Rebels at sea, p.5
Rebels at Sea, page 5
The battle lasted about a half hour before the British retreated, with one British longboat capsized and seven men killed. On the American side, only one other man besides Mugford lost his life. A few days later, the New-England Chronicle, commenting on Mugford’s burial in Marblehead, wrote that he had “left this honor to embalm his memory, that he made as brave and vigorous a stand in defense of American Liberty as any among the living can boast of.”
Washington’s navy was more of an ad hoc creation than a true Continental navy. Congress had first considered the possibility of a Continental navy over the summer of 1775, but rather than move ahead, it had decided to urge the colonies to send out armed vessels themselves. Yet the calculus soon changed. The Royal Navy had continued harassing and seizing colonial vessels, the British army’s grip on Boston showed no sign of loosening, and any hope of reconciliation with the mother country was receding.
Two other developments contributed to the momentum for a Continental navy: a request from Rhode Island and a delivery from one John Barry. Although Rhode Island’s new, two-vessel navy managed to capture the HMS Rose’s tender, it didn’t stand a chance against the warship itself, which was blockading Narragansett Bay, sending the local economy into free fall. On August 26 the Rhode Island General Assembly resolved “that the building and equipping an American fleet, as soon as possible, would greatly and essentially conduce to the preservation of the lives, liberty and property of the good people of these colonies.” The assembly instructed its delegates “to use their whole influence” to convince Congress to build “at Continental expense a fleet of sufficient force, for the protection” of the colonies and to “annoy our enemies.” The Rhode Island delegates waited until October 3 to raise the issue in Congress, and it was quickly tabled and scheduled for later debate. But then Barry, captain of the merchantman Black Prince, sailed into Philadelphia with valuable intelligence.
On October 5, Barry delivered to Congress letters from London that told of two British brigs sailing from London to Quebec with military supplies and no convoy to protect them. Congress appointed a committee to decide what to do. The committee reported back at lightning speed the same day recommending that Washington ask the Massachusetts General Court for two armed vessels to capture the British brigs so that the army could secure the desperately needed munitions. Committee member John Adams noted that the opposition to the recommended action was “very loud and vehement,” arguing that sending out armed ships against Britain was “the most wild, visionary, mad project that ever had been imagined. It was an infant, taking a mad bull by his horns.”
The opposition had a point. It was a bold move for the rebellious Americans to even consider confronting the Royal Navy on the open sea. As James Thomson’s 1736 poem Liberty proclaimed, “The winds and seas are Britain’s wide domain; and not a sail, but by permission, spreads.” The British Seaman’s Vade-Mecum, published in 1744, stated with considerable justification “that the monarchs of Great Britain have a peculiar and sovereign authority upon the ocean.” Nothing had changed by the outbreak of the Revolution. With 270 warships, 131 of which were ships of the line carrying 60 or more cannons apiece, the British could back up their arrogance. Even though many of those warships were not in the best condition due to neglect since the end of the Seven Years’ War—quite a few were unfit for duty—it was an accepted truth that there was no naval force in the world that could take on Britain. Certainly, most observers believed, the upstart Americans with no naval force at all at the war’s beginning didn’t stand a chance.
Despite the serious opposition to the committee’s proposal, Congress passed a resolution adopting its recommendations, adding that any commissioned vessels would be “on the continental risk and pay,” and that their crews would be entitled to one-half of the value of any prizes taken. In the end, the expedition to capture the British brigs came up empty, but it did have the effect of prompting Congress to think more seriously about establishing a navy. The day after the resolution passed, the same committee came out with another report, this one encouraging Congress to outfit two armed vessels to prowl the eastern Atlantic to capture any ships supplying British forces in Boston. This, plus Rhode Island’s resolution asking Congress to build an “American fleet,” ignited a more heated debate over the need for a Continental navy.
Proponents said it was high time that Congress establish a navy, while the opposition continued to think it was an unwise if not insane notion. Samuel Chase, a delegate from Maryland, contended that “it is the maddest idea in the world, to think of building an American fleet. Its latitude is wonderful. We should mortgage the whole continent.” Then, on October 13, a letter from Washington arrived that changed everything.
The letter revealed to Congress the existence of the general’s private navy. Congress was quite surprised, but because Washington had already plunged ahead on his own initiative, it decided to follow his lead. That same day, it adopted the committee’s latest recommendation and authorized the fitting out of two armed vessels, with eighty men each, to seize ships transporting military and other supplies to the British. Congress established another committee to prepare an estimate of the cost of purchasing and supplying the vessels. Since this was the first time that Congress had approved the fitting out of armed vessels to confront the enemy, October 13, 1775, is considered the official birth date of the American Navy.
