The Navy of the American Revolution

by Charles Oscar Paullin

FOOTNOTES:

[469] Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, X, Minutes of Committee of Safety, July 4, 6, 8, 1775.

[470] Pennsylvania Archives 2nd, I, 246; Wallace’s William Bradford, 203.

[471] Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, X, Minutes of Committee of Safety, August 26, September 1, October 2, 12, 16, 23, November 6, 1775. See also the Minutes of the Committee of Safety for each day of this period.

[472] Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, X, Minutes of Committee of Safety, August 29, 1775.

[473] Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, X, Minutes of Committee of Safety, November 7, November 10, 1775.

[474] Ibid., December 28, 1775; Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd, I, 248, note.

[475] Pennsylvania Archives, 1st, V, 3-5. The names of the thirteen galleys were as follows: “Bull Dog,” “Burke,” “Camden,” “Chatham,” “Congress,” “Dickinson,” “Experiment,” “Effingham,” “Franklin,” “Hancock,” “Ranger,” “Warren,” and “Washington.” The “Delaware” and “Convention” were at times referred to as galleys.

[476] Pennsylvania Archives, 1st, V, 46; 2nd, I, Minutes of Pennsylvania Navy Board, May 29, 1777; 2nd, I, 251.

[477] Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, X, Minutes of Committee of Safety, July 2, 1776; Proceedings of Provincial Conference of Committees of Pennsylvania, June 23, June 24, 1776.

[478] Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, X, Minutes of Council of Safety, August 22, August 27, 1776.

[479] Ibid., XI, Minutes of Supreme Executive Council, September 6, 1777.

[480] Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, XI, Minutes of Council of Safety, February 22, 1777.

[481] Ibid., Minutes of Supreme Executive Council, June 25, 1777.

[482] Ibid., X, Minutes of Committee of Safety, February 4, 1776.

[483] Ibid., XI, Minutes of Council of Safety, February 13, February 19, 1777.

[484] Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, XI, Minutes of Supreme Executive Council, March 13, 1777. The members of the Navy Board as constituted by the Supreme Executive Council were as follows: Andrew Caldwell, Joseph Blewer, Joseph Marsh, Emanuel Eyre, Robert Ritchie, Paul Cox, Samuel Massey, William Bradford, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Samuel Morris, jr., and Thomas Barclay.

[485] Captains Nicholas Biddle, Thomas Read and Charles Alexander, and Lieutenant James Josiah resigned from the Pennsylvania navy to enter the Continental navy.

[486] Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd, I, 416-24.

[487] Wallace’s William Bradford, 252-53, 366-67; Pennsylvania Archives, 1st, VI, 21, 47-50.

[488] Pennsylvania Archives, 1st, V, 663, 721; VI, 235; VII, 165.

[489] Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd, I, 425-31.

[490] Pennsylvania Archives, 1st, VI, 204.

[491] Ibid., 332-33.

[492] Almon’s Remembrancer, 1778, 148-50.

[493] Scharf and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, I, 300.

[494] Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, XI, Minutes of Supreme Executive Council, August 14, August 16, December 9, 1778. The capture of the sloop “Active” by the “Convention” in the fall of 1778, gave rise to the most celebrated prize case of the Revolution.—Jameson, Essays in Constitutional History of United States, 17-21.

[495] Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd, I, 255.

[496] Pennsylvania Archives, 1st, VII, 320, 476; Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, XI, 724, 750; XII, 150; Scharf and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, I, 403.

[497] J. F. Jameson, Essays in Constitutional History of United States, 9.

[498] Laws of Pennsylvania, September 9, 1778, March 8, 1780.

[499] Ibid., September 17, 1777; March 1, 1780.

[500] Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd, I, 388-402.

[501] Scharf and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, I, 421-22.

[502] Laws of Pennsylvania, April 9, April 15, 1782; Mary Barney, Memoirs of Commodore Barney, 303-04. Pennsylvania Archives, 1st, IX, 531-32. The three Commissioners were John Patton, Francis Gurney, and William Allibone.

[503] Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, XIII, Minutes of Supreme Executive Council, December 6, 1782.

[504] Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd, I, 256.

[505] Ibid., 1st, X, 26.

