FOOTNOTES:
[541] In writing this chapter I have been much assisted by Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr., Secretary of the Historical Commission of South Carolina.
[542] Drayton, Memoirs of American Revolution, I, 269-71. Collections of South Carolina Historical Society, II, 50.
[543] Collections of South Carolina Historical Society, II, 43, 44, 57, 59, 62, 63. Drayton, Memoirs of American Revolution, I, 304-06.
[544] Journals of South Carolina Provincial Congress, November 9, 10, 12, 1775.
[545] Collections of South Carolina Historical Society, III, Journals of South Carolina Council of Safety, December 16, 1775.
[546] Force, American Archives, 4th, IV, 1307-08. Journals of Continental Congress, January 16, January 19, 1776.
[547] Gibbes, Documentary History of the American Revolution, 1764-1776, 258.
[548] Journals of South Carolina Provincial Congress, February 15, February 22, March 5, 14, 25, 26, 1776.
[549] Constitution of South Carolina of 1776.
[550] Journals of South Carolina General Assembly, April 10, April 11, 1776.
[551] Journals of South Carolina General Assembly, April 11, 1776; Cooper, Statutes of South Carolina, IV, April 9, April 11, 1776.
[552] Journals of South Carolina General Assembly, September 21, 1776; Cooper, Statutes of South Carolina, IV, October 8, 1776.
[553] Force, American Archives, 5th, II, Journals of South Carolina Navy Board, October 25, 1776.
[554] Ibid., Journals of South Carolina Navy Board, October 9, 12, 1776.
[555] Cooper, Statutes of South Carolina, IV, August 23, 1777.
[556] Journals of South Carolina House of Representatives, February 8, 1780.
[557] Force, American Archives, 5th, II, Journals of South Carolina Navy Board, October 17, 1776.
[558] Journals of South Carolina House of Representatives, September 10, 1779. The contract with Cochran was being dissolved.
[559] Notes of Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr., Secretary of the Historical Commission of South Carolina.
[560] Cooper, Statutes of South Carolina, IV, January 16, 1777.
[561] Cooper, Statutes of South Carolina, IV, February 13, 1777, January 26, March 28, 1778. On February 13, 1777, a new act relating to the Court of Admiralty was passed.
[562] Ibid., October 9, 1778.
[563] In 1776 the following vessels were employed as merchantmen: schooners, “Polly,” “Peggy” and “Little Thomas;” the brigantine “Notre Dame,” and the sloop “Margaret.”
[564] South Carolina Archives, Miscellaneous Records, A, 18, 19.
[565] Files of South Carolina and American General Gazette, and Gazette of State of South Carolina.
[566] Gazette of State of South Carolina, July 21, November 4, 1777.
[567] Ibid., April 7, 1779.
[568] Moultrie, Memoirs of American Revolution, I, 193-99; South Carolina and American General Gazette, April 23, May 28, June 4, 1778; Ramsay, Revolution in South Carolina, I, 71; Clowes’s Royal Navy, IV, 10.
[569] Journals of South Carolina House of Representatives, August 31, 1779.
[570] Ibid., September 6, 1779. The Senate was not willing to make so large a naval increase.
[571] Ibid., February 14, 1780.
[572] South Carolina Archives, Miscellaneous Records, A. Among the vessels to which the Governor gave commissions were the following: galleys “Congress,” “South Edisto,” “Revenge,” “Beaufort,” “Lee,” “Marquis de Bretigny,” and “Carolina;” sloop “Count de Kersaint,” brigantines “General Lincoln” and “Beaufort,” schooner “Eshe,” and the vessel “Lovely Julia.” The following vessels, a number of which were impressed, were in the service of the state in 1779 or 1780: galley “Rutledge,” schooners “Polly,” “Rattlesnake,” “Sally,” “Anthony,” “General Moultrie,” “Nancy,” “Three Friends,” brig “Wasp” and brigantine “Ballony.”