The second committee’s report on costs landed on October 30, and that day Congress voted to move ahead with the purchasing and fitting out of four armed vessels (the two original and two more). Over the next few months, the Continental navy expanded and was more formally organized. Congress authorized the construction of thirteen frigates,¶ at the staggering and unusually specific cost of $866,666.66, designated committees to oversee construction of the frigates and the operation of the navy, and established regulations for naval operations. Those regulations initially restricted naval captures to British vessels of war and transports—British commercial vessels were not fair game—and authorized vice admiralty courts to adjudicate the disposition of prizes. The regulations also set the pay rates for naval personnel and gave them a stake in the action, much like that given to privateers, though the cut was smaller. Whereas the owners and the officers and crews of privateers shared 100 percent of the proceeds of prizes, the officers and crews of naval vessels shared one-half of all warships captured, and one-third of transport vessels, with the rest going to Congress, for the use of the United Colonies, which was what Congress called the emerging nation before independence was declared. In October 1776, the split for naval vessels was changed to make Continental service more lucrative. From that point forward, the officers and crews would receive 100 percent for warships and British privateers, and one-half of all other prizes. It was hoped that the enhanced financial rewards would not only encourage more men to enlist in the navy but also increase the chances that naval ships would actually attack heavily armed British warships and privateers.
Model of the Continental frigate Raleigh, thirty-two guns, one of the vessels that the Continental Congress had built for the navy. It was launched in May 1776.
Well aware that many in the colonies still hoped for reconciliation with Britain, Congress presented the new navy as a defensive measure that was amply justified by British aggression. Even as they were creating a navy together, the colonies received news that made it clear that such aggression would worsen. On November 9, word arrived in America that King George had not only rejected the Olive Branch Petition but refused to receive it. About the same time, Congress learned of the king’s Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, issued August 23, 1775, in which he said that the colonies were in “open and avowed rebellion, by arraying themselves in hostile manner to withstand the execution of the law, and traitorously preparing, ordering, and levying war against us.” Furthermore, the king urged his officers, civil and military, “to exert their utmost endeavors to suppress such rebellion, and to bring the traitors to justice.”
By early 1776, the upstart Americans had made considerable progress in taking the fight to sea. Between state navies, Washington’s navy, privateers from some individual colonies, and the nascent Continental navy, the colonies were demonstrating their maritime creativity and potency. But one major feature of their maritime strategy was conspicuous in its absence: privateers commissioned by Congress.
Delegates had received many entreaties urging them to pursue this course. In late November 1775, for example, Simeon Deane, a Connecticut merchant, wrote to Silas, his brother and a congressional delegate, “I am desired by a number of gentlemen here, to ask, through your influence, whether the Congress will grant commission to private adventurers to fit out a privateer or privateers to take British property on this coast, or in the West Indies.” Just over a week later, William Cooper, a member of the Sons of Liberty# and the town clerk for Boston, wrote to John Adams to complain about Congress’s inaction. “Is a sea coast of above 2,000 Miles extent from whence two hundred sail of privateers might this winter . . . be launched out upon the British trade, still [to] be held in a state of neutrality under a notion that we are opposing [the North] Ministry & not the people of Britain, while our enemies are employing the whole force of the Nation to plunder and ruin us?” By failing to use all of the maritime tools available to it, Congress was, in Cooper’s eyes, hobbling the American cause. “I some time ago ventured a prophesy,” Cooper told Adams, “that it would not be long before we realized our importance as a maritime power, and the success attending our first naval enterprises, are very encouraging presages of what is yet to come, but if weak nerves and large estates should operate to the preventing the whole force of the colonies being exerted against the common enemy, the issue of so unequal and unheard of a war, may be easily augured.”
Fortunately for Cooper and many others who held similar views, Congress did not remain silent on the subject of privateering for very long.
* George contracted smallpox on the island and then quickly recovered before his return voyage, without Lawrence, early the following year. As for Lawrence, he continued to deteriorate, and died in July 1752, just a short time after returning to Virginia.
† The Hannah inaugurated an ongoing argument about which town or city can claim to be the “birthplace of the American navy.” Two of the main contenders are Marblehead and Beverly. The Hannah was owned and manned by Marbleheaders, giving that town standing. However, the Hannah was outfitted for its mission in and sailed from Beverly, which is the basis for its claim to the title. But Providence also has a claim, given its launch of the Katy and the Washington, and so too does Machias, Maine, from which Jeremiah O’Brien and Benjamin Foster left to battle the Margaretta. But as will become clear later on in this book, Philadelphia has, arguably, the strongest claim, because that is where the Continental Congress was when it decided to officially launch the first phase of the true “Continental navy,” on October 13, 1775. This debate won’t be settled here, because there really is no way to settle it once and for all, since historians use different criteria to support their preferred candidate. So the best thing is for all of these locales to be justifiably proud of their contributions to the revolutionary cause, regardless of whether any of them is in fact “the birthplace.”
‡ The town of Winthrop, adjoining Boston, used to be called Pulling Point and Pulling Point Gut, and later Shirley Gut; it is gone, filled in by the causeway to the Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant.
§ During the War of 1812, Captain James Lawrence of the United States Navy, in an engagement between his ship, Chesapeake, and the HMS Shannon, found himself on the losing side. Just before dying from a sharpshooter’s bullet, his last command to his crew was reportedly, “Don’t give up the ship.” It appears that Mugford beat him to the rhetorical punch, although “ship” does sound better than “vessel.” The phrase “Don’t give up the ship” later became the unofficial motto of the navy.
