Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 6 (of 8) / The United States of North America, Part I

by Unknown

CHAPTER VII.

[THE NAVAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.]

BY THE REVEREND EDWARD E. HALE, D. D.

THE battles of the Revolution were fought on the sea as often as on the land, and to as much purpose. The losses inflicted on their enemies by the United States in their naval warfare were more constant, and probably more serious, than any losses which they inflicted elsewhere. At the beginning of the war, the mercantile class of England, even then a powerful element in her politics, were far more indifferent to the questions at issue than they became afterwards, when the rates of maritime insurance began to rise rapidly. These high rates had begun long before France and Spain entered into the struggle; and the captures which the English navy made by no means compensated England for the losses which she sustained. In such a contest, it generally proves that the richer combatant is he who pays the most. The loss of an English Indiaman or a Mediterranean trader on her voyage to "the Pool",[1222] or to Bristol, was but poorly compensated by the capture of even a dozen American schooners laden with salt fish and clapboards.

The men of New England, after the early exodus of the Tories, were almost unanimously engaged against England, and they were engaged with that intensity of purpose which belongs to Puritans and to republicans. They were then almost wholly a maritime race; and those ethnologists who think that New Englanders have a larger share of Norse blood than most Englishmen may well justify their theory by the fearlessness of the genuine Yankee upon the sea and his passion for maritime adventure. So soon, therefore, as the outbreak of hostilities began to disturb the natural course of their commerce, the seamen of the New England coast took up the business of cruising against their enemies, as if it were quite normal and something to which they had been born and trained.

New England was at this moment an important factor in the maritime interest of the world. She had special facilities for ship-building. In that essential department of maritime commerce her artisans excelled any in the world, and for three quarters of a century the export of ships, which were sold abroad, had been one of the most profitable features of New England commerce. It required two thirds of a century after John Winthrop built the "Blessing of the Bay" to persuade the masters of the royal ship-yards that there was any timber in America which they could use in preference to that which they received from Norway.[1223] But Lord Bellomont, as early as 1700, had urged that the king should not buy his spars in the open market in England, but should send his own vessels to New England for them. In the same letters he pointed out to his correspondents that the effect of the present regulations was that the Americans shipped spars to Portugal, which were then used in the navy of France. In point of fact, when at last, in 1778, all four parties were engaged in the Revolutionary War, the spars of most of the vessels of England, France, Spain, and America had all been cut in the forests of New England. It is, indeed, quite within the memory of men now living that in the wildernesses of Maine or New Hampshire some fine old monarch of the forest might still be found bearing the broad arrow of the king of England. He had been marked for the royal navy while King George yet reigned over half this continent, and he had been spared from the axe by the Declaration of Independence.[1224]

A people thus bred to the sea, and able to assert themselves upon it, lost no time, when they found themselves at war with England, in carrying their war upon the element to which they were born. They won their first naval victory over England on the 5th of May, 1775, scarcely a fortnight after the battle of Lexington. The "Falcon", a British sloop of war, had, under some pretence, seized one or more prizes from the people of Buzzard's Bay. Inspired probably by the success at Lexington and Concord, the people of New Bedford and Dartmouth fitted out a vessel, with which they attacked and cut out one of the "Falcon's" prizes, with fifteen prisoners, from a harbor in Martha's Vineyard. On the 12th of June the people of Machias, in Maine, seized the "Margaretta", a king's sloop, and two other vessels. The captain and his crew resisted, but he was killed, with one of his men, and five were wounded.[1225] Her armament was transferred to another vessel, which was placed under the command of Jeremiah O'Brien, who received from the government of Massachusetts a commission as marine captain. As early as the 2d of September, Washington, who was then in command at Cambridge, issued commissions, authorizing those who held them to cut off the supply-vessels of the English as they entered the harbor.[1226] The provincial congress at once legalized their capture, so far as its enactments could do so, and six vessels were commissioned by the province of Massachusetts Bay,—the "Lynch", the "Franklin", the "Lee", the "Washington", the "Harrison", and the "Warren."

On the 16th of October, Washington, acting under instructions from Congress,[1227] directed Broughton and Selman, captains in the Marblehead regiment of Continentals, to take their companies on board the "Lynch" (six guns) and "Franklin" (four guns), and attempt to intercept in the river St. Lawrence two English transports bound for Quebec, with military stores. They did not find these two vessels; but they took ten other prizes, attacked and took a fort on the Island of St. John, and brought off as prisoners of war the governor and one of the judges of that island.[1228] On their return in December to Massachusetts, both officers were reprimanded for exceeding their instructions, and both prisoners and prizes were released. The Congress and Washington were still maintaining a friendly attitude towards Canada and the other northern provinces, and gave up prizes and prisoners in hopes of conciliating them. Meanwhile, on the 29th of November, another Marblehead captain, