a brother of Richard
Henry Lee, Jonathan Williams, a nephew of Franklin, John Ross, a
Philadelphia merchant, and a certain German merchant by the name
of Schweighauser exercising similar duties. William Lee was for a
time commercial agent for all of France, and his authority of course
came in contact with that of the Commissioners at Paris.[316] Such
divisions and duplications of powers resulted in much contention,
misunderstanding, and jealousy. John Adams tells us that when he
arrived in France in the spring of 1778 he found in some places
two or three persons claiming the character of American agents;
and that at one port, three agents had been appointed, one by the
Commissioners at Paris, another by the commercial agent of France,
and a third by the Commercial Committee of Congress. “We have such
abuses and irregularities every day occurring as are very alarming.
Agents of various sorts are drawing bills upon us, and the commanders
of vessels of war are drawing upon us for expenses and supplies
which we never ordered.” Moved by the reformatory zeal that so often
characterizes the new appointee to public office, Adams attempted to
reduce the business of Congress in France to some system.[317]
The Naval Office at Paris appointed several naval officers by filling
out blank commissions and warrants, which had been signed and sent
by the President of Congress for that purpose. Late in the war the
question arose as to the proper rank in the navy of some of these
appointments. In certain specific cases which were referred to Robert
Morris as Agent of Marine, he recommended that new commissions be
granted dated as the old, and that the officers receiving them take
rank according to the dates of their old commissions. The Naval
Office granted commissions of captain to Gustavus Conyngham, Samuel
Nicholson, Peter Landais, and John Green. On the recommendation of
John Paul Jones it appointed Richard Dale to be a lieutenant on board
the “Bon Homme Richard.” Dale became an officer of distinction in
the new navy under the Constitution, where he rose to the rank of
commodore. Landais was the only Frenchman who received a permanent
commission as captain in the Continental navy.
Silas Deane had a penchant for recommending French officers; and he
was very credulous as to the compliments expressed by themselves and
their friends in their behalf. On November 28, 1776, Deane wrote
to the Committee of Secret Correspondence as follows, having just
referred to certain army officers whom he was sending to America:
“As to sea officers, they are not so easily obtained, yet some good
ones may be had, and in particular two, one of whom I have already
mentioned; the other is quite his equal, with some other advantages;
he was first lieutenant of a man-of-war, round the World with Captain
Cook, and has since had a ship, but wants to leave this for other
service where he may make a settlement and establish a family. These
two officers would engage a number of younger ones, should they
embark. I send herewith the plans of one of them for burning ships.”
The French officer who designed these plans, also made “drafts of
ships and rates for constructing and regulating a navy,” of which
Deane had the “highest opinion.” This officer, Deane said, “has seen
much service, is a person of study and letters, as well as fortune,
and is ambitious of planning a navy for America, which shall at once
be much cheaper and more effectual than anything of the kind which
can be produced on the European system.”[318]
That Deane gave too ready an ear to the soft words of the French,
is clear from his extravagant recommendations of the erratic and
troublesome French captain, Peter Landais. Deane said that Landais
would be a “valuable acquisition to our Navy;” and that he was a
“skilful seaman of long Experience in every Part of the World, of
good judgment and the most unsuspicious honor and Probity.” In May,
1778, Congress continued Landais in the naval service; but directed
“the commissioners of the United States at foreign courts” not to
“recommend any foreign sea-officers, nor give any of them the least
expectation of being employed as captains in the navy.”[319]
The Naval Office at Paris issued a few commissions to privateers. As
early as October, 1776, Deane was writing to the Committee of Secret
Correspondence for blank commissions. Private as well as public
interests were involved in the cruises of Captain Gustavus Conyngham
in European waters. Carmichael, a Marylander and an employee in
France of Congress and the Commissioners at Paris, asserted that
Deane in 1777 intended to equip a vessel in the Mediterranean sea
partly on public and partly on private account, that an agent was
employed who succeeded in buying a vessel, but that the state of
Genoa interposed and stopped the enterprise.[320] Two famous, or
better infamous, letters of marque were fitted out at Dunkirk and
commissioned by the Naval Office in 1779. They were named the “Black
Prince” and the “Black Princess.” Their crews were a malodorous
medley, containing “a few Americans, mixed with Irish and English
smugglers.” These smugglers had recently broken prison in Dublin,
recaptured their smuggling vessel, and escaped to Dunkirk. Should
they be recaptured by the English and their identity be discovered,
they would be forced to suffer the penalty for smuggling. As they
spoke English, it was thought that their past character might be
best concealed by giving them an American commission, instead of a
French one. These two privateers captured or destroyed upwards of
one hundred and twenty sail of the British, and insulted “the coasts
of these lords of the ocean.” In the summer of 1780, the “Black
Prince” was wrecked on the coast of France, and the commission of
the “Black Princess,” upon the request of Vergennes, the French
Minister of Foreign Affairs, was recalled by Franklin.[321] In 1780
certain American prisoners, who had escaped, fitted out a privateer
at Cadiz in Spain and asked Jay, the American minister at Madrid, for
a commission. He referred them to Franklin.[322]
When the American Commissioners assembled in Paris in December, 1776,
to begin their mission, they had with them the orders of Congress
to purchase, arm, and equip a frigate and two cutters. They were to
send the frigate cruising against the enemy in the English channel,
and were to employ the cutters in transporting supplies to America.
The Commissioners were further directed to hire or buy at the
French Court eight line of battle ships.[323] They began to carry
out these orders in January, 1777, when Captain Samuel Nicholson
was sent to Boulogne to purchase one of the cutters; in the spring
a lugger was obtained at Dover, England; and in the early summer
another cutter was bought at Dunkirk. In the two latter transactions
William Hodge, a merchant from Philadelphia, acted as the agent of
the Commissioners. Early in the year Captain Lambert Wickes, who
had in December, 1776, arrived in France in the Continental sloop
“Reprisal” with Dr. Franklin on board, was inspecting vessels for
the Commissioners. Nicholson’s cutter was named the “Dolphin;” and
Hodge’s two vessels were called, respectively, the “Surprise” and the
“Revenge.” It is believed that the “Revenge” was purchased jointly on
public and private account. After this vessel’s first cruise it is
known that Hodge and possibly others were pecuniarily interested in
its ventures.
By the fall of 1777 the Commissioners had completed the construction
of a 32-gun frigate at Nantes, which they called the “Deane.” They
also purchased a ship which they fitted out as a 28-gun frigate and
named the “Queen of France.” Early in 1778 they sent the “Deane”
under the command of Captain Samuel Nicholson, and the “Queen of
France” under the command of Captain John Green, both vessels laden
with supplies, to Boston. The “Deane” remained in the navy until the
end of the Revolution. The “Queen of France” was surrendered to the
British in May, 1780, on the fall of Charleston, South Carolina. On
the application of the Commissioners to the French Court for the loan
or sale of some ships of the line, they were told that the French
government considered it absolutely necessary to keep the whole
of its fleet at home ready for the defence of France in case of a
rupture with Great Britain; but, that, since England was apprehensive
of a war with France, such a disposition of the French naval forces
was serviceable to America in so far as it forced England to retain
an equal force in the British seas.[324]
In the spring of 1777 the Commissioners received orders from Congress
to build six vessels of war; but before this, they had on their own
responsibility contracted with “one of the ablest sea officers of
France, skilled in all the arts relating to the marine,” who had
offered “his services to our States, with the permission of the
minister,” to “superintend the building of two ships of war, of a
particular construction, which, though not of half the cost, shall
be superior in force and utility to ships of sixty-four guns.”
This officer had already built a vessel of this type for the King
of France which the Commissioners were told “exceeds everything in
swift sailing.”[325] Only one of these frigates, which was named the
“Indian,” was placed upon the stocks, and this one at Amsterdam. To
conceal its ownership and destination it was built in the name of
a private individual. The Commissioners wrote in the fall of 1777,
when the ship was almost finished, that it was a large frigate
and was supposed to equal a ship of the line, as it would carry
thirty 24-pounders on one deck. The ship did not get to sea under
Continental colors. Owing to the many difficulties of equipping and
manning so large a ship in a neutral port, and to the lack of money
necessary for such work, the Commissioners sold it to the King of
France for a sum equal to that which they had expended upon it; the
King at the same time agreed to pension well the officer who had
built it.[326] With the sale of this frigate the work of the Naval
Office at Paris in naval construction came to a close. The “Indian”
was finally rented to the state of South Carolina. In 1779 and 1780
the French government loaned several vessels to the Naval Office.
During the years 1777, 1778, and 1779, the fitting out of Continental
armed vessels, as well those which were sent to France from America,
as those which were originally obtained by the Commissioners, was
a severe tax on the slender resources of the Continental treasury
at Paris. After a long voyage or cruise a wooden sailing vessel
needed much repairing. Perchance, it must be careened and cleaned or
repaired below the water line; new masts and spars were often needed;
and old sails had to be mended and new ones provided. Always, the
vessel before beginning a new cruise must be freshly provisioned; and
its crew, depleted by battle, desertion, and the dispensations of
Providence, had to be replenished. The enlisting of a few recruits
was not a difficult thing at this time, for there was human driftwood
in every port of Christendom, of divers nationalities, willing to
ship under any flag. Many Frenchmen enlisted in French ports on
board American vessels. In 1782 Franklin said he was continually
pestered by such Frenchmen, who, being put on board prizes, had been
captured by the English, and were now demanding arrears of pay.[327]
In May, 1779, Franklin was complaining to Congress that the expense
of fitting out each Continental cruiser which it sent to France
amounted to 60,000 or 70,000 livres. He said that Mr. Bingham, the
Continental agent at Martinique, had recently drawn upon him for the
expense of fitting out two Continental cruisers which had recently
put in to that island, but for lack of money he would be obliged to
protest Bingham’s bill.[328] The American representatives in France
fitted out and loaded with supplies for America both Continental
vessels and French and American merchantmen. This work properly forms
a part of their commercial duties. Deane tells us that while he
was in France he expended more than ten million livres for stores,
goods, and ships; and that he loaded sixteen ships for America.[329]
The commercial agents had much to do with this work; Nantes was the
principal shipping port.
Before the treaties of February, 1778, between the United States
and France, the disposing of prizes captured by American vessels in
French ports was exceedingly informal. Since France was obliged to
at least make a pretence of observing her treaties with England and
the laws of neutrality, she could not permit a trial of American
prize cases in her admiralty courts. Consequently, prizes captured
by American vessels were disposed of without trial and legal
condemnation; they were taken into the offing of French ports and
secretly sold to French merchants at a great sacrifice to the
captors. After February, 1778, the prizes were legally tried, but not
according to a uniform practice. Some cases were tried by the French
admiralty courts; but in other cases the French courts prepared the
_proces verbaux_, which they sent to Franklin; he then condemned the
prizes and ordered the court to sell them. After July, 1780, Franklin
ceased to exercise such judicial functions.[330]
One of the objects of the cruises of Continental vessels in European
waters was to capture Englishmen and exchange them for American
naval prisoners languishing in prisons in England. These imprisoned
Americans were confined chiefly at Forton prison at Portsmouth,
and Mill prison at Plymouth. A list of prisoners confined at Mill
prison during the Revolution, which contains 947 names, has been made
out.[331] In April, 1782, there were eleven hundred Americans in
the jails of England and Ireland, all committed to prison as charged
with high treason.[332] A few Americans were confined at Gibraltar.