¶ Five were to be outfitted with thirty-two guns apiece, five with twenty-eight, and three with twenty-four.
# A grassroots group that employed civil disobedience and, at times, violence to assert/defend/advance American rights and attack/defy/resist British policies/rule, especially the imposition of tax policies, most notably the Stamp Act.
CHAPTER
3
All In
Letter of marque issued on October 24, 1776, to James Powell, commander of the thirty-ton schooner Northampton, signed by John Hancock.
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News of the latest salvo from Parliament reached America in February 1776, sending shock waves throughout the colonies. This was the Prohibitory Act, passed in late December. John Adams called it “a complete dismemberment of the British Empire. It throws thirteen colonies out of the royal protection, levels all distinctions, and makes us independent in spite of our supplications and entreaties. It may be fortunate that the Act of Independency [as it was called by many] should come from the British Parliament, rather than the American Congress; but it is very odd that Americans should hesitate at accepting such a gift from them.”
The Prohibitory Act completely cut off trade between the American colonies and Britain and its other colonies, left all colonial vessels vulnerable to seizure by British ships, and made it lawful for British naval officers to impress American sailors onto their ships. In effect a blockade of American shipping, the act was nothing less than a declaration of economic warfare intended to hobble the colonies amid the expanding conflict.
As Adams feared, Congress hesitated in reaction to the act. But while independence would have to wait, privateering wouldn’t. When the merchants and other leading citizens of Philadelphia sent a petition to Congress in late February, asking for permission to “fit out privateers, and make reprisals on all British vessels,” Congress was now receptive to the idea.* Reflecting on the petition’s merits, New Hampshire delegate Josiah Bartlett opined, “It seems very hard that Britain is seizing all American vessels and the Americans are not permitted to return the compliment.” He also noted that the Prohibitory Act “had altered the minds of” those in Congress who had come to view privateering in a very favorable light. Oliver Wolcott, a delegate from Connecticut, was more succinct. Since the act had effectively cast the colonies out of the paternal embrace of empire, Wolcott said, “it behooves us therefore to take care of ourselves.”
The privateering debate soon commenced. Although a few delegates were wary of its authorization, the vast majority were strongly in favor of it. The only real sticking point concerned the language in the preamble of the resulting resolution, as the issue of privateering had raised a much larger problem. On March 22, an amendment was offered “wherein the King was made the author of our miseries instead of the ministry.” While Adams and many other of the more radical delegates had long believed that the king, along with the ministry, was culpable, blaming the monarchy for the colonies’ woes remained an explosive move. More than a few of the moderate delegates still clung fiercely to the idea that the colonies were fighting Parliament and not the king.
For four hours the delegates argued over the amendment. Opponents claimed that the language “was effectually severing the King from us forever,” which was, as they saw it, tantamount to a declaration of independence. Congress, however, was not ready to take such a bold stance, so the amendment to the preamble was vetoed. The very next day, March 23, 1776, Congress passed the privateering resolution into law.
Detail of an engraving entitled An east prospect of the city of Philadelphia, by Thomas Jefferys, 1771.
The preamble in the final resolution blamed the British fleets and armies for prosecuting “an unjust war . . . in a cruel manner,” and it singled out the Prohibitory Act as being particularly injurious. Congress concluded that it was “manifest that the iniquitous scheme, concerted to deprive” the colonies “of the liberty they have a right to by the laws of nature and the English Constitution, will be pertinaciously pursued.” Congress had no alternative but to “provide for their defense and security” by authorizing the colonies to fit out privateers to cruise against the enemy.
The Prohibitory Act had declared all colonial vessels fair game; Congress now returned the favor. Privateers were free to capture any British vessel, not just those that were delivering supplies to British forces in America. (Later, neutral ships carrying goods bound for British use were also deemed acceptable targets). About the same time, Congress also unleashed Continental navy ships, allowing them to attack all British vessels as well as neutral ships carrying British supplies.
Privateers were required to bring their captures before courts of vice admiralty established in various ports, where the vessels and their cargo would be libeled, or have a suit brought against them, to determine whether they were lawful prizes. If the capture was not a lawful prize, it would be returned to its owners. If it was a lawful prize, the privateer owners and the privateersmen split all of the prize money, minus the cost of the trial.
Instructions to privateers issued on April 3, 1776, “By Order of Congress,” and signed “John Hancock, President.”
Adams rejoiced over the privateering resolution. On the day it passed, he wrote to Brigadier General Horatio Gates, who served as the adjutant general of the Continental army, with the good news. “We have hitherto conducted half a war. . . . But you will see by tomorrow’s paper that, for the future, we are likely to wage three-quarters of a war. The Continental ships-of-war, and the Provincial ships-of-war [the state navies], and letters of marque and privateers, are permitted to cruise on British property, wherever found on the ocean.” However, before the law could go into effect, Congress needed to spell out the regulations governing privateers. It did so on April 3.