CHAPTER XIV
THE NAVY OF VIRGINIA

In July, 1775, Virginia began to raise and officer an army of more than one thousand men. By fall Lord Dunmore, the Provincial Governor of Virginia, who in June had retreated to His Majesty’s ship “Fowey” at Yorktown, had collected a small flotilla, and had begun a series of desultory attacks upon the river banks of Virginia. On October 25 he was repulsed at Hampton; on December 9 he was beaten by the Virginia patriots at Great Ridge; and on January 1 he burned Norfolk. His movements excited so much alarm that the leading patriot families on the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac rivers retreated inland for safety. In order to prevent the depredations of Lord Dunmore, and to provide effectually for the general defence of the state, the Virginia Provincial Convention in December authorized the Committee of Safety of the state “to provide from time to time such and so many armed vessels as they may judge necessary for the protection of the several rivers in this colony, in the best manner the circumstances of the country will admit.” The Committee of Safety was further directed to raise a sufficient number of officers, sailors, and marines; and settle their pay, which was not to exceed certain specified rates. The maximum wage of “the chief commander of the whole as commodore” was fixed at fifteen shillings a day.[506]

Between December, 1775, and July, 1776, the Committee of Safety procured and established a small navy. On April 1 it fixed the naval pay, generally at the maximum rates permitted. Captains in the navy were to receive a daily wage of 8s.; captains of marines, 6s.; midshipmen, 3s.; marines, 1s., 6d. The Committee resolved that two years ought to be a maximum period of service. It appointed a number of the most prominent officers in the Virginia navy, among whom were Captains James Barron, Richard Barron, Richard Taylor, Thomas Lilly, and Edward Travis. It fixed the relative rank between army and navy officers. It purchased the boats “Liberty” and “Patriot,” the brigs “Liberty” and “Adventure,” and the schooner “Adventure.” It contracted for the construction of a number of galleys on the different rivers of the state.[507]

George Mason and John Dalton were appointed a committee to build two row-galleys, and buy three cutters for the defence of the Potomac. In April, 1776, Mason wrote that the galleys were well under way, and that three small vessels had been purchased, of which the largest was a fine stout craft of about 110 tons burden, mounting fourteen 8’s and 4’s, carrying ninety-six men, and named the “American Congress.” A company of marines for this vessel, he said, were being exercised in the use of the great guns.[508] The Committee of Safety chose a “Lieutenant of Marines in the Potomac river Department.”

The Provincial Convention of Virginia, which met at Williamsburg on May 6, 1776, being convinced that the naval preparations would be conducted more expeditiously and successfully if proper persons were appointed to superintend and direct the same, chose a Board of Naval Commissioners, consisting of five persons.[509] The Board was authorized to appoint a clerk and assistants, and to elect from their membership a First Commissioner of the Navy—the title of a well-known officer in the English naval service. No member of the Board could sit in the legislature or hold a military office. Each Commissioner was to receive twenty shillings a day, when employed. On the depreciation of the currency this was doubled.[510] A majority of the Board constituted a quorum. Thomas Whiting served as First Commissioner of the Board throughout its existence.

In general, the business of the Navy Board was “to superintend and direct all matters and things to the navy relating.” It had charge of the building, purchase, fitting, arming, provisioning, and repairing of all armed vessels and transports. It had charge of the shipyards and the public rope-walk. In case of vacancies in the navy or marines it recommended officers to the Governor and Council. It could suspend an officer for neglect of duty or for misbehavior. It was to keep itself informed on the state of the navy through reports from the naval officers. It was authorized to draw warrants on the treasury for money expended in the naval department, and to audit the naval accounts.

The Navy Board had charge of naval affairs in Virginia for three years, from the summer of 1776 until the summer of 1779. During 1776 and 1777 vessels were built on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, on the Potomac, Rappahannock, Mattapony, Chickahominy, and James rivers, and at Portsmouth, Gosport, and South Quay. After 1777 vessels were chiefly built at the Chickahominy and Gosport shipyards. No other state owned so much land, property, and manufactories, devoted to naval purposes, as Virginia. In April, 1777, the Navy Board purchased 115 acres of land, for £595, on the Chickahominy, twelve miles from its confluence with the James.[511] On this site was located the Chickahominy shipyard. Virginia’s ships found here a safer retreat than at Gosport, which lay convenient for the enemy’s ships. It is said that before the Revolution the British had established a marine yard at Gosport, and named it for Gosport, England, where many supplies for the Royal Navy were manufactured. In some way Virginia came into possession of the shipyard at this place.[512] Two ships were built for the defence of Ocracoke Inlet, the chief entrance to Albemarle Sound, at South Quay, on the Blackwater, a few miles north of the North Carolina line.