These prisoners often suffered greatly from a lack of sufficient
food, clothing, bedding, and fuel. This was in part caused by the
cruelty and fraud of those whom the British government entrusted with
the supply and control of its prisons. The rigors of their captivity
were softened, and their deprivations in a measure relieved by money
which Franklin sent from Paris, and by private subscriptions in their
behalf made by generous Englishmen.
To escape their penury and distress some prisoners enlisted in the
enemy’s navy, or joined the British whaling fleets. Others escaped
from prison; some of these burrowed their way out, committing
treason through His Majesty’s earth, to use a phrase of Captain
Conyngham, who, with sixty companions, in this way escaped from Mill
prison in November, 1779. These escaped prisoners gradually found
their way into Holland, the seaports of France, or even Paris; and
they often became a tax upon Franklin’s pity, and the Continental
treasury in his keeping. Franklin was deeply moved by the sufferings
of these men, whether confined in England or at liberty in France.
His efforts in their behalf are an important part of his work and
achievements in France.
A long correspondence directed towards securing an exchange of
Englishmen captured by American vessels and confined in France for
Americans confined in England was conducted by Franklin with his
friend Hartley in England. Hartley was a noble-minded and humane
Englishman, who was, at the time, a member of the House of Commons.
The first letters on the exchanging of prisoners were written,
however, by the American Commissioners, to Lord Stormont, the British
Ambassador at Paris. The Commissioners stated that Captain Wickes,
of the Continental cruiser “Reprisal,” had in his possession one
hundred captured British seamen, and they wished to exchange them for
an equal number of American seamen, prisoners in England. The first
letter of the Commissioners Lord Stormont ignored. To the second
letter, or possibly to the third, he replied in those well-known
words: “The King’s Ambassador receives no applications from rebels,
unless they come to implore His Majesty’s mercy.” The reply of the
Commissioners was equally spirited: “In answer to a letter which
concerns some of the most material interests of humanity, and of
the two nations, Great Britain and the United States of America,
now at war, we received the enclosed indecent paper, as coming from
your Lordship, which we return for your Lordship’s more mature
consideration.”[333]
Until after the treaties of February, 1778, between the United
States and France, Great Britain resisted the exchange of naval
prisoners, confined in England, on three grounds: that it involved
the recognition of belligerent rights in the insurgents; that
France being neutral, the Colonists would be compelled either to
free captured British seamen taken in European waters, or else
to take them to America; and that since British seamen were far
more numerous than American, an exchange would tell more favorably
for the Americans than for the British.[334] Not until France had
entered into the war, did Britain take a broader and more generous
position, and begin to listen to Franklin’s overtures for an
exchange of prisoners. During 1778 the negotiations proceeded slowly
and vexatiously, and it was not until March, 1779, that the first
exchange was made. One hundred American prisoners from the Mill
prison at Plymouth were then sent to France by the British government
in the Milford cartel-ship; and in August one hundred more were
exchanged.
In October, 1779, when Captain Jones terminated his famous cruise,
he carried into the Texel, Holland, 472 prisoners; and Franklin had
high hopes that at last considerable numbers of the unfortunate
American prisoners would be released. Since the Texel was a neutral
port, complications growing out of the laws of neutrality now arose.
If Jones’s prisoners were to be exchanged for Americans, it was
decided that they must first be brought to France. Rather than risk
their recapture, Franklin agreed to permit them to be considered as
the prisoners of France and to be exchanged for an equal number of
Frenchmen imprisoned in England. In return, the French were to give
Franklin 472 English prisoners confined in French prisons, which
were to be exchanged for American prisoners. Franklin had difficulty
in securing the Englishmen from France; after England had sent over
one hundred prisoners, misunderstandings arose, and in May, 1780,
she refused to exchange Americans except for Englishmen taken by
American cruisers. One of the main objects of Jones’s famous cruise,
the releasing of American prisoners in England, seems to have partly
failed.[335] In March, 1782, Franklin considered a proposed plan for
rescuing the American prisoners in Forton prison, and bringing them
to France on smuggling vessels, but he concluded that the project
was impracticable.[336]
After France and Spain entered into the war, the American
Commissioners confined British prisoners in French and Spanish
prisons. Before the French treaties, the Commissioners had no place,
except in their own ships, to stow away their prisoners. The American
captains were therefore forced to free many captives. They often
exacted of a prisoner a pledge or parole that he would, on returning
to England, be responsible for the release of an American prisoner;
but of course the British government refused to take cognizance of
such pledges, or to listen to the claims of the Commissioners that
these released captives should be considered as returned prisoners.
Beginning with 1778, the burden upon the Commissioners for the
maintenance of English prisoners was considerable. In May, 1779,
Franklin thought it would take more than 100,000 livres to pay all
the accounts arising from expenditures in their behalf.[337] Could
satisfactory and expeditious exchanges have been effected with
England, this item of expense would have been greatly reduced. When
the Revolution came to an end, there was still a considerable number
of Americans in English prisons.
A number of alleged breaches of neutrality, said to have been made by
American armed vessels, was brought to the attention of the American
representatives at the Court of France. For example, in 1777 the
French, Spanish, and Dutch governments complained that either their
ships or their merchandise had been unlawfully captured. In 1778
the Spanish and Swedish Courts asserted that Captain Conyngham had
violated the laws of neutrals. The Dutch found fault with Captain
Jones for sending the brigantine “Berkenbosch” to America. In 1780
the Portuguese Ambassador at Paris presented Franklin with papers
which alleged that the Massachusetts state cruiser “Mars” had
illegally taken a Portuguese ship and had sent it to New England. The
American representatives at Paris regularly disposed of such cases as
the above by referring them to Congress, and to the American courts
of admiralty. In the case of the Portuguese ship, Franklin wrote to
Congress that he hoped that it would forward a speedy decision; and
that it would give orders to the American cruisers not to meddle with
neutral vessels, for this was a practice “apt to produce ill blood.”
Complaints having been made of violences done by American armed
vessels to neutral nations, the Commissioners, in November, 1777,
issued a proclamation enjoining the American commanders to obey the
laws of neutrality. In 1780, in view of the First Armed Neutrality
which had been proposed by Catherine of Russia, and which was then
being concerted by certain European nations, Franklin wrote to
Congress, asking whether it would not be proper to confine American
captures to the principle that “free ships shall make free goods,”
since it was likely that this would become the law of nations.[338]
Many miscellaneous duties, more or less naval in character,
fell to the Commissioners at Paris and to their successor, the
American Minister. In August, 1778, the Commissioners offered a few
observations on some regulations for prizes and prisoners, which
Sartine, the French Minister of Marine, had prepared with a view of
making uniform certain rules of France and the United States on these
subjects.[339] In June, 1778, Franklin issued a curious passport
in the form of a proclamation to all commanders of American armed
vessels, not to attack a certain British vessel, which was bound to
the Moravian mission on the coast of Labrador. “I do therefore hereby
[inform you] that the sloop ‘Good Intent,’ burthen about 75 tons,
Capt. Francis Mugford, carrying in the present voyage about 5000
bricks for building chimneys, with provisions and necessaries for
the missionaries and their assistants, and some ironmongery and tin
ware for the Indians—the crew consisting of the Captain, Mate, three
men, and a boy, and the passengers one man and three women—is the
vessel employed in the above service this year.”[340] Coming amid the
cruelties, resentments, and misunderstandings of war, this document,
which breathes a humane spirit and declares that the philanthropic
interests of nations are inviolable, is indeed a most welcome one. In
October, 1778, the Commissioners provided the Ambassador of Naples
at the Court of France, whose country had lately opened its ports
to American vessels, with a description of American flags. After
describing the flag of the United States, they added: “Some of the
States have vessels of war distinct from those of the United States.
For example, the vessels of war of the state of Massachusetts Bay
have sometimes a pine tree; and those of the state of South Carolina
a rattlesnake in the middle of thirteen stripes. Merchant ships have
only thirteen stripes, but the flag of the United States ordained
by Congress is the thirteen stripes and the thirteen stars above
described.”[341]
The Naval Office at Paris served as a channel for the communication
of foreign naval intelligence; it also proposed to Congress several
important naval plans. John Adams, while Commissioner, and later
while on a diplomatic mission in Holland, wrote long letters to
Congress on the armament of the foreign navies, the movements of the
British, French, and Spanish fleets, and the captures made by these
fleets. In November, 1776, Silas Deane, always fertile in schemes,
proposed to the Committee of Secret Correspondence the sending
of frigates against the Newfoundland fisheries; after destroying
these, the frigates were to sail for the Baltic and cruise after
the enemy’s ships bound for Russia. In the same letter he proposed
a second project. A number of frigates with merchantmen under
their convoy should be loaded with tobacco, rice, wheat, and other
colonial products, and should sail for Bordeaux. After unloading
their cargoes and refreshing their crews the frigates should strike
a blow on the British coast which would “alarm and weaken Great
Britain most effectually. The city of Glasgow might at any hour be
destroyed by a single frigate capable of landing two hundred men.”
After their descent on England the frigates should sail northward
and intercept the Baltic ships, or else return to France and wait for
a good opportunity to strike a second blow. Ships engaging in such
expeditions could obtain any number of recruits in France. By issuing
commissions, individuals would “join you in the adventure under
your flag, with stout frigates, several of which are now building
absolutely with the design, viz., the hopes of getting into the
service of the United States of North America.”[342] Deane’s letters
at this time are somewhat extravagant, nor are they always based on
an accurate knowledge of the facts. “Would it not be well,” he asks,
“to purchase at Leghorn five or six stout Frigates, which might at
once transport some companies of Swiss and a quantity of stores and
the whole be defended by the Swiss soldiers on their passage?”[343]
In May, 1777, the recommendations made by Deane in November, 1776,
were in substance repeated by the Commissioners at Paris to the
Committee of Foreign Affairs. These new recommendations were in
all probability drafted by Deane. The Commissioners thought that a
blow might be struck on the coast of England which would “alarm and
shake Great Britain, and its credit, to the center.” The burning and
plundering of Liverpool or Glasgow would do more essential service to
the Colonies than a million of treasure and blood spent in America.