[573] Almon’s Remembrancer, 1780, II, 44-47.
[574] Previous to the siege of Charles Town, His Majesty’s navy had captured the following vessels: February, 1777, “Defence” taken by the “Roebuck” and “Perseus;” December, 1777, “Comet,” taken by the “Daphne;” April, 1779, “Hornet,” taken by the same.
[575] Gibbes, Documentary History of American Revolution, 1776-1782, 181, 183.
[576] Journals of South Carolina House of Representatives, February 12, 1780.
[577] Journals of South Carolina House of Representatives, March 5, 1783.
[578] South Carolina Archives, Miscellaneous Records, A, 66, 67; Journals of South Carolina House of Representatives, March 10, 1783, report of a committee on certain papers of Commodore Gillon.
[579] South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, I, 28-32, 136-47, two letters of Gillon.
[580] New York Historical Society Collections, Deane Papers, IV, 450, 468, 478, 519; Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, IV, 546-47, note.
[581] Pennsylvania Packet, March 5, May 31, and June 4, 1782. The issue of June 4 contains a letter of Gillon to Governor Mathewes of South Carolina, dated May 15, 1782, containing an account of the expedition; Gibbes, Documentary History of American Revolution, 1776-1782, 170.
[582] Connecticut Gazette, June 14, 1782.
[583] Clowes’s Royal Navy, IV, 91.
[584] Journals of South Carolina House of Representatives, March 10, 1783.
[585] McCrady, South Carolina in Revolution, 1775-1780, 219.
[586] Cooper, Statutes of South Carolina, V, December 21, 1814.
[587] Conversations with Hon. J. T. Gantt, Secretary of State of South Carolina.
CHAPTER XVI
THE MINOR NAVIES OF THE SOUTHERN STATES
Naval administration in Maryland was vested in the Committee of Safety until March 22, 1777, when it passed to the Governor and Council, the executive under the first state constitution of Maryland. The Committee was given a free hand in its control of the navy. The Provincial Convention empowered it to fix the pay of officers and seamen, and to appoint the commanders of the smaller naval vessels. The Convention, however, established the pay of marines, which was the same as that of the state troops; and it decided that the uniform of the marines should be a blue hunting shirt.[588] The first naval work of the Committee of Safety was the fitting and arming, in February and March, 1776, of the ship “Defence,” twenty-two 6-pounders, Captain James Nicholson, the chief vessel in the Maryland navy. In March the schooner “Resolution” was purchased as a tender for the “Defence.” The Committee of Safety, which held its meetings in Annapolis was early in 1776 assisted in its work at Baltimore, the chief port of the state, by the Baltimore Committee of Observation; and, later in the year, by Jesse Hollingsworth, who was appointed naval agent for Baltimore.
In June and July, 1776, the Provincial Convention ordered the Committee of Safety to build seven row-galleys, and to fit out three small vessels, mounting not more than ten guns each, and a number of armed boats not to exceed six.[589] By the spring of 1777 the Committee of Safety had built, fitted, and officered the galleys “Baltimore,” “Conqueror,” “Independence,” and “Chester,” and the armed boat “Plater;” it had in process of construction, ready to launch, the galleys “Johnson” and “Annapolis,” and it had purchased the tender “Amelia” and the schooner “Dolphin.” During the first years of the war the Committee of Safety hired or purchased several small vessels, which were used chiefly as merchantmen.[590] It is not always easy to distinguish these craft from the naval vessels, which were now and then sent on trading voyages. Maryland’s most common commercial venture was to ship flour and tobacco to the firm of Harrison and Van Bibber at Martinique, and there laden her vessels for the homeward voyage with munitions of war.[591]
As an inducement to recruits, the Provincial Convention, in October, 1776, offered a bounty of $20 to able seamen, and $10 to landsmen. Officers and seamen who received bounties and wages were given one-third of their prizes, the share granted by the Continental Congress; those who did not receive bounties and wages were given the whole of their prizes.[592] Maryland was unable to meet the competition with privateers for seamen, and her vessels were often forced to remain in port for lack of crews. In December, 1776, the naval agent at Baltimore wrote that he could “load twenty vessels rather than man and sail two. The money paid to captains and sailors is wonderful, and no way to shun it.”[593]
Maryland established in her navy the rank of commodore. On June 8, 1778, her Governor commissioned Thomas Grason, who had been appointed commodore on April 21 by the General Assembly.[594] In 1782 a “Commodore Whaley” was in the naval service. Her most prominent captains were James Nicholson, who in 1776 became the senior captain in the Continental navy; and George Cook, who had served seven years in the British navy. Lieutenant John Henry Boucher resigned early in 1776 to enter the Virginia naval service, where he soon rose to the highest rank.