At Warwick, on the James, a few miles below Richmond, the state built and operated a rope-walk. The state owned a manufactory of sail-duck and a foundry. In July, 1776, four naval magazines were established, one each for the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac rivers. For each magazine one or two agents were appointed to collect and issue provisions, ships’ supplies, and naval stores.[513] For the location of the magazine on the Potomac the General Assembly authorized the Navy Board to purchase an acre of land at the head of “Potomack Creek.”[514] In January, 1777, the Navy Board appointed James Maxwell, Naval Agent, to superintend the shipyards, and the building, rigging, equipping, and repairing of the naval vessels. He was to follow the instructions of the Board, and keep it informed on the state of the navy.[515] Maxwell’s annual salary was £300, payable quarterly. He lived at the Chickahominy shipyard.

Virginia had a naval staff consisting of pay masters, muster masters, surgeons, and chaplains. The captains and recruiting officers enlisted seamen. Their task was rendered difficult, not so much because of the superior attractions of privateering, as in New England, as because of the small number of seamen resident in the state. The first commodore of the Virginia navy was John Henry Boucher. He was serving as lieutenant in the Maryland navy, when, in March, 1776, Virginia called him to the command of her Potomac fleet, and soon promoted him to the head of her navy.[516] He served as commodore for only a few months, resigning in November, 1776. Walter Brooke was commodore from April, 1777, until September, 1778. Brooke’s successor, James Barron, was not appointed until July, 1780; he served until the end of the war. The commodore of the navy made his headquarters regularly at or about Hampton, and superintended the armed vessels in that part of the state.[517]

In Virginia, as in the other states and in the Continental Congress, naval enthusiasm and interest was at its height in 1776. In the fall the Navy Board contracted for the building of twenty-four small transports.[518] The General Assembly in its October session authorized the Navy Board to construct two frigates of thirty-two guns each, and four large galleys, adapted “for river or sea service.” For manning these galleys and those already building, the Navy Board was empowered to raise thirteen hundred men, exclusive of officers, to serve three years from March 3, 1777. It was to recommend proper officers to the Governor and Council. Having been commissioned by the Governor, the officers were to enlist the crews for their respective galleys. Since to secure a sufficient number of experienced seamen would be impossible, it was provided that each crew should consist of three classes of men: able seamen, at a daily wage of 3s.; ordinary seamen, at 2s.; and common landsmen, at 1s., 6d. As the men in the second and third classes became proficient, they were to be promoted. Every recruit was given a bounty of $20.[519]

The Provincial Convention, in its December session in 1775, erected a Court of Admiralty, consisting of three judges, to enforce the Continental Association against trading with England. In its May session in 1776, it gave this court jurisdiction over all captures of the enemy’s vessels. The General Assembly, at its October session in 1776, superseded all previous admiralty legislation by an “Act for Establishing a Court of Admiralty.” Such court was to consist of three judges, elected by joint ballot of the two houses of the General Assembly. The judges were to hold their offices “for so long time as they shall demean themselves well therein.” The court, which was to be held at some place to be fixed by the General Assembly, was to have cognizance of “all causes heretofore of admiralty jurisdiction in this country.” Its proceedings and decisions were to be governed by the regulations of the Continental Congress, the acts of the General Assembly of Virginia, the English statutes prior to the fourth year of the reign of James, and by the laws of Oleron and the Rhodian and Imperial laws, so far as they have been heretofore observed in the English courts of admiralty. In cases which related to captures from a public enemy with whom the United States should be at war, and in which a conflict should arise between the regulations of Congress and the acts of the General Assembly, the regulations of Congress should take precedence; in all other cases of conflict, the acts of Virginia were to prevail. This provision is of particular interest. It is one of the first instances in which a state recognized the superiority of federal law when in conflict with state law. Virginia was liberal in granting appeals to Congress, as she permitted them in all cases of the capture of the enemy’s vessels.[520]

The Admiralty Court of Virginia tried few prize cases. Governor Thomas Jefferson in writing to the President of Congress in June, 1779, no doubt understates the truth when he says that “a British prize would be a more rare phenomenon here than a comet, because one has been seen, but the other never was.” His state, he said, had long suffered from a lack of blank letters of marque, and he wished fifty to be sent to him.[521] Virginia did not establish state privateering, but followed the regulations of Congress on the subject. Because of the lack of seamen and the continual presence of the enemy’s vessels at the mouths of the Virginia rivers, the privateering interest was not important in this state.

The Navy Board superintended both the trading and armed vessels of the state until April, 1777, when the trading vessels were placed in charge of William Aylett.[522] Writers on the Virginia navy have not, as a rule, distinguished one class of vessels from the other, nor is it always easy to do so. During 1776 seven vessels were employed chiefly in commerce.[523] In the fall, most of them were ordered to the West Indies with cargoes of flour and tobacco; one, the brig “Adventure,” was directed to proceed to Dunkirk, France. The armed fleet for 1776 consisted of sixteen small craft adapted chiefly for service in the rivers of Virginia and in Chesapeake Bay.[524] In 1777 the galleys “Accomac” and “Diligence” were built and stationed on the Eastern Shore; and the ships “Caswell” and “Washington” were built at South Quay on the Blackwater, for the defence of Ocracoke Inlet, which Virginia was undertaking jointly with North Carolina. Besides these four vessels, two brigs, one armed boat, and the ships “Gloucester,” “Protector,” “Dragon,” and “Tartar,” were this year added to the navy. In 1778 an armed boat and the ships “Tempest” and “Thetis” were built; and in 1779 two armed boats, the brig “Jefferson” and the ship “Virginia,” were added.[525]

This fleet is formidable only in its enumeration. It was poorly armed, incompletely manned, and in almost every respect ill fitted for service. But few of its vessels went beyond the Chesapeake Bay. It showed most activity during 1776 and the spring of 1777. From 1775 until 1779 fifteen small prizes were captured. In May, 1776, Captain Taylor seized four small merchantmen; in June, one of the Barrons brought up to Jamestown the transport “Oxford,” with 220 Highlanders on board; in the spring of 1777 the “Mosquito,” Captain Harris, carried into St. Pierre the ship “Noble,” valued at 75,000 livres; and a few months earlier the brig “Liberty” captured the ship “Jane,” whose cargo of West India goods was valued at £6,000. These were the most fortunate captures made by the Virginia navy.[526]

Virginia’s naval craft met with the usual misfortunes. During the first half of 1777 His Majesty’s ship “Ariadne” captured the “Mosquito.” About the same time the frigate “Phœnix” took the “Raleigh.” The British made two raids into Virginia which were destructive both to the shipping of the state and to private individuals. The first was ordered by Clinton in the spring of 1779; the troops were under the command of Matthews and Collier. At the Gosport shipyard they destroyed five uncompleted vessels, three of which were frigates, besides a large quantity of masts, yards, timber, plank, iron, and other ships’ stores. The shipyards on the Nansemond were looted; and twenty-two vessels with a considerable quantity of powder were taken or destroyed on the “South Branch of the navy.” Suffolk was burned, and upwards of two thousand barrels of Continental pork and fifteen hundred barrels of flour were destroyed. In all one hundred and thirty vessels were burned.[527] The raid of Arnold and Phillips will be considered later.

The General Assembly at its May session in 1779 discontinued the Navy Board, and vested its strictly naval duties with the newly created Board of War, consisting of five members. The Board of War was empowered to appoint a Naval Commissioner. A Board of Trade was now given charge of the trading vessels of the state, and of the state manufactories of military supplies.[528]

The General Assembly in its May session, 1780, “for the purpose of introducing oeconomy into all the various departments of government, and for conducting the publick business with the greatest expedition,” abolished the Boards of War and Trade, and authorized the Governor to appoint a Commissioner of War, a Commercial Agent, and coördinate with these two, a Commissioner of the Navy. This act is the outgrowth of the same movement for economy and efficiency in administration, which resulted in the establishment in January and February, 1781, of the single-headed executive departments of the Continental Congress. The salary of the Commissioner of the Navy was fixed at thirty thousand pounds of tobacco a year, and that of his clerk at ten thousand pounds.[529] The Commissioner was to be under the “controul and direction of the governour and council.” Governor Jefferson appointed James Maxwell, the naval agent under the Navy Board, Commissioner of the Navy.

The General Assembly in the May session of 1779, as an inducement to enlistment, granted seamen and marines additional bounties and pensions. Recruits entering for the rest of the war were now to receive $750 and one hundred acres of land. They were to be furnished upon enlistment, and once a year thereafterwards, with a complete suit of clothes. Naval officers were entitled to a “grant of the like quantity of lands as is allowed to officers of the same rank in the Virginia regiments on continental establishment.” Disabled sailors and the widows of the slain were entitled to immediate relief, and an annual pension. At the October session of this year, moved by the need for money and the impossibility of fitting out the whole fleet, the General Assembly ordered the governor to sell nine of the armed vessels, and to equip and man the remaining six with all diligence. For some reason the governor did not carry out the order. There was probably little market for the vessels.[530]

The years 1780 and 1781 were marked by a renewed naval activity in Virginia. It is recalled that the theater of war had now shifted to the Southern states. Savannah was in the hands of the enemy. Charleston surrendered in May, 1780. By the fall of that year the lowlands of the states to the south of Virginia were generally in the possession of the British. Apparently Virginia would be the next to feel the rough hand of the conquering enemy. British privateers and naval craft lay off the mouths of the Virginia rivers, and captured all her vessels that ventured towards the Bay or the sea. Early in 1780 it was apprehended that the enemy meditated an invasion of the coasts of the state.

When the General Assembly came together in May, 1780, it at once took measures for the protection of the coasts. It passed “an act for putting the eastern frontier of this commonwealth into a posture of defence.” This act, after providing for calling out the militia in the seaport counties, ordered the Governor and Council to direct the Commissioner of the Navy to immediately make ready for service in the Bay and on the seacoast the ships “Thetis,” “Tempest,” and “Dragon,” the brig “Jefferson,” and the galleys “Henry,” “Accomac,” and “Diligence.” Three hundred marines, to be commanded by five captains and fifteen lieutenants, were to be recruited. Marines and sailors who enlisted for three years were to receive a bounty of $1,000. Naval officers were put upon the same footing in regard to pay, rations, and privileges as officers of the same rank in the land service.[531]

When the Legislature came together in October, since the situation was still more critical, it was moved to pass an additional act for the defence of the seacoast. This act shows that the navy was in sore need for seamen and money. It provided drastic measures to obtain both. Naval officers were now authorized, under certain restrictions and limitations, to impress seamen. The eastern counties of the state were directed to bind to the sea, “under the most prudent captains that can be procured to take them,” one-half of all orphans of certain descriptions living below the falls of the Virginia rivers. A hospital for seamen was established at Hampton, to be maintained by a tax of nine pence a month on the salaries of all mariners and seamen in either the navy or the merchant service of the state. Officers and seamen were given the whole of their captures; and still other inducements to enlistment by way of pay and clothing were held out.

Two new galleys, of the same construction as those built by Congress in 1776, carrying two 32’s at the bow and at the stern, and 6’s at the sides, were ordered for the defence of the Chesapeake. Five vessels of the state fleet were to be immediately made ready for service; and all the other naval vessels were to be sold and the proceeds devoted to naval purposes. For the use of the navy import duties were laid upon rum, gin, brandy, and other spirits; on wine, molasses and sugar; and on all imported dry goods, except salt, munitions of war, and iron from Maryland. Tonnage was laid upon merchant vessels. Despite these efforts few seamen and little money were raised, and the fleet during 1780 accomplished almost nothing.[532]

The salient event in the history of the Virginia navy in 1781 was the invasion of Arnold and Phillips during the first half of the year. Arnold was first reported on the coast of Virginia on December 29, 1780, when his fleet consisting of twenty-seven sail was seen at Willoughby Point.[533] Governor Jefferson began at once to make strenuous efforts to get the Virginia fleet in condition to oppose Arnold. The role of admiral was an odd one for Jefferson. In February he sent Benjamin Harrison, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, to Philadelphia to request of the French minister the aid of the French fleet.[534] A half-dozen or more privateers were taken into the service of the state. Twelve vessels of the state fleet of 1776-1779 still remained. Most if not all of these vessels were either at the Chickahominy shipyard and near by on the James, or else at the mouth of the James. Few of them were sufficiently manned to render much service. On April 26 Maxwell reported 78 men on board seven vessels, whose complement was 520 men. Other ships had neither arms nor men.[535]

In April, 1781, Arnold and Phillips made their raid up the James, penetrating as far as Richmond. On April 21 and 22, a detachment under Lieutenant-Colonel Abercrombie destroyed the shipyard on the Chickahominy, including a number of naval craft and the warehouses. On April 27, at Osbornes on the James a few miles below Richmond, the Virginia fleet, supported by two or three hundred militia upon the shore opposite the British army, drew up to oppose the enemy. It consisted of six ships, eight brigs, five sloops, two schooners, and several smaller craft. Its chief vessels were the “Tempest,” 16, “Renown,” 16, and “Jefferson,” 14. The British sent a flag of truce to the Commodore of the Virginia fleet, proposing to treat with him for its surrender. He sent back the spirited reply that “he was determined to defend it to the last extremity.” A few cannon planted on the shore soon gave the enemy a command of the situation. After a short engagement, the Virginians scuttled or set fire to several of their vessels and fled to the opposite shore. None of the fleet escaped. The British captured twelve vessels, which the Virginians were unable to destroy. On this expedition the British burnt the state rope-walk at Warwick. After the raid of Arnold and Phillips, but one vessel remained in the Virginia navy, the armed boat “Liberty.”[536]

The officers and seamen of the Virginia navy, thrown out of employment by the destruction of the fleet, aided the allied forces at the siege of Yorktown in collecting supplies and transporting troops. The boat “Liberty” was used as a transport; and also the ships “Cormorant,” “Loyalist,” and “Oliver Cromwell,” which three vessels, it is believed, Virginia purchased for this purpose. Soon after the surrender of Cornwallis the Virginia General Assembly, recognizing that “during the continuance of the present expensive war it is necessary to husband the resources of the state with the utmost oeconomy,” dismissed almost all the officers and seamen, the Commissioner of the Navy, the chaplains, surgeons, pay masters, and all others on the naval staff.[537]

A number of times during the Revolution, and now for the last time in 1782, Virginia and Maryland undertook to concert a naval defence of their trade on the Chesapeake. The General Assembly of Virginia which met in May, 1782, appointed three commissioners to superintend the work of protecting; the Bay. The “Cormorant” and “Liberty” were to be immediately prepared for this service. Two galleys and two barges or whale boats were to be built. For this work the state appropriated £1,000, the proceeds arising from the sale of the “Loyalist,” and certain tonnage and import duties. The commissioners were to fix the pay and subsistence of the seamen; the fleet was not to be sent outside of the Capes.[538]

The commissioners managed a small naval force during 1782 and 1783 until the war came to an end. Commodore Barron, stationed at Hampton, was chiefly occupied at this time with the exchanging of prisoners. Beyond the building of a few naval craft, it does not appear that this final naval enterprise of Virginia was attended with fruitful results. When peace was declared in the spring of 1783, the commissioners had in different stages of construction the schooners “Harrison,” “Fly,” and “Patriot,” and the barges “York” and “Richmond.” Virginia now disposed of all her fleet except the “Liberty” and “Patriot,” which she retained as revenue cutters.[539] In order to keep these two armed vessels in time of peace, Virginia, in accordance with a provision in the Articles of Confederation, obtained the permission of Congress.[540] These two boats were still in the employ of the state in 1787. The “Liberty” saw more service than any other state or Continental vessel of the Revolution. She was in the employ of Virginia from 1775 until 1787.