It would raise our reputation to the highest pitch, and lessen in the
same degree that of our enemy. The Commissioners were confident that
the plan was practicable, and could be carried out with very little
danger. They also recommended the sending of two or three Continental
frigates with some small cruisers into the German ocean, where,
about the middle of August, they might seize the greater part of the
enemy’s Baltic and northern trade. One frigate, they said, would
be sufficient to destroy the “Greenland whale fishery, or take the
Hudson Bay ships returning.”[344]
In the fall of 1778 the Commissioners called the attention of both
the Committee of Foreign Affairs and the French Minister of Marine
to the ease with which a single frigate or privateer of twenty or
twenty-four guns could capture the valuable whale fishery which the
English maintained off the coast of Brazil. The seventeen vessels
employed in this industry were manned and officered almost entirely
by Americans belonging to Nantucket and Cape Cod. These men had been
captured by Great Britain, and having been given their choice of
entering the British naval service or the whale fishing industry,
had chosen the latter. By their recapture four hundred and fifty of
the best kind of American seamen would be added to the Continental
service, and moreover the cargoes of oil which would be taken were
very valuable.[345]
In December, 1777, the Committee of Foreign Affairs proposed to the
Commissioners at Paris the most extensive naval expedition planned
for the Continental fleet during the Revolution. The plan was to
be carried out by two or three of the frigates which the Marine
Committee were sending to France. These, being well manned, were
early in February, 1778, to be despatched to the French island of
Mauritius in the Indian ocean, where they should refit and replenish
their stores. The frigates should next proceed to the Coromandel
Coast, a twenty days’ sail from Mauritius. Here they should intercept
the enemy’s China ships, and also distress the internal trade of
India. The prizes could be sold in Mauritius and the proceeds sent to
Paris by bills of exchange. Gorée was recommended as a better port
of call than the Cape of Good Hope, where there was danger to be
apprehended from British vessels. In the same letter the Committee
wrote that “another beneficial attempt may be conducted along the
coasts of Africa. The French and Dutch settlements, and perhaps the
Portuguese, will purchase the prizes, and give bills on Europe.”[346]
No reply was made by the Commissioners relative to the proposed East
Indian expedition until in July, 1778, when Arthur Lee wrote to the
Committee of Foreign Affairs that the Commissioners considered the
plan “impracticable at the present.” “Better order,” he said, “must
be established in our marine, and the ships’ companies better sorted,
before it will be safe to attempt enterprises at such a distance, and
which require a certain extent of ideas in the captain and entire
obedience in the crew.”[347] One must agree with Lee’s conclusion,
although more weighty objections to the complicated plan of the
Committee might be adduced.
FOOTNOTES:
[314] For convenience the term “Naval Office” will be used in this
chapter. It will be understood of course that there existed no “Naval
Office” apart from the Office of the American representatives at
Paris, in whom were vested diplomatic, naval, and commercial duties.
[315] Ingraham, Papers relative to Silas Deane, 67.
[316] Wharton’s Diplomatic Correspondence and Ford’s Letters of
William Lee are the best sources for the work of these agents.
[317] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence II, 595, Adams to Commercial
Committee, May 24, 1778.
[318] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence II, 191, 200, Deane to
Committee of Secret Correspondence, November 6, November 28, 1776.
[319] Collections of New York Historical Society, Deane Papers, II,
122; Journals of Continental Congress, May 9, 1778.
[320] Ingraham, Papers relative to Silas Deane, 141-49.
[321] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, III, 802-03; IV, 26, 33;
Hale’s Franklin in France, I, chapter XVI, Privateers from Dunkirk.
[322] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence III, 731.
[323] Journals of Continental Congress, October 3, 1776; Wharton,
Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 177.
[324] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 284.
[325] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 284-85.
[326] Ibid., 433, Commissioners to Committee of Foreign Affairs,
November 30, 1777.
[327] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, V, 512-13.
[328] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, III, 189, 193, Franklin to
Committee of Foreign Affairs, May 26, 1779.
[329] Collections of New York Historical Society, Deane Papers, IV,
159.
[330] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, III, 801-03, 880-81;
Bigelow’s Franklin, VII, 54-55, 58-59.
[331] Pennsylvania Packet, May-June, 1782. Another list will be found
in New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1865, 74,
136, 209.
[332] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, V, 326-27.
[333] Hale’s Franklin in France, I, Chapter XI, American Prisoners,
prints many original letters.
[334] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 724.
[335] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, III, 535, 608, 681-82,
745-46.
[336] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, V, 276.
[337] Ibid., III, 189.
[338] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 425, 435, 784, 827; IV,
24, 180; Stevens’s Facsimiles, 1967, 1969; Bigelow’s Franklin, VII,
308; C. H. Lincoln, Calendar of John Paul Jones Manuscripts, 163.
[339] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 682-83, 684-87.
[340] Hale’s Franklin in France, I, 245. Franklin issued a similar
proclamation in behalf of the celebrated navigator, Captain
Cook.—Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, III, 75.
[341] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 759-60.
[342] Collections of New York Historical Society, Deane Papers, I,
339-40. The letter of Deane here published, it is believed, was
written to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, and not to the
Secret Committee as given.
[343] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 199. Deane to Committee
of Secret Correspondence, November 28, 1776.
[344] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 324-27.
[345] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 818-19, 832-33.
[346] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 440-41.
[347] Ibid., 673-74.
CHAPTER X
NAVAL DUTIES OF AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES
(_Continued_)
In 1777 the work of the Naval Office at Paris was greater and more
varied than during any other year. Naval vessels were both built
and purchased. Continental ships, and merchantmen chartered from
the French, were laden for America with muskets, cannon, powder,
cordage, duck, tents, blankets, and clothing. The naval prisoners in
England and the violations of neutral rights committed by Continental
ships and by privateers demanded much attention. In the spring
the Continental brig “Lexington,” and in the fall the “Raleigh,”
“Alfred,” and “Independence,” arrived in France. The “Reprisal,” 16,
“Lexington,” 14, “Dolphin,” 10, “Surprise,” 10, and “Revenge,” 14,
were fitted and refitted in French ports and sent cruising off the
British coasts; and the prizes of these vessels were sold in France.
The “Dolphin,” “Surprise,” and “Revenge” were officered and manned
in France. The task of conducting all these naval activities in a
neutral country the Commissioners found to be a most delicate one.
Among the earlier undertakings of the American representatives at
Paris were their attempts to obtain the freedom of French ports for
American vessels. Nor was their work of this sort confined wholly
to the French Court, for in the spring of 1777 Arthur Lee sought at
Madrid permission for American vessels to sell their prizes and to
refit in Spanish ports; and later in the year he went on a similar
errand to Berlin. Both the Spanish and Prussian Courts refused his
requests.[348] Prizes were, however, without difficulty secretly
disposed of in Spain.
As early as August, 1776, Deane wrote from Paris that he was
“not without hopes of obtaining liberty for the armed vessels of
the United Colonies, to dispose of their prizes in the ports of
this Kingdom, and also for arming and fitting out vessels of war
directly from hence.”[349] When Franklin arrived in France, early
in December, 1776, he carried instructions for the Commissioners to
apply immediately to the Court of France for the protection of its
ports to American ships of war, privateers, and prizes. If this
favor were granted, he was to ask for permission to sell American
prizes and their cargoes in French ports. In case both requests met
with favorable responses, the Committee of Secret Correspondence
would obtain the consent of Congress to empower the Commissioners
to appoint a judge of admiralty in France; this judge would try all
American prize cases, arising in the ports of France, in accordance
with the rules and regulations of Congress. Pending the obtaining of
the consent of Congress, the Commissioners were authorized to consult
with the French Ministry whether it would permit the erection of
American admiralty courts in France and the French West Indies.[350]
Of course France could not grant such requests as these if she wished
to remain at peace with England. During 1776 the Americans generally
overestimated the friendliness of France. They either failed to see
that the laws of neutrality must set quite definite limits to her
overt favors, or else they thought her eager for an excuse to go to
war with Great Britain. The attitude of France towards permitting
American vessels of war and their prizes the freedom of French ports
was disclosed sooner than the Commissioners had reason to expect.
It is remembered that the “Reprisal” arrived in France with Franklin
on board early in December, 1776. She was the first Continental
vessel to reach European waters. Not far from the French coast she
captured two small British brigantines, and carried them into Nantes.
These were the first American prizes to enter French ports. It may
be guessed that the captains of the two prizes were not long in
communicating with Lord Stormont, the British Ambassador at Paris,
and that Lord Stormont was not long in communicating with the French
government. On December 17 he held a conference with Vergennes,
the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, to whom he declared that
the prizes were unlawfully captured, since the “Reprisal” had no
commission from a sovereign power as a letter of marque; that he
expected that the prizes would be immediately restored to their
owners; and that the permitting of their sale would be a violation
of the treaty of Utrecht between Great Britain and France. Though
conciliatory, Vergennes’s reply was not altogether satisfactory to
the British Ambassador, who records that the French Minister ended
“with expressions which seemed to shew an Intention of taking some
Middle Way, and leaving the Point undetermined.”[351]
During 1777 Lord Stormont held many similar conferences with
Vergennes in which the naval liberties permitted the Americans in
French ports were the subject of discussion. Vergennes set forth the
position of his government in a way that was reasonably acceptable to
England. He declared that its purpose was to prevent every violation
of its treaties and of the law of nations. He gave orders that the
prizes captured by the Americans should not be sold in French ports.
At different times he commanded the American vessels of war to sail
within twenty-four hours from French harbors. When the British wrath
flamed out at some overt act of the Americans, Vergennes appeased it
by vigorous and decisive acts of repression, aimed at the American
captains and agents. A past master in soft and plausible answers,
he excused flagrant violations of British rights by explaining that
every government had some tempestuous spirits which were hard to
control, and that the “avidity of gain” in merchants could not always
be restrained.
The British government could not object to the public acts of the
French government, or to the reception which it gave to the American
Commissioners, whom it received “privately with all civility,” but
avoided an open reception, as it was “cautious of giving umbrage
to England.” As regards its observance of the treaty of Utrecht,
and its inability to grant the freedom of its ports to American
vessels and their prizes, its declarations to the Commissioners
were in line with those which it made to Lord Stormont. On the
other hand, the Commissioners were given to understand, through
secret and informal channels, that the Colonies had the sympathy of
the French government; that so far as was consistent with French
treaties, they might expect favors and indulgences; that the ports
of France were open to American ships “as friends;” that ways of
disposing of American prizes which would not be offensive to England
might be found; and that other irregularities would be permitted
unnoticed.[352] The Commissioners pressed their favors as far as they
could safely go; indeed, so far, that at one time they endangered the
continuance of their friendly relations with the French Court.
The two prizes which the “Reprisal” carried into Nantes in December,
1776, were taken into the offing of that port and privately sold.
The “Reprisal” was quietly refitted, and in February, 1777, she made
a cruise off the coast of Spain and returned to L’Orient with the
Falmouth packet and four other English vessels. Lord Stormont made
vigorous remonstrances. The French government at once ordered the
“Reprisal” and her prizes to put to sea within twenty-four hours.
Nothing of this sort was done. The “Reprisal” remained in port, on
the ground that she had sprung a leak; and her prizes were secretly
sold for one-seventh of their value to French merchants, who, for the
sake of large profits, eagerly overlooked the irregularity of the
transaction.[353] Confident of the accuracy of the cues they were
receiving, the Commissioners now fitted out, manned, and officered at
Dunkirk the “Surprise,” Captain Gustavus Conyngham, and early in May,
1777, sent her cruising. Within a few days after his leaving Dunkirk,
Conyngham returned with the Harwich packet, and one other prize. The
storm raised by the British at so open and undoubted a violation of
their rights could be pacified only by more rigorous measures. The
French government therefore imprisoned Captain Conyngham and his
crew, and returned his prizes to their owners.[354]
Not at all disconcerted, the Commissioners fitted out a fleet,
consisting of the “Reprisal,” “Lexington,” and “Dolphin,” to
intercept the Irish linen ships. Captain Wickes was placed at its
head as commodore, and was instructed not to return to France unless
he found it absolutely necessary. Wickes got to sea during the first
of June. Missing the linen ships, he sailed quite around Ireland,
and captured or destroyed seventeen or eighteen sail of vessels;
he “most effectually alarmed England, prevented the great fair at
Chester, occasioned insurance to rise, and even deterred the English
merchants from shipping goods in English bottoms at any rate, so that
in a few weeks forty sail of French ships were loading in the Thames,
on freight, an instance never before known.”[355] The three vessels
returned to French ports about July 1.