In May, 1776, the Provincial Convention, pursuant to the resolves of the Continental Congress, established a Court of Admiralty, consisting of a judge, marshal, and register. The procedure was to be that usual in such courts; trial by jury was made optional; and the judge was permitted to determine the places of sitting.[595] The privateers of Maryland were generally small craft, mounting on the average eight 4-pounders. They plied their trade chiefly in Chesapeake Bay. From April 1, 1777, to March 14, 1783, a period of almost six years, Maryland issued letters of marque and reprisal to 248 privateers, carrying a total of 1,810 guns.[596]
Since a number of her vessels had been for some time idle for lack of crews, Maryland in the first half of 1779 sold all of her naval craft, except the galleys “Conqueror” and “Chester,” and the schooner “Dolphin.”[597] From 1780 to the end of the Revolution the trade in the Chesapeake, and the property of the inhabitants of the Maryland coasts, on both sides of the Bay, suffered severely from the ravages of the British refugee barges, privateers, and small naval craft. These conditions led Maryland to make frequent attempts, during the last years of the war, to provide a naval armament for the defence of the Bay. In 1780 she was moved to renew her naval activities by still other considerations. The success of the British this year in South and North Carolina and on the coasts of Virginia made the outlook for Maryland very threatening. It was also known that Clinton wished to carry the war into Maryland and Virginia.
In October, 1780, Maryland passed her first act for the defence of the Bay. The Governor and Council were ordered to provide, officer, and man four large barges or row-boats, each to carry at least twenty-five men, one galley to be armed with two 18’s and two 9’s, and one sloop or schooner to carry ten 4’s. They were to enlist one hundred marines for three years. The marines were to be paid £2, 5s. a month and a bounty of $40, and the seamen £3 a month and a bounty of $20.[598] During the May session of the legislature in 1781, just after Arnold’s invasion into Virginia, this act was amended. The Governor and Council were now directed to procure two galleys and a number of barges not to exceed eight.[599]
In passing, mention should be made of the service which Maryland rendered the Continental army in 1781, in transporting troops. When, in the spring of that year, Lafayette and his army were on their way to Virginia to attempt the capture of Arnold, Maryland impressed upwards of one hundred transports, together with three small armed vessels, which she placed under the command of Captain James Nicholson. This fleet carried a large part of Lafayette’s troops, stores, guns, and baggage from the head of Elk to Annapolis. In August and September the state rendered similar aid to Washington’s army, which was then on its way to Yorktown. Every vessel in the state was pressed into service.[600]
During the last year of the war the British were especially annoying to the trade and coasts of Maryland and Virginia. Fifteen or twenty small craft which made their headquarters on the islands in the Chesapeake were very destructive, and their depredations called forth protective measures not only in Maryland, but in Virginia, as we have seen. In each state private initiative did what it could to stop the pillaging, but it was not able to cope with the enemy.
