The Navy of the American Revolution

by Charles Oscar Paullin

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.