Obviously there was a limit to the forbearance of the English
government, and it made it plain that this limit had been reached.
Lord Stormont was instructed to tell the French government that,
however desirous the British king might be to maintain peace, he
would not submit “to such strong and public instances of support and
protection shewn to the Rebels by a Nation that at the same time
professes in the strongest terms its Desire to maintain the present
Harmony subsisting between the two Crowns. The shelter given to the
armed Vessels of the Rebels, the facility they have of disposing of
their Prizes by the connivance of Government, and the conveniences
allowed them to refit, are such irrefragable proofs of support,
that scarcely more could be done if there was an avowed Alliance
between France and them, and We were in a state of War with that
Kingdom.”[356]
This last cruise of Wickes also threatened to endanger the
friendliness of the French Court and the Commissioners. Vergennes
wrote to them with some spirit, and insinuated that they had broken
their promises. “After such repeated advertisements,” he said, “the
motives of which you have been informed of, we had no reason to
expect, gentlemen, that the said Sieur Wickes would prosecute his
cruising in the European seas, and we could not be otherwise than
greatly surprised that, after having associated the privateers the
Lexington and the Dolphin to infest the English coast, they should
all three of them come for refuge into our ports. You are too well
informed, gentlemen, and too penetrating, not to see how this conduct
affects the dignity of the king, my master, at the same time it
offends the neutrality which his majesty professes.”
In their reply the Commissioners exhibited some knowledge of the
pleasing phrases of diplomacy. They said that they were “very
sensible of the protection afforded to us and to our commerce since
our residence in this kingdom, agreeable to the goodness of the
king’s gracious intentions and to the law of nations, and it gives
us real and great concern when any vessels of war appertaining to
America, either through ignorance or inattention, do anything that
may offend his majesty in the smallest degree.” They tried to shift
the blame of their captains’ return to French ports to the British
men of war that had chased the American vessels into safe retreats.
“We had,” they continued, “some days before we were honored by your
excellency’s letter, dispatched by an express the most positive
orders to them to depart directly to America, which they are
accordingly preparing to do.” There can be no doubt about the honesty
of these orders, for it was plain to the Commissioners that the
French government was not disposed to forgive further infringements
of neutral rights. By express orders of the French king the fleet of
Wickes was sequestered until it gave security that it should return
directly to America.[357]
Meantime the Commissioners had obtained the release of Conyngham and
his crew. He was now placed in command of the “Revenge;” and in July,
eluding the British, he sailed from Dunkirk, ostensibly for America.
He first cruised along the eastern coast of England, into the North
Sea and the region of the Baltic, then back through the straits of
Dover and into the Irish Channel, and finally into the Bay of Biscay,
anchoring at Ferrol, Spain, about the first of October. The terror
of his name, which his recklessness and daring greatly increased,
spread great alarm among the inhabitants of the British Isles. He
did not return again to France with the “Revenge.” This fact made
his cruise less annoying to the Commissioners, than the last cruise
of Wickes. Hodge, the agent of the Commissioners, who had given
bond to the French admiralty that the “Revenge” would not engage in
operations against the British, was arrested and thrown into the
Bastile; and Vergennes wrote a most severe letter, to be shown to the
Commissioners. Presently, when the wrath of the British had abated,
Hodge was released on the representation of the Commissioners that
he was a person of character, and that they could not “conceive him
capable of any willful offence against the laws of this nation.”[358]
About the middle of September the “Reprisal” and the “Lexington”
sailed for America; the “Reprisal” foundered on the Grand Banks
of Newfoundland, losing all on board except the cook; and the
“Lexington” was taken by the British off Ushant. With the departure
of these vessels the movements of the Continental fleet for 1777 in
European waters came to an end; as did also the nice task of the
Commissioners of conducting a naval war from a neutral country as a
base, without losing the friendship of that country, or involving
it in war. Had not hostilities broken out in 1778 between France
and England by reason of other causes, a repetition of the naval
operations of 1777, if permitted by the French, would very likely
have brought them on.
During 1778 two cruises were made in European waters, one by Captain
Tucker, and the other by Captain Jones. On April 1, 1778, the frigate
“Boston,” Captain Samuel Tucker, arrived at Bordeaux with John Adams,
the new Commissioner who was to succeed Silas Deane, as a passenger.
After refitting, Tucker made a short cruise in which he captured
four prizes. In August the “Boston,” in company with the frigate
“Providence,” and the ship “Ranger,” sailed for America. Some months
previous the “Ranger,” when under the command of Captain Jones, had
made an important cruise. Jones arrived in this vessel in France on
December 2, 1777. He expected to receive command of a frigate or a
ship of the line; but in this he was disappointed. On January 18,
1778, the Commissioners wrote to him that they could not procure such
a ship as he expected; and that they advised him, “after equipping
the ‘Ranger,’ in the best manner for the cruise you propose,” to
proceed “with her in the manner you shall judge best for distressing
the enemies of the United States, by sea or otherwise, consistent
with the laws of war and the terms of your commission.”[359]
From these orders it may be seen that Jones had in mind a descent on
the British coast. On April 10, 1778, he sailed for the Irish sea.
After capturing or destroying four vessels, he made an unsuccessful
attempt to burn the shipping at Whitehaven in Cumberland. He next
tried to take prisoner the Earl of Selkirk from his summer home at
St. Mary’s Isle, off the southwest coast of Scotland, but failed
to find him. These movements ashore naturally struck terror to the
inhabitants of the British Isles. Jones now crossed to Ireland,
and in the neighborhood of Belfast attacked the British naval
ship “Drake,” 20, Commander George Burdon. After an engagement of
seventy-four minutes, during which the “Ranger” was “skillfully
handled and well-fought,” the “Drake” struck her colors. Jones
arrived in Brest with his prize on May 10.[360] Many plans and
suggestions were now made by both the Commissioners and the French
government to supply Jones with some large ship from the French navy,
or to give him the command of a small fleet, but they all miscarried.
The ambitious and energetic American captain, chafing under his
enforced idleness, was not to make another cruise until fifteen
months had elapsed.
During 1779 and 1780 the Naval office at Paris was chiefly concerned
with the movements, conduct, and achievements of two captains in
the Continental navy, John Paul Jones and Peter Landais. Never
have the fortunes of war thrown into close association two men of
more striking contrasts. Jones was ardent, hopeful, and magnetic;
Landais sullen, quarrelsome, and repellent. Jones was a master of
men; from unpromising materials, swept together by the winds and
waves of diverse fortunes, he made most effective crews. Landais
was seldom on good terms with his officers or seamen, some of whom
were always dissatisfied and mutinous. Called to play their parts on
the same theater of war, the Scotchman achieved signal success and
distinction, and won the plaudits of the French king, of Congress,
and of his countrymen; while to the Frenchman fell the ill-will of
his own government, the hatred of Americans, and, in his dismissal
from the navy of the United States, dishonor and professional
disgrace.
In the spring of 1779 Franklin—now American minister at the Court of
France—the French government, and Lafayette planned an expedition
against the coast of England, which had in view especially the
striking of some of the larger English towns. Lafayette was to
command the French troops which were to be lent for the expedition,
and Jones, to whom the French government had, in February, given the
command of the “Bon Homme Richard,” formerly the “Duras,” an old East
Indiaman, was to command the sea forces. The “Alliance,” Captain
Landais, which vessel had recently arrived in France from America,
was to be a part of Jones’s fleet. This plan miscarried.
It was not until August 13 that Jones finally got to sea with a
fleet consisting of five naval vessels and two privateers. The two
chief vessels of the little fleet were the “Bon Homme Richard,” 42,
Captain Jones, and the “Alliance,” 36, Captain Landais. These two
officers had of course permanent commissions in the Continental
navy; the three French officers in command of naval vessels were
given temporary commissions in the Continental navy. The expense of
the cruise was borne by the French government; and the fitting out
of the fleet was superintended by Chaumont, the joint agent of the
French government and the American minister.[361] The destination of
the fleet was determined by the French government; and the orders
of Jones, the commodore of the fleet, were prepared by the French
Minister of Marine, translated and signed by Franklin, and sent to
Jones by Chaumont. The fleet sailed under the American flag. Its
principal object was the intercepting of the Baltic fleet of the
enemy.
The details of this memorable cruise are familiar to the reader,
and need not be repeated here. The fleet was scarcely at sea before
Landais became insubordinate, asserted his independence of Jones,
and left and rejoined his commodore when and where he chose. Sailing
first along the west coast of Ireland and then around Scotland, Jones
reached the east coast of Yorkshire, on September 23. He had by this
time taken seventeen ships, and had made an unsuccessful attempt
to reach Leith and Edinburgh, and lay them under contribution.
Off Flamborough Head Jones’s fleet, which was now reduced to the
“Bon Homme Richard,” “Alliance,” and “Pallas,” fell in with the
Baltic trade of forty-one sail and convoyed by His Majesty’s
ships, “Serapis,” 44, Captain Richard Pearson, and “Countess of
Scarborough,” 20, Commander Thomas Piercy. There now ensued an
engagement between the “Bon Homme Richard” and the “Serapis,” which
lasted more than three hours. It was one of the fiercest fights
recorded in the annals of naval warfare. For the greater part of
the engagement the two vessels were lashed together, stem to stern,
starboard to starboard, and with the muzzles of their guns touching.
Both ships were set on fire in various places, and the “scene was
dreadful beyond the reach of language,” to use Jones’s phrasing.
The “Bon Homme Richard” won the fight only through the brilliant
daring, the remarkable naval skill, and the intelligence in action
of her commander. She was so badly injured that she sank the second
day after the fight; her own crew were transferred to the “Serapis.”
The loss to the “Bon Homme Richard” was 116 men; to the “Serapis,”
129. During the fight of the “Bon Homme Richard” and the “Serapis,”
the “Pallas,” Captain Cottineau, and the “Countess of Scarborough,”
Commander Piercy, engaged each other, with the result that the
British ship was compelled to surrender. The “Alliance” took little
or no part in the contest, as her commander was sulking throughout
the engagement. The two prizes, the “Alliance,” and the “Pallas”
arrived at the Texel in Holland on October 3, 1779.[362]
A naval discord now arose, which tried the patience and temper of
Franklin. No sooner did Jones and Landais reach the Texel, than each
wrote to Franklin making charges against the other. Jones accused
Landais of gross insubordination and misbehavior and specifically
charged him with intentionally firing into the “Bon Homme Richard”
and killing a “number of our men and mortally wounding a good
officer.” The French government, which was inclined to attribute
the loss of the “Bon Homme Richard” and so many of her crew to the
conduct of Landais, took a hand in the dispute, and asked Franklin
to call Landais to account at Paris. In cases of this sort the Naval
Office had little authority or means to effect discipline in the
navy. A sufficient number of commissioned officers could not be
assembled in France to hold a court-martial; and if they could, it
was doubtful whether the Naval Office had the power to order such
a court. Their inability to hold courts-martial had been regretted
more than once by the American Commissioners. Landais came to
Paris, and Franklin investigated the case before friends of the two
disputants; but satisfactory evidence and witnesses could not be
obtained to prove or disprove the charges, so Franklin did the only
thing possible, by referring the dispute to Congress, and a properly
constituted court-martial in America. Franklin thought his inquiry
had one good effect, the preventing of a duel in Holland between the
two officers.[363]
On the coming of Landais to Paris, Franklin placed Jones in command
of the “Alliance.” After cruising through the English Channel to
Spain, Jones, in February, 1780, brought his vessel into L’Orient.
Acting under Franklin’s orders, Jones now refitted his vessel with
the purpose of returning to America with a cargo of supplies. In
the spring of 1780 Landais began to beseech Franklin to restore him
to the command of the “Alliance,” and he soon raised the question
whether the American minister at Paris had the power to remove him
from the command of a vessel to which Congress had appointed him. His
request was refused by Franklin in bald and vigorous terms. “I think
you,” Franklin wrote, “so imprudent, so litigious, and quarrelsome
a man, even with your best friends, that peace and good order, and
consequently the quiet and regular subordination so necessary to
success, are, where you preside, impossible.”[364] Later he charged
Landais “not to meddle with the ‘Alliance’ or create any disturbance
on board her, as you will answer the contrary at your peril.”[365]
About the first of June Jones left his vessel, and came up to Paris
to hasten the sale of his prizes. Landais now appeared at L’Orient,
raised a mutiny on board the “Alliance,” and, acting on Arthur Lee’s
advice, took charge of her. Early in July, without taking the stores
which had been assigned to his ship, Landais sailed for America. It
was on this passage that he developed a strangeness, a madness, some
say, that incapacitated him for his command. He was removed, and
the “Alliance” was sailed into Boston in charge of her lieutenant.
Landais was now tried by a court-martial and dismissed from the naval
service.
Meantime Jones and Franklin had succeeded in obtaining from the
French government the loan of the “Ariel.” Having loaded her
with supplies, Jones sailed for America on October 7, 1780; but,
encountering a storm which dismasted his vessel, he was compelled to
return to port. On December 18 he again put to sea; and in February,
1781, he reached Philadelphia.
With the departure of Jones, the European waters, for the first time
in four years, were clear of the armed vessels of the Continental
fleet. The venerable Franklin, vexed with the discords and details
of naval affairs, must have drawn a sigh of relief when the last
Continental vessel and captain had withdrawn from France. The most
disagreeable of his duties as “Admiral,” to use John Adams’s word
in this connection, now came to an end. Concerning his vexations,
Franklin wrote to one of his agents in the summer of 1780: “I
have been too long in hot water, plagued almost to death with the
passions, vagaries, and ill humours, and madnesses of other people.
I must have a little repose.”[366] He had now for some time been
writing to Congress, asking to be relieved of his naval duties. An
example of his requests may be extracted from a letter of March
4, 1780, to the President of Congress: “As vessels of war under
my care create me a vast deal of business (of a kind, too, that I
am unexperienced in), I must repeat my earnest request that some
person of skill in such affairs may be appointed, in the character
of consul, to take charge of them. I imagine that much would by
that means be saved in the expense of their various refittings and
supplies, which to me appears enormous.”[367]
From the beginning of 1781 until the close of the Revolution the
duties of the Naval Office at Paris were comparatively light. Few
armed vessels were sent from America to France; and those that
were, remained only long enough to refit, load with supplies, and
receive letters and despatches for America. Over such ships Franklin
exercised little or no control. The Agent of Marine, not wishing his
vessels to slip from his grasp when within the reach of orders from
Paris, sometimes directed his captains who were about to sail for
France to return home on a specified date. In May, 1782, he wrote
disapprovingly to Congress concerning the “delays and exorbitant
expenses which have accrued from the detention of public vessels
in Europe.”[368] Acting under the direct orders of Morris, Captain
Barry, in the “Alliance,” in February, 1782, left L’Orient and
cruised without success for seventeen days. This was the last cruise
in European waters which was made by a Continental vessel during the
Revolution.
On July 10, 1781, Congress gave Thomas Barclay a commission as
vice-consul to France in the place of William Palfrey, who had, in
November, 1780, been appointed consul to France, and had gone down
with the vessel on which he took passage.[369] In addition to his
strictly consular duties, Barclay was authorized to “assist in
directing our Naval affairs.”[370] When Barclay entered upon his
duties in France, our naval business was narrowing to the settling
of accounts. He was in time, however, to represent his country in
the trial and sale of a few prizes, to assist in the shipping of
some supplies, and to sell the Continental ship, “Duc de Lauzun.”
In November, 1782, Congress appointed Barclay a commissioner for
settling the Revolutionary accounts of the United States in Europe;
and in December Morris gave him his instructions.[371] Barclay was
directed to inquire into the accounts of the agents for fitting out
armed vessels in Europe, and to make a settlement with the various
prize agents into whose hands prizes or moneys derived from their
sale had come. Barclay’s duties, both as consul and as commissioner,
came to an end in the fall of 1785, when he was appointed to
negotiate a treaty with Morocco.
Some of the duties of Barclay as commissioner for settling accounts
were in December, 1783, vested in John Paul Jones. In accordance
with a resolution of Congress, Franklin appointed Jones agent of
the United States to solicit the payment of prize money, “in whose
hands soever the money may be detained,” arising from prizes captured
by vessels under Jones’s command in European waters.[372] Jones was
engaged in this work during 1784 and 1785. Under the sanction of
Thomas Jefferson, the American Minister at Paris, Jones in 1786 set
out for Copenhagen, to settle a dispute with the Danish Court over
three of his prizes. These ships had been captured, in 1779, by the
fleet under his command, and had been sent into Bergen, Norway. The
Danish government had restored them to the British. Jones’s journey
was interrupted and he did not reach Copenhagen until 1788. The
Danish government now transferred the settlement of the disputed
claims to Paris, pleading that Jones had not sufficient authority
to treat. By June, Jones had left Copenhagen, had accepted the
commission of Vice-Admiral in the Russian navy, and was writing
from his flagship “Wolodimer” to his friend Jefferson at Paris. The
Revolutionary accounts in Europe possessed the usual vitality, not to
say immortality, of government claims. Certain Revolutionary claims
of South Carolina, growing out of expenses which that state incurred
in Europe in connection with the ship “Indian,” are now pending
before the government at Washington.
In the West Indies the chief naval station for the Continental
vessels was St. Pierre, Martinique. Bound on commercial errands,
our vessels occasionally visited St. Eustatius, until its capture
by the British in February, 1781; Cape Francois, Hispaniola; and in
the late years of the war, Havana. The United States had commercial
agents at these three ports. But at Martinique our vessels were
refitted, repaired, and provisioned whenever convenience suggested,
or stress of weather compelled, the seeking of a friendly harbor in
this part of the Atlantic. In June, 1776, William Bingham, who had
been the secretary of the Committee of Secret Correspondence, went to
Martinique as the commercial agent of Congress; and in March, 1780,
he was succeeded by Parsons, Alston and Company.
The commercial agent at Martinique did a varied and lively business.
He was employed in shipping supplies, obtaining convoys for his
merchantmen, refitting privateers, and now and then Continental
vessels, disposing of prizes, and forwarding to Congress naval
intelligence concerning the West Indies and Europe. Congress at times
sent despatches and supplies to France by the way of Martinique; and
the American representatives and commercial agents in France, now and
then, communicated with the United States through the same island.
In October, 1777, Bingham wrote to Congress that, if France should
declare war against Great Britain, many prizes would naturally be
sent into Martinique, and that he wished to be directed about proper
forms and methods for trying and selling them.[373] In December
American prizes and privateers were being publicly received into
the ports of Martinique, and Bingham was shipping arms to America
on board American vessels under the convoy of a frigate which he
had hired for that purpose. In January, 1778, the permitting of
these favors was causing spirited letters between the “General” of
Martinique and the Governor of the British island of Antigua.[374]
During 1779 three Continental vessels, the “Deane,” “General Gates,”
and “Confederacy,” put into Martinique to refit, repair, and obtain
provisions. The expense to which Bingham’s empty treasury was
subjected caused him to complain to Congress. The only Continental
armed vessel purchased at Martinique was the little schooner
“Fame,” 7 guns. The commercial agent made this purchase on his own
responsibility in February, 1781, in order to carry to Philadelphia
the news of the capture of St. Eustatius by the British. But
unfortunately, the “Fame” was forced to bequeath her errand to a
better-fated conveyance, as the British carried her into Antigua.[375]
Our naval affairs on the Mississippi during the Revolution, although
conducted on a small scale, are not devoid of interest; nor do
they entirely escape the glamour of romance which seems to touch
everything connected with the early history of this region. Oliver
Pollock, originally a Pennsylvanian, and a man of ability, integrity,
and patriotism, who freely spent his private fortune for his country,
was the commercial agent at New Orleans during the Revolution, and
to him fell sundry naval duties. Pollock was responsible to the
Commercial Committee, the third committee of Congress that was
simultaneously purchasing and arming vessels. He was intelligently
and heartily assisted in his work at New Orleans by the Governor of
Louisiana, Galvez, “that worthy Nobleman,” as Pollock called him, who
“gave me the delightful assurance that he would go every possible
length for the interest of Congress.”[376] It is refreshing to
find for once American and Spanish officials acting in concert and
inspiring mutual confidence and affection. Early in 1777, immediately
after Galvez became governor, he, with slight limitations, opened
the port of New Orleans to American vessels of war and their prizes.
Galvez’s favors to Americans called down upon him the threats of the
British at Pensacola to have his conduct brought to the attention of
the Court at Madrid.