On June 13, 1782, the Maryland legislature appointed William Paca, Walter Tilghman and Robert Goldsborough commissioners to provide for the defence of the Bay. They were ordered to procure four barges and a galley or other vessel of force, to fit them for immediate service against the enemy, and to turn them over to the Governor and Council when ready to be employed. The legislature also appointed William Hanson Harrison, a commissioner to go to Richmond and concert with the Virginia executive or legislature a joint defence of the Bay. A new naval establishment was now effected. The Governor and Council were to raise and officer two hundred and fifty able seamen, watermen, landsmen, and marines, who were to serve until January 1, 1783, or longer. They were to fix the pay and rations of the officers. Officers and seamen who should lose a limb, or be otherwise maimed or hurt, were to receive the same benefits which the state should hereafter give to her soldiers in the Continental army. The naval forces were to be subject to the naval rules and regulations provided by Congress for the Continental navy. A penalty of £50 was prescribed for enticing seamen away from the state service. The expense incurred in providing this naval increase was to be met chiefly from an appropriation of £10,000 and from the sale of the confiscated property of Tories.[601]
Owing to the continuance of the depredations of the British, the legislature in its November session of 1782 passed another act for the defence of the Bay. The Governor and Council were directed to fit out a certain galley or ship, now building for the state, and the barges “Somerset,” “Terrible,” “Fearnaught,” and “Defence,” and enlist three hundred and fifty men to serve until January 1, 1784. Two-thirds of the proceeds of captures were now to be given to the captors. The expense of this establishment was to be met by import duties on rum, brandy, and other distilled spirits; on wine, loaf sugar, and coffee; and on all goods and merchandise, with certain exceptions.[602]
The navy of Maryland rendered miscellaneous services. It convoyed merchantmen, imported and distributed arms and provisions, transported troops, watched the fleet of the enemy to report its movements, and defended the trade and coasts of the state. Except when used for commercial purposes, Maryland’s vessels rarely passed outside the Capes at the mouth of the Chesapeake. Attempts which were made to bring about the coöperation of the Maryland and Virginia fleets did not often succeed. A few small prizes were taken, but none of them were of much value. In the fall of 1776 the “Defence,” Captain Cook, cruised as far southward as the West Indies, and captured five small prizes, laden with logwood, mahogany, indigo, rum, and sugar.[603] Several sharp encounters between the vessels of Maryland and the enemy took place in the Bay. As early as March, 1776, the “Defence,” 22, Captain James Nicholson, checked the advance up the Chesapeake of the British sloop-of-war “Otter,” 10, and recaptured several prizes.[604] Now and then attempts were made to dislodge the British from some of the islands in the Bay. So late as the latter part of March, 1783, the state sent a small schooner and two barges against a rendezvous of the British on Devil’s Island, one of the Tangiers.[605]
On November 30, 1782, the Battle of the Barges occurred near the Tangier islands. The mortality of the Americans in this engagement was relatively greater than in any other sea fight of the Revolution. In its carnage and in the bravery displayed by the Americans, this fight does not suffer from a comparison with that of Jones off Flamborough Head. The Maryland fleet, which had been joined by a volunteer Virginia barge, was commanded by Commodore Whaley of the barge “Protector.” The British fleet of barges was under the command of Captain Kidd of the “Kidnapper,” mounting 18-pounders. For one cause or another the “Protector” was the only American barge which engaged the British fleet. While the “Protector” inflicted much damage on the vessels of her adversary, she naturally was unable to fight long against such tremendous odds. An extract from the simple and pathetic narrative of the fight written by Colonel John Cropper, a volunteer Virginia officer on board the “Protector,” possesses interest: “Commodore Whaley was shot down a little before the enemy boarded, acting the part of a cool, intrepid, gallant officer. Captain Joseph Handy fell nigh the same time, nobly fighting with one arm, after the loss of the other. Captain Levin Handy was badly wounded. There went into action in the Protector sixty-five men, twenty-five of them were killed and drowned, twenty-nine were wounded, some of whom are since dead, and eleven only escaped being wounded, most of whom leaped into the water to save themselves from the explosion.” Colonel Cropper, to whom, on the death of Whaley, the command of the “Protector” fell, was wounded three times, “and after the surrender knocked down by a four-pound rammer.”[606]
During the last years of the war Maryland in her attempts to defend the Chesapeake, obtained as many as ten barges.[607] She had also in the naval service at this time a schooner, the “Flying Fish.” The end of her navy may be dated with the statute passed by her legislature in May, 1783, which authorized the Intendant to sell “the galley and the barges.”[608]
North Carolina’s initial step in procuring a naval armament was taken on December 21, 1775, when her Council of Safety resolved to fit out three armed vessels for the defence of the trade of the state. It appointed three Boards of Commissioners, each of which was to immediately purchase, arm, man, and victual a vessel. The board for Cape Fear was composed of five men; for Newbern, of eight; and for Edenton, of six.[609] Since it proved difficult to assemble a quorum of the Newbern Board, the Council of Safety in June, 1776, vested its powers in three of its members.[610] In May, 1776, the Provincial Congress fixed the monthly wages of officers, seamen, and marines. Captains were to be paid £10; lieutenants, masters, captains of marines, and doctors, £8 each; marines, £2, 13s., 4d.; “seamen complete,” £4; “seamen not complete,” £3.[611]
By October, 1776, the Cape Fear Board had fitted out the brigantine “Washington;” the Newbern Board, the brigantine “Pennsylvania Farmer;” and the Edenton Board, the brigantine “King Tammany.” The Council of Safety now ordered these three vessels to protect the trade of the state at Ocracoke Bar, and to proceed against the enemy’s Jamaicamen homeward bound from the West Indies. “It may be necessary to inform you,” it wrote on October 1 to Captain Joshua Hampstead of the “Pennsylvania Farmer,” “that the Jamaica fleet will sail for Europe about the middle of this month under the convoy of a twenty-gun ship only, from the best intelligence we can obtain.”[612]
For one reason or another these three vessels accomplished very little. For a long time the “Washington,” Captain Edward Ingraham, could not obtain a crew. The “Pennsylvania Farmer,” Captain Joshua Hampstead, was idle during the summer of 1776, for lack of shot. James Davis, one of the Commissioners for fitting out this vessel, made serious accusations against his fellow Commissioners and the officers and crew of the vessel. As Davis had suffered real or supposed injuries at their hands, his words no doubt must be heavily discounted. In October, 1776, he wrote that the “Pennsylvania Farmer” lay in Newbern “with 110 men on board at the Expence of near Forty Pounds per day, upwards of six months; in the most inglorious, inactive, and dissolute state that perhaps was ever suffered in any Country.” The crew of the vessel consisted of “men of all nations and conditions, English, Irish, Scotch, Indians, Men of Wars Men, and the most abandoned sett of wretches ever collected together. Two of the officers broke open the Gun Room, and with a number of the men went off with the Boat, with Intent to join Lord Dunmore’s fleet, and actually reached Currituck County. They were apprehended, and are still at large on board. They have wasted near 100 pounds of powder in wantonly firing at and bringing to all Boats, Canoes, and Vessels of every sort, even Passengers in the Ferry Boat have been insulted. Capt. Thos. Shine of the Militia, with his Company on board coming up to the General Muster, was fired on and a ball passed within a few inches of his Arm.”[613] These are but few of the derelictions contained in Davis’s remarkable list. His overstatement of his case causes one to suspect that he was not entirely free from malice.
