The Navy of the American Revolution

The University of Chicago FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
The Navy of the American Revolution
Its Administration, its Policy and its Achievements
A DISSERTATION
Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature In Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History
By CHARLES OSCAR PAULLIN CHICAGO 1906
Copyright, 1906 by The Burrows Brothers Company REPUBLICAN PRINTING COMPANY CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
Several narrative accounts of the navy of the American Revolution have been written. These usually form the introductory part of a history of the American Navy since 1789. The earliest of these accounts is that of Thomas Clark, published in 1814, and probably the best that of James Fenimore Cooper, first printed in 1839. Later narratives are rather more popular than Cooper’s. Many sources of information, which were not accessible to the earlier writers, and were not much used by the later, were drawn upon in the writing of this book. Moreover, the information that is here presented is of a somewhat different sort from that of previous writers; and the method of treatment is new.
This book is written from the point of view of the naval administrators; hitherto, historians have written from the point of view of the naval officers. Their narratives treat almost exclusively of the doings at sea, the movements of armed vessels, and the details of sea fights. They have the advantage of dealing primarily with picturesque, and sometimes dramatic, events. Their accounts, however, lack unity, since they consist of a series of detached incidents.
In the first place an attempt has been here made to restore the naval administrative machinery of the Revolution. The center of this narrative is the origin, organization, and work of naval committees, secretaries of marine, navy boards, and naval agents. Next, inasmuch as the men who served as naval executives administered the laws relating to naval affairs, and indeed often prepared these laws before their adoption by the legislative authorities, it was thought best to give a fairly complete resume of the naval legislation of the Revolution. Those laws with which the naval administrators were chiefly concerned have received most attention. The legislation with reference to prize courts and privateering has been treated more briefly. As the privateers do not, properly speaking, form a part of the Revolutionary navy, no attempt to write their history has been made. In order that the subject may be seen in its true relations, some statistics and other interesting facts concerning this industry have, however, been introduced. An account of the State Navies is now given for the first time.