Pollock received from Congress blank commissions both for officers in
the Continental navy and for privateers. One of the privateers which
he commissioned, the “Reprisal,” Captain Calvert, sent into a safe
port, in April, 1778, a prize whose cargo consisted of flour, sugar,
coffee, and forty-eight slaves.[377] In March, 1778, Captain Willing
and a small party of men arrived in New Orleans from Pennsylvania,
having come by the way of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. They
captured several prizes on the Mississippi, which were sold in New
Orleans to the value of $37,500. One of these, the “Rebecca,” Pollock
bought for Congress on his own responsibility. He obtained permission
from Galvez to fit out his ship in a warlike manner; and he decided
upon an armament, consisting of “16 six pounders upon one Deck, 2
Bow and 2 Stern Chacers, 8 four pounders upon her quarter Deck,
with Swivels, Cohorns, &c.”[378] He intended to enlist one hundred
and fifty men and send his ship against His Majesty’s sloop of war
“Sylph,” which was defending Manchac on Lake Pontchartrain. Pollock
planned to obtain most of his armament from Havana, but the Spanish
authorities refused to permit its shipment even after Galvez had
written to the Cuban government.[379]
By July, 1779, Pollock had succeeded in obtaining and mounting
twenty-four guns on the decks of his ship, which he had now
christened the “Morris” in honor of his well-known friend at
Philadelphia. He had appointed a full quota of officers; and he had
engaged seventy-six men, with “English deserters arriving daily”
to swell the complement. The captain of the “Morris” was William
Pickles, a man found to be “capable and steady to our Cause.” Pollock
had now for some time been waiting for orders for his vessel from
Philadelphia; and tired of delay he was on the point of sending the
“Morris” cruising, when a severe hurricane swept over New Orleans
doing great damage to the town and its shipping. The “Morris” was
lost, and eleven of her crew were drowned; the rest were rescued nine
miles below the city clinging to the wreckage of their vessel.
Governor Galvez’s heart was touched by the loss of the Americans.
He now “spared” Pollock an armed schooner, which was soon fitted
out, and by September Pickles was cruising on Lake Pontchartrain. On
September 10 Pickles had a short, but hot, dispute with the British
armed sloop “West Florida,” which was forced to surrender, although
it lost but four men to Pickles’s eight. Pollock now fitted out the
“West Florida,” and sent her cruising on the Lake. On September 21
Pickles captured a small British settlement on the north side of Lake
Pontchartrain. He made prisoners of all the inhabitants who refused
to swear allegiance to the United States. This capitulation, Pollock
wrote to Congress, gave them an undoubted right to that part of the
colony of West Florida which lay along Lake Pontchartrain; and he
conceived, in language that sounds familiarly like that of later
expansionists, that the capitulation was “a proper Ground on which to
claim (at any convenient period) the Sovereignty of the Soil and the
Allegiance of the Inhabitants.”[380]
In October, 1779, the “West Florida” cruised on the Lake at the
request of Galvez for the protection of trade. Letters from
Philadelphia now made it evident to Pollock that Congress wished the
naval force on the Mississippi to proceed to that town. He therefore
on January 20, 1780, gave Pickles orders to sail for Philadelphia
after taking on a cargo of tafia and sugar at Havana; but he directed
Pickles, before entering on this detail, to join the fleet of Galvez
and to assist in the reduction of Mobile and Pensacola.[381] This
was an undertaking which Pollock had long assigned to an American
fleet and army; and since 1777 he had urged it most audaciously upon
Congress. After aiding in the capture of Mobile and taking a small
prize which she sent into that town, the “West Florida” proceeded
to Philadelphia, where she arrived about the first of June, 1780.
Since it appeared to a committee of Congress that the “West Florida”
was not fit for a cruiser, she was sold, and her crew was assigned
to other Continental vessels.[382] Captain Pickles was placed in
command of the “Mercury” packet and detailed to take Henry Laurens
to Amsterdam. Here ends the story of the Revolutionary navy on the
Mississippi.
FOOTNOTES:
[348] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 296-97, 355-58, 370.
[349] Ibid., 119-20, Deane to Committee of Secret Correspondence,
August 18, 1776.
[350] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 178-79.
[351] Stevens’s Facsimiles, 1392, 1-2, Lord Stormont to Lord
Weymouth, December 18, 1776.
[352] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 283-84, 364, 379.
[353] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 379-80; Stevens’s
Facsimiles, 1445, 1536, 1568.
[354] Stevens’s Facsimiles, 1529, Lord Stormont to Lord Weymouth, May
8, 1777.
[355] Stevens’s Facsimiles, 703, 1539; Wharton, Diplomatic
Correspondence, II, 379-80, Deane to Robert Morris, August 23, 1777.
[356] Stevens’s Facsimiles, 1562, Lord Weymouth to Lord Stormont,
July 4, 1777.
[357] Stevens’s Facsimiles, 1677; Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence,
II, 364-66, Vergennes to Commissioners at Paris, July 16, 1777, and
Franklin and Deane to Vergennes, July 17, 1777.
[358] C. H. Jones, Captain Gustavus Conyngham, 15-17; Outlook
for January 3, 1903, 71-83, James Barnes, Tragedy of the Lost
Commission; Hale’s Franklin in France, I, 139; Wharton, Diplomatic
Correspondence, II, 375, 377, 406.
[359] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 471-72.
[360] Sherburne’s John Paul Jones, 43-53, Jones to Commissioners, May
27, 1778; Clowes, Royal Navy, IV, 11-13.
[361] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, III, 242.
[362] Sherburne’s John Paul Jones, 111-125, Jones to Franklin,
October 3, 1779, giving an account of cruise; Clowes, Royal Navy, IV,
33-39.
[363] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, III, 375-77, 378-79, 535,
547-49, 562-63; IV, 293; Bigelow’s Franklin, VII, 108-09.
[364] Hale, Franklin in France, I, 327-28; Chapter XVII, Captain
Landais, prints many original letters connected with the dispute.
[365] Hale, Franklin in France, I, 330-31.
[366] Bigelow’s Franklin, VII, 97-98, Franklin to Jonathan Williams,
June 27, 1780.
[367] Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, III, 535.
[368] Force Transcripts, Library of Congress, 137, 3, p. 313.
[369] Journals of Continental Congress, November 4, 1780; July 10,
1781.
[370] Force Transcripts, Library of Congress, 137, 1, p. 463,
Instructions to Barclay.
[371] Journals of Continental Congress, November 18, 1782; Force
Transcripts, 137, p. 55, Instructions to Barclay.
[372] Journals of Congress, November 1, 1783; C. H. Lincoln, Calendar
of John Paul Jones Manuscripts, 188, Franklin to Jones, December 17,
1783.
[373] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 90, p. 9.
[374] Ibid., 90, pp. 21, 27.
[375] Force Transcripts, Library of Congress, 137, 1, p. 357.
[376] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 50, pp. 1-13,
Pollock to President of Congress, a _résumé_ of Pollock’s services as
commercial agent at New Orleans.
[377] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 50, p. 66.
[378] Ibid., 50, pp. 77-81.
[379] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 50, p. 97.
[380] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 50, p. 120, Copy of
Capitulation of Inhabitants of the Settlements on Lake Pontchartrain,
dated October 16, 1779, with signatures of nineteen men.
[381] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 50, pp. 123-25,
Pollock to Pickles, January 20, 1780.
[382] Force Transcripts, Library of Congress, 137, 2, p. 281; 37, p.
95.
PART II
THE STATE NAVIES
CHAPTER XI
THE NAVY OF MASSACHUSETTS
With the exception of New Jersey and Delaware, each of the thirteen
original states during the Revolution owned one or more armed
vessels. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Virginia, and South Carolina had the largest fleets. New Hampshire
with its one ship and Georgia with its four galleys just escaped from
being in the same class with New Jersey and Delaware. The navies of
Rhode Island, New York, and North Carolina were small. The navy of
no one state was so large as that of Congress. The total number of
state craft, however, greatly exceeded the number of vessels in the
Continental navy. The state vessels on the average were smaller and
not so well armed as the Continental vessels. The states generally
had less means for naval purposes at their disposal than had
Congress, and were therefore not so well able to build large vessels.
Then, too, the chief need of each state for a navy was to defend its
seaports, coasts, and trade. For such service small craft, adapted
for running in and out of shallow harbors, rivers, and bays, was
demanded. The states therefore provided themselves with armed boats
of various sizes, galleys with and without sails, half-galleys,
floating batteries, barges, and fire-ships. Besides such vessels as
these, most of the states had a few larger and stouter sailing craft,
mounting generally from ten to twenty guns, and fairly well fitted
for deep-sea navigation. The one state whose deep-sea exceeded its
inshore craft was Massachusetts.
The history of naval administration in the several states possesses
some common features. It will be recalled that in most of the states
the provincial government about the year 1775 was superseded by
a revolutionary government, and this in turn about a year later
was succeeded by a permanent state government. The revolutionary
government consisted of a legislative body, or provincial congress,
and an executive body, or committee of safety. The permanent state
government consisted of a legislature of one or two houses and an
executive, which was either a council, or a governor and council.
The initial naval administration in the states usually fell to the
committee of safety, or revolutionary executive, which, upon the
change to a permanent state government, bequeathed its naval duties
to the council or to the governor and council. In most of the states
the details of naval administration were at some time during the
Revolution lodged with an executive board. Some states had separate
boards for naval and military affairs; in other states, one board
performed both functions.
The history of naval administration in the states falls into two
periods, one embracing the years from 1775 to 1778, the other the
years from 1779 to 1783. In the first period each state procured a
naval armament, as a rule, for the general purpose of providing a
naval defence, and not to meet some specific call for armed vessels.
By 1779 the first naval craft had been largely captured, destroyed,
or sold; and often the first machinery of naval administration
had been in large part removed. In response to special needs for
armed vessels, calls for which came most often from those who were
suffering from the ravages of the British fleets, the states now
procured additional vessels, and often devised new administrative
machinery to manage them.
In defensive warfare, the problem in each state was to provide for
the defence of its ports, trade, coasts, and shipping. The offensive
warfare of the state navies, which was quite secondary in importance,
consisted chiefly of commerce-destroying, conducted along the great
ocean-paths of British trade. The principal problem here was for the
American vessels in leaving home ports and in returning with their
prizes to elude the British vessels, which hovered along the American
coast, especially at the mouths of the Chesapeake, Delaware, and
Narragansett bays. It is always to be remembered that in all the
states the privateers exceeded the state craft, which were often
insignificant in comparison.
The reader recalls that in June, 1775, the battle of Bunker Hill was
fought, a British army occupied Boston, and British vessels sailed
the New England seas with little or no opposition. These vessels
had already committed depredations and “piracies” upon the coasts
and trade of Massachusetts, and were obstructing the importation
of ammunition and provisions for the Continental army. It was
under these circumstances that Massachusetts took her first step
towards procuring a naval armament. On June 7 her third Provincial
Congress appointed a committee of nine “to consider the expediency
of establishing a number of small armed vessels, to cruise on our
sea coasts, for the protection of our trade, and the annoyance of
our enemies.” The Provincial Congress, which moved very cautiously,
enjoined secrecy on the committee. On June 10 three additional
members were added to the committee; but later in the day a new
committee consisting of seven members was apparently substituted for
the old one. On June 12 the committee “appointed to consider the
expediency of establishing a number of armed vessels” made a report
which provided for the fitting out of not less than six vessels,
to mount eight to fourteen carriage guns, and to cruise under the
orders of the Committee of Safety—the chief executive organ of the
Provincial Congress consisting of nine members, three of whom were
from Boston. This report came up several times between June 12 and
June 20. Finally on the latter date “the matter was ordered to
subside.”[383] The Battle of Bunker Hill which was fought on June
17 may have had something to do with this action of the Provincial
Congress.
On July 19, 1775, the Revolutionary government in Massachusetts
was superseded by a permanent government consisting of a House of
Representatives and a Council of eighteen members elected by the
House; the two houses were called the General Court. The continued
depredations of the British now caused several endangered ports to
ask the General Court to provide them with a naval defence. The part
of Massachusetts which during the Revolution was most exposed to the
attacks of the British, and which was most troublesome to defend,
was the coast of Maine, then often referred to as the Eastern Coast.