By December, 1777, the “Washington” was ordered to be sold; and commissioners had been appointed to load the other two vessels and send them on voyages to foreign ports. In April, 1778, the legislature decided to sell the “Pennsylvania Farmer.” On May 30 this vessel at a public sale in Edenton “was cried out by John Blackburn on Mr. Joseph Hewes, after which Mr. Hewes denied having bid the sum which she was cried out at.”[614]
No other subject of naval interest engaged the attention of North Carolina so much as the defence of Ocracoke Inlet. It is recalled that the waters of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds are separated from the Atlantic by a long sandbar, which is only at a few points broken by inlets. These connect the waters of the Atlantic with the waters of the Sound. The most important inlet at the time of the Revolution was that of Ocracoke. The protecting and the keeping open of this entrance was a matter of importance not only to North Carolina, but to Virginia and the Continental Congress, as well. Most of the foreign trade of Newbern and Edenton, the two main ports of the state, passed through this inlet. In a similar way, the trade of Southern Virginia, outward or inward bound, found it convenient to use this channel. In the first years of the Revolution, especially in 1778, not a few goods coming from foreign marts, and destined for the Continental Army, rather than risk capture off the entrance to the Chesapeake or the Delaware Bay, entered Ocracoke, passed on through Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds into Chowan River, and thence by the branches of this river to the town of South Quay, in southern Virginia, near the confluence of the Nottaway and Blackwater rivers. From South Quay the goods were carried by wagons to Suffolk on the Nansemond, and thence by boat up the Nansemond into the James. This route constituted the southern division of the so-called “Inland Navigation.” It was along this road that North Carolina salt pork and beef, and shoes made by North Carolina Quakers, passed northward on their way to the “Grand Army.” In 1778 and 1779 South Quay and Suffolk were important entrepôts for Continental goods.
Since the keeping open of communication through Ocracoke Inlet was of importance to both North Carolina and Virginia, the two states concerted a joint naval armament for this purpose. On May 9, 1776, the North Carolina Provincial Congress appointed Allen and Thomas Jones to attend the Provincial Congress of Virginia, “for the purpose of recommending to them the expediency of fitting out two Armed Vessels at the expense of that Colony, to act in conjunction with the armed vessels already fitted out by this Colony for the protection of the trade at Ocracoke.”[615] As her part of the joint undertaking, Virginia agreed to construct at South Quay two galleys, to be employed in the defence of the Inlet.
Virginia carried out her promise, and built at the “South Quay ship yard” two ships, the “Caswell” and “Washington.”[616] North Carolina ordered her brigantines to defend Ocracoke; and she voted £2,000 towards the equipping of Virginia’s ships, and appointed commissioners to invest this money in anchors, guns, rigging, and canvas.[617] Finally, as we shall see, she maintained at her expense one of the Virginia ships on the station at Ocracoke for a considerable period. She did not, however, meet Virginia’s expectations, which state several times expressed the belief that North Carolina had not done her share in keeping up the joint establishment.[618]
Until 1778 the trade which passed through Ocracoke was rather free from annoyance. It was in January of that year that Joshua Martin, the late Royal Governor of North Carolina, wrote from New York to Lord George Germaine in London: “That the contemptible port of Ocracock has become a great channel of supply to the rebels, while the more considerable ports have been watched by the King’s ships. They have received through it considerable importations.”[619] On January 1, 1778, there arrived at Newbern a sloop from Martinique, a schooner from St. Eustatius, a schooner with salt from Bermuda, a French schooner from Hispaniola, and two schooners from the Northern states; a French scow was at the same time reported at Ocracoke.[620] A letter from Edenton, dated June 9, informs us that several foreign vessels were at the Inlet, and that a sloop had recently arrived at Edenton from France, which had on board for the Continental Congress thirteen thousand pairs of shoes, a large quantity of clothing, and a “marble Monument for Genl. Montgomery.”[621]
In the spring of 1778 the North Carolina legislature voted to purchase from Virginia the ship “Caswell,” stating that it had not been able to keep its agreement with Virginia in providing a joint defence of Ocracoke. The legislature fixed the pay of the officers and seamen on board the “Caswell.”[622] In May this ship, under the command of Captain Willis Wilson, with one hundred and seventy men on board, lay off Ocracoke bar. Captain Wilson reported to Governor Caswell on May 20 that the place was not infested with British cruisers, and that a French ship and brig lay outside the Inlet, waiting to come in. In June, however, Wilson wrote that “the enemy (one ship, two sloops, and a brig) take a peep at us every now and then, but are not disposed to venture in.”[623] A sloop was now purchased at Beaufort, to act as a tender for the “Caswell,” and Richard Ellis was appointed agent at Newbern to purchase provisions and naval supplies.[624]
In December, 1778, the “Caswell” was still afloat, but by June, 1779, she had sunk at her station at Ocracoke.[625] With the loss of this vessel North Carolina’s naval enterprises came to an end. Her attention was now engrossed by threatening invasions of the enemy from South Carolina.
North Carolina maintained admiralty courts at several ports on the coast. There were such courts at Beaufort, Bath, Roanoke and Currituck. As early as April 25, 1776, a special court of admiralty was appointed to try a prize case.[626] A few of the privateers of this state rendered valuable services. The brig “Bellona,” 16, Captain Pendleton, fitted out at Newbern, cruised very successfully.
Georgia’s naval armament was small and unimportant. Her Provincial Congress, however, commissioned one of the first armed vessels of the Revolution. In June, 1775, it gave Captains Oliver Bowen and Joseph Habersham command of a 10-gun schooner, and directed them to assist Captains Joyner and Barnwell of South Carolina in capturing a certain British ship, laden with powder, and expected to arrive at Savannah. On July 10 the joint forces of the two states captured the ship and obtained thirteen thousand pounds of the highly prized article. Georgia sent five thousand of her share of nine thousand pounds to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia.[627]
On July 5, 1776, the Continental Congress resolved to build four galleys under the direction of the Georgia Provincial Congress.[628] In August the Committee of Safety was building some row-galleys, and also fitting out an armed vessel for which purpose £2,000 were voted. On August 28 the Committee of Safety ordered Captain Bowen to go to Hispaniola to purchase armed vessels to the amount of £3,000, materials for fitting out vessels, and various warlike stores. In October it ordered Captain Pray to go to Cape Francois on a similar errand. Pray was authorized to mount on his vessel carrying his purchases to Georgia as many guns as it would conveniently bear.[629] Whether these two men actually carried out their commissions is not known.
In the spring of 1777 Georgia had three galleys in service, and later she had a fourth. These were named the “Washington,” “Lee,” “Bulloch,” and “Congress.” This little fleet was placed under the command of Commodore Oliver Bowen, and it was employed on the Georgia seacoast chiefly in conjunction with the army. Under orders of President Gwinnett three of the galleys commanded by Commodore Bowen assisted the army in its unsuccessful expedition against East Florida in April and May, 1777.[630] In April, 1778, off Frederica, Georgia, the “Washington,” Captain Hardy, “Lee,” Captain Braddock, and “Bulloch,” Captain Hatcher, with three hundred troops on board, captured His Majesty’s brigantine “Hinchinbrooke,” 12, the sloop “Rebecca,” and a brig.[631]
In the campaign around Savannah early in 1779 all four galleys were lost. In January the “Washington” and “Bulloch” were stranded near Ossabaw Island on the Georgia coast, and were burned by their crews, to prevent their capture. In March, 1779, the “Congress,” Captain Campbell, and the “Lee,” Captain Milligan, engaged near Yamasee Bluff the British galleys “Comet” and “Hornet.” The Americans, after losing three killed, among whom was Captain Campbell, and six wounded, were forced to abandon their galleys. Out of 104 men on board the American galleys the British captured but ten.[632] The occupation of Southern Georgia by the enemy from this time until the end of the Revolution stopped further naval endeavors on the part of the Patriot party of the state.
Georgia had a prize court in operation as early as November, 1776. Her constitution of February, 1777, provided for the hearing of prize cases by special county courts, much as in Connecticut.[633]