In August, 1775, a petition came to the General Court from Machias,
a town situated on the Maine coast a few miles west of the present
Eastport, asking that commissions be granted to officers and men on
board two armed vessels which citizens of Machias had fitted out for
the defense of their town. In response the General Court took into
the service of the state the sloop “Machias Liberty” and the schooner
“Diligent.”[384] Jeremiah O’Brian, one of the men who had signed
the petition, was commissioned by the Council commander-in-chief of
the two vessels; and he was directed to enlist a number of men, not
to exceed thirty, for each vessel. The “Machias Liberty” and the
“Diligent” were in the service of the state until October, 1776, when
they were discharged. About the first of October, 1775, Salem and
Newburyport each asked the General Court for naval aid similar to
that granted to Machias, but did not receive it.[385]
The General Court of Massachusetts next turned its attention to
privateering. The acts of the states on this head fall into two
general classes; those which in terms established state privateering,
and those which adopted Continental privateering or accommodated
state laws to the same. After the first half of 1776 all the states
used Continental commissions and bonds. Massachusetts, moving in this
matter before Congress, necessarily established state privateering.
On September 28, 1775, her House of Representatives, having such
establishment in view, appointed a committee of seven to consider the
“Expediency of fitting out a Number of Armed Vessels.” On October 9,
this committee reported in favor of instituting privateering and a
prize court to try cases of capture. On October 14 a bill embodying
the committee’s recommendations was introduced. It now passed slowly
through the legislative mill, and on November 1 it became a law.[386]
John Adams once referred to this statute of Massachusetts as one
of the most important documents in the history of the Revolution.
Its preamble was the work of Elbridge Gerry, and the body of the
law was drafted by James Sullivan, many years later Governor of
Massachusetts.[387] Gerry stated the sanctions for the law. These
he found in the arbitrary and sanguinary acts of Great Britain, in
the charter of Massachusetts granted by King William and Queen Mary,
and lastly in the resolution of the Continental Congress of July
18, 1775, recommending each colony to provide by armed vessels or
otherwise for the protection of its harbors and navigation.
The Massachusetts law provided that all vessels convicted of making
unlawful invasions or attacks on the seacoasts or navigation of any
part of America should be forfeited. The Council was authorized to
grant letters of marque and reprisal to masters and owners of vessels
upon their entering into bond faithfully to discharge the duties
of their office and to observe the naval laws of the colony. Three
admiralty districts embracing the counties on the Massachusetts
seacoast were established. The Southern district with the seat of its
court at Plymouth embraced Plymouth county and the counties to the
southward; the Middle district with the seat of its court at Ipswich
embraced the counties of Suffolk, Middlesex, and Essex and extended
from Plymouth county to New Hampshire; and the Eastern district
with the seat of its court at North Yarmouth embraced the seacoast
counties of Maine. The form of procedure in these courts was fixed
for both captured and recaptured vessels. In the latter case salvage
was from one-third to one-fourth of the selling price of the vessel.
The facts in prize cases were to be tried by twelve good and lawful
men. At this time the people of Massachusetts were so enraged at
the judges of the former Provincial admiralty court that they would
have universally condemned the trying of facts in prize cases by
judges.[388]
The Council soon appointed three judges of admiralty, Nathan Cushing
for the Southern district, Timothy Pickering for the Middle district,
and James Sullivan for the Eastern district. Elbridge Gerry declined
the judgeship for the Middle district. After trying about one hundred
and fifty prize cases, Pickering in June, 1777, resigned, and was
succeeded by Nathan Cushing, who now served as judge in both the
Southern and Middle districts.[389] Comparatively few cases were
tried in the Southern and Eastern districts. Timothy Langdon was for
a long time judge of the Eastern district.
During the fall of 1775 the General Court took no steps towards
establishing a state navy. It was at this time assisting Washington
in obtaining and arming vessels for the Continental military service
around Boston. Early in December the House of Representatives,
acting on a recommendation contained in a letter from John Adams
at Philadelphia, resolved to obtain statistics on the number of
officers, seamen, and vessels, suitable for naval purposes, in the
seaports of Massachusetts. On December 29 the Council declared for
a navy by passing the following resolution: “Whereas several of the
United Colonies have of late thought it expedient and necessary
to fit out armed Vessels for the Defence of American Liberty, and
it appears to this Court necessary that Measures be taken by this
Colony for our further Protection by Sea: Therefore, Resolved that
John Adams and Joseph Palmer, Esqurs. with such as the Hon. House
shall join be a committee for fitting out one or more Vessels for the
Defence of American Liberty.”[390]
The House at once appointed its members of the committee, which
on January 12, 1776, made a report favorable to the establishment
of a navy.[391] Accordingly, on February 7 a resolution passed
the General Court to build ten sloops of war, of 110 or 115 tons
burden, each, suitable for carrying fourteen to sixteen carriage
guns, 6-pounders and 4-pounders. A joint committee of the two houses
was appointed to build the vessels, and £10,000 was voted for that
purpose.[392] On the 16th the committee was authorized to contract
for the building of only five vessels, until there was a prospect of
procuring materials for ten; it was authorized to buy five vessels,
if it thought best.[393] By July, 1776, the sloop “Tyrannicide” built
at Salisbury, the brigantine “Rising Empire” built at Dartmouth,
and the brigantine “Independence” built at Kingston were ready for
sea; and by September the sloops “Republic” and “Freedom” built at
Swanzey, and the “Massachusetts” built at Salisbury were completed.
Meanwhile the General Court had prepared and adopted the legislation
necessary to establish a navy. It had drafted proper naval forms;
and it had appointed a number of naval officers. A partial pay-table
was established on February 8.[394] This on April 12 was succeeded
by a new one, which generally raised wages, and which provided for
a number of new offices. A captain was now to receive a monthly
wage of £8; a first lieutenant, £5, 8s.; a second lieutenant, £5;
a master, £4; a mate, £3; a surgeon, £7; and an ordinary seaman,
£2. Each vessel was to be provided with 115 officers and seamen. No
better proof of the rawness of the naval service is needed than that
afforded by the regulation that recruits, whether officers, seamen,
or marines, should furnish themselves with “a good effective Fire
Arm, Cartouch Box, Cutlass, and Blanket.” The captains were ordered
to recommend to the Council a list of inferior officers and to
enlist the proposed number of seamen and marines. Captors were given
one-third of the proceeds of prizes.[395]
On April 27, 1776, the General Court fixed the respective shares
of the proceeds of prizes for officers and seamen: a captain was
to receive six shares, and “all the Cabbin Furniture;” a first
lieutenant, five shares; a drummer, one and one-fourth shares; a
seaman, one share; and a boy, one-half a share.[396] On April 29,
in order to encourage enlistment, an advance of one month’s wages
was voted to recruits. On the same day it was decided that “the
Uniform of Officers be Green and White, and that the Colours be a
white Flagg, with a green Pine Tree, and an Inscription, ‘Appeal to
Heaven.’”[397] On July 26 the Council appointed a prize agent in each
of the three admiralty districts, whose duty was to represent the
state in receiving, trying, and selling prizes.[398] At times the
prize agents assisted in fitting out vessels.
During the first half of 1776 the law of November 1, 1775,
establishing privateering, was three times amended and
remodelled.[399] The law was thereby accommodated to the resolutions
of the Continental Congress fixing the kinds of property subject
to capture, and the respective shares of captors and recaptors.
Doubts which had arisen as to the proper construction of the
original act were now removed. The procedure before admiralty courts
was made more specific. In cases of captures made by Continental
vessels, appeals were permitted from state admiralty courts to the
Continental Congress; in all other cases, appeals were allowed to the
superior state courts. In each of the three admiralty districts in
Massachusetts additional towns were named where court might be held.
The towns named for the Middle district were Boston, Salem, Ipswich,
and Newburyport.
During the summer and fall of 1776 the instructions and orders to the
captains of the armed vessels were issued to them by the Council,
having been previously prepared by a committee. The following
instructions, which were drafted by Thomas Cushing and Daniel
Hopkins, were given to Captain John Fisk, and will suffice as a
sample of such documents:
“The Brigantine Tyrannicide under your Command being properly Armed
and Man’d and in other respects fitted for a Cruise you are hereby
Ordered and directed immediately to proceed to sea and use your
utmost Endeavors to protect the Sea Coast and Trade of the United
States and you are also directed to exert yourself in making Captures
of all Ships and other Vessels Goods Wares and Merchandise belonging
to the King of Great Britain or any of his subjects wherever residing
excepting only the Ships and Goods of the Inhabitants of Bermuda
and the Bahama Islands—You are directed not to Cruize further
Southward than Latitude Twelve North nor farther East than Longitude
Nine Degrees West from London nor farther West than the Shoals of
Nantucket. At all times using necessary precautions to prevent your
Vessel from falling into the hands of the Enemy.
“And Whereas you have received a Commission authorizing you to make
Captures aforesaid and a set of Instructions have been delivered
you for regulating your Conduct in that matter; these Instructions
you are Hereby directed diligently to attend to, and if you are so
fortunate as to make any Captures you are to Order them to make the
first safe Harbor within the United States.-and you are further
Ordered not to expend your Ammunition unnecessarily and only in time
of Action or firing Alarm or Signal guns.”[400]
Until October, 1776, the Massachusetts navy was administered by
the General Court, committees of its members, the Council, and
naval agents. The General Court for the period of its recess in
May, 1776, placed the armed vessels in the charge of “the committee
for fortifying the harbor of Boston.” By the fall of that year it
realized that “secrecy, dispatch, and economy in conducting the war”
demanded a special executive department. Accordingly, on October
26 it established a Board of War consisting of nine members, any
five of whom constituted a quorum. The Board of War was “empowered
to Order and Direct the Operations of the Forces in the Pay of
this State, both by sea and land, by giving the Commanders of the
Troops, Garrisons, and Vessels of War, such Orders for their Conduct
and Cruizes from time to time as they shall think proper.”[401]
It organized by electing a president and secretary; and it rented
permanent quarters near the State House in Boston. In December, 1776,
James Warren, later Commissioner for the Continental Navy Board at
Boston, was president of the Board of War. Philip Henry Savage was
for a long time its president. Savage presided at the meeting in
1773 at Old South Church which decided that the tea should not be
landed.[402] The Board of War entered upon its work with vigor in
November, 1776. It was yearly renewed, until it was dissolved in
February, 1781.
The principal business of the Board of War was the administration of
the naval, commercial, and military affairs of the state. Its naval
and commercial duties were quite engrossing. The Board kept fairly
distinct the activities of its “armed” and “trading” vessels. It is
true that the armed vessels were now and then sent on commercial
errands, or combined in a single voyage naval and trading duties.
The sloop “Republic,” used for a short time as a naval vessel, was
taken into the commercial service. The Massachusetts Archives contain
a list of thirty-two trading vessels owned or chartered by the Board
of War.[403] These vessels visited Nantes, Bilbao, Martinique,
Guadaloupe, St. Eustatius, Cape Francois, Baltimore, and the ports
of North and South Carolina. They carried as staple exports, fish,
lumber, and New England rum.
As a rule the work of the Board of War in looking after its trading
vessels exceeded its naval work. At times, as in the case of the
Penobscot expedition, the naval duties were the important ones. A
week’s work of the Board in behalf of its armed vessels shows a
curious mixture of orders on the commissary-general for clothing
and provisions, and on the state storekeeper for naval stores; and
of directions to the prize agents, the agents for building armed
vessels, and the naval captains. The General Court permitted the
Board a rather free hand in its management of the navy. The Board
carried on a considerable correspondence with the commanders of the
armed vessels. The following letter written to the Board by Captain
John Clouston of the armed sloop “Freedom” on May 23, 1777, from
Paimboeuf, France, will illustrate this correspondence from the
Captain’s side. Clouston’s disregard of orthography and punctuation
is exceptional even for a Revolutionary officer.
“Gentlemen:
I have the pleasure of Informing your Honours by Capt. Fisk of the
‘Massachusetts’ That on the first Instant I arrived safe in this
Port after taking twelve Sail of Englis Vessels Seven of which
I despatched for Boston Burnt three gave one smal Brigg to our
Prisners and one Retaken by the ‘Futereange’ which Chast us fore
Glasses and finding she Could not Cume up with us she gave Chase
to our Prize and toock her in our sight—I have Cleaned & Refited
my Vessel and Taken in forty Tons of War like Stores and have bin
waiting for a wind to go this fore days—Capt. Fisk being short of
Provisions I have supplied him with foreteen Barels of Pork and
Eleven of Beef and have Suffisantse for my Vessel left.”[404]
In January, 1777, a new sea establishment was effected. Wages were
generally raised, no doubt chiefly to meet their decrease caused
by the depreciation of the currency. A captain was now to receive
a monthly wage of £14, 8s.; a lieutenant or a master, £7, 4s.; a
seaman, £2, 8s.; and a boy, £1, 4s. The offices established in the
Massachusetts navy, while not quite so many, were in general the
same as those in the Continental navy. The Massachusetts navy,
however, had the offices of prizemaster, pilot, and boy, which
did not occur in the Continental list. Following the regulations
of Congress, the General Court now gave captors one-half of their
captures. The rations for seamen were modelled on the Continental
bill of fare.[405] On March 21, 1777, the General Court adopted
rules and regulations for its ships of war; and it ordered that
they should be read by the commanding officer of a vessel at least
once a week. These rules, while briefer than the Continental rules,
naturally followed the same general lines. They show either the
influence of the Continental rules or of the English rules upon
which the Continental rules were based. The following curious rule
in part parallels quotations made from the Continental rules in
Chapter I:
“And if any Person belonging to either of such Vessels shall be
convicted of Theft, Drunkenness, profane Cursing, or Swearing,
disregarding the Sabbath, or using the Name of God lightly, or
profanely, or shall be guilty of quarreling or fighting, or of
any reproachful or provoking Language tending to make Quarrels,
or of any turbulent or mutinous Behavior, or if any Person shall
sleep upon his Watch, or forsake his Station, or shall in any wise
neglect to perform the Duty enjoined him, he shall be punished for
any of the said Offences at the Discretion of the commissioned
Officers of such Vessel, or the Major Part of them, according
to the Nature and Aggravation of the Offence, by sitting in the
Stocks, or wearing a wooden Collar about his Neck, not exceeding 4
Hours, nor less than one, or by whipping, not exceeding 12 Lashes,
or by being put in Irons for so long Time as the said Officers
shall judge the Safety and well being of the Ship and Crew
requires, or otherwise shall forfeit to the State not more than
six, nor less than two Days Pay for each offence.”[406]
During every year of the Revolution attempts were made to increase
the Massachusetts navy. In the fall of 1777 the brigantine “Hazard”
was added. On August 6, 1777, the General Court resolved that, since
the armed vessels at the lowest computation had netted the state
£55,000, the Board of War should purchase or build two vessels
mounting 28 and 32 guns, respectively. In January, 1778, it reduced
the sizes of these vessels almost one-half; and finally it gave up
building them.[407] In the spring of 1779 a prize of the “Hazard,”
the brigantine “Active,” taken in April off the island of St. Thomas
in the West Indies, was purchased.[408] In April, 1778, the General
Court resolved to build a frigate of 28 guns, which would carry two
hundred officers and men.[409] This vessel was built at Newburyport
and was named the “Protector.” In the fall of 1779 it was nearing
completion. The launching of the “Protector,” which was the largest
ship in the Massachusetts navy, was a matter of more than usual
local interest. Stephen Cross who was in charge of the construction
of the frigate wrote a letter to the Board of War in July, 1779,
which throws light upon the minor naval duties of the Board. Cross’s
language is somewhat involved, but his meaning is clear; it is hardly
necessary to say that the “souring” refers to lemons.
“Gentlemen.
it being customary for the owners of Vessels when they are Launched
to give the Workmen something Better than New England Rum to drink
& Likewise some thing to Eat and also all those Persons who Attend
the Launching Expect to be asked to Drink and Eat something and
Especially Publick Vessells it will be Expected that something be
Provided and it is my opinion about sixty Galls of West India Rum &
sugars for the same & souring if to be had and one Quarter Cask of
Wine and A Hamper of ale or Beer together with a Tierce hams Neet
Tongs or Corn Beef will be necessary to comply with the Customs in
these Cases.”[410]
After August, 1779, when the disaster on the Penobscot occurred,
the naval duties of the Board of War were slight. For a time the
“Protector” was the only vessel in the navy. With the coming in of a
new government under a Constitution on October 25, 1780, there was
no longer much need for a Board of War. According to the provisions
of the new Constitution, the Governor was commander-in-chief of
the navy; and he was authorized to “train, instruct, exercise, and
govern it,” and to call it into service in time of war. On February
8, 1781, the Board of War was discontinued, and Caleb Davis, who was
appointed Agent of the Commonwealth, succeeded to its ministerial
duties.[411] The Governor and the Agent now shared the naval duties.
The Governor commissioned officers, issued orders to the naval
commanders, and was responsible to the General Court; the Agent
had direct oversight of the fitting out of vessels, the selling of
prizes, and was responsible to the Governor. As the Revolution spent
itself the simplification of the administrative machinery of the
state continued. On January 1, 1783, the Agent was discontinued. His
naval duties fell to the Commissary-General.[412]
During each year from 1780 to 1783 the General Court made one or more
attempts to increase the naval force of the state. It was spurred to
action by the ravages of the British cruisers on the Eastern Coast.
On March 21, 1780, two armed vessels mounting not less than ten or
more than fourteen 4’s or 6’s were ordered. The expense incurred was
to be met by the sale of the “Rising Empire” and of the confiscated
estates of Loyalists, and from the rents of the property of
absentees. On March 6, 1781, the Agent was directed to obtain a small
vessel of eight to twelve guns to serve as a tender for the “Mars;”
and on April 23, he was ordered to procure by hire or purchase two
small craft to be employed as “guarda coasta.” On November 12,
1782, a committee was appointed to purchase a vessel of twelve or
sixteen guns to be used in protecting the coast. On March 26, 1783,
the Commissary-General was ordered to obtain a small vessel and a
whale boat to cruise against the enemy in Casco Bay and along the
Eastern Shore.[413] As the result of these resolutions, four armed
vessels were added to the navy: in the spring of 1780 the “Mars;” in
the summer of 1781, the “Defence;” in the winter of 1781-1782, the
“Tartar,” which was built by the state; and in the spring of 1782,
the “Winthrop.”
Private naval enterprise throughout the Revolution was exceedingly
active in Massachusetts. In 1775, some months before the General
Court granted letters of marque, Massachusetts citizens,
unauthorized, were capturing the vessels of the enemy. Scarcely a
fortnight after the battles of Lexington and Concord men from New
Bedford and Dartmouth fitted out a vessel and attacked and cut out
from a harbor in Martha’s Vineyard a prize of the British sloop of
war “Falcon,” 16. This act was called forth by the captures which the
“Falcon” had made from the people of Buzzard’s Bay. On June 12, 1775,
the inhabitants of Machias, Maine, had captured the King’s sloop
“Margaretta,” Lieutenant Moore, after mortally wounding the commander
and inflicting a loss of fourteen men. Still other British vessels
were captured off the coast of Maine during the summer of 1775.[414]
With the act of November 1, 1775, granting to the Council the power
to issue letters of marque and reprisal, all such private enterprises
as the above, when done under the authority of a commission, were
legal. It does not appear however that Massachusetts granted many
commissions until the second half of 1776. In 1777 she granted 96
commissions. The best year was 1779 when she issued 222 commissions;
the year 1781 with 216 commissions was not far behind. The total
number of commissions issued by Massachusetts for the years 1777
to 1783 was 998.[415] In 1779 one hundred and eighty-four prizes
captured by privateers were libelled in the Massachusetts prize
courts.[416] The privateering industry for this year was very active.
The following is an extract from a letter dated May 16, 1779, written
from a Massachusetts seaport:
“Privateering was never more in vogue than at present; two or three
privateers sail every week from this port, and men seem as plenty
as grasshoppers in the field; no vessel being detained an hour for
want of them. We have near 1,000 prisoners on board the guard-ships
in Boston, and a great balance due us from the enemy. Cruisers from
New York, &c are daily brought in, and often by vessels of inferior
force; our privateersmen being as confident of victory, when upon an
equal footing with the English, as these were of gaining it of the
French in the last war.”[417]
The rivalry between the state service and the privateers for
seamen was exceedingly active. The latter service was always the
more popular. In 1779 the Council recommended that some effectual
measures be taken to prevent the owners of private ships of war and
merchantmen from seducing seamen away that were engaged in the public
service. It declared that proper encouragement must be given to state
officers and seamen, and that commanders must have the aid of the
government in manning their vessels, “or they will lie by the Walls
and so be of little or no service.”[418] In 1778 the General Court
found some difficulty in securing commanders.
The movements of the armed vessels of the Massachusetts navy
are quite similar to the movements of the naval vessels of
Congress.[419] The smaller fleet like the larger cruised in European
waters, in the region of the West Indies, and to the eastward of
the Bermudas in the path of the richly-laden West Indiamen. The
Massachusetts vessels, however, cruised more frequently nearer home.
About the first of June, 1779, the “Hazard” and “Tyrannicide” were
in the region of Nantucket. After 1779 the vessels were frequently
ordered to protect the Eastern Coast. In the spring of 1777 the
“Tyrannicide,” Captain Jonathan Haraden, “Massachusetts,” Captain
John Fisk, and “Freedom,” Captain John Clouston, cruised eastward as
far as the coasts of France and Spain, capturing some twenty-five
prizes, many of which however, were recaptured by the British.[420]
This was a most fortunate venture, for all told one can not now count
more than seventy prizes captured by the Massachusetts navy. In the
summer of 1780 the Board of War turned over the “Mars,” Captain
Simeon Samson, to the Massachusetts Committee for Foreign Affairs
which sent her to France and Holland for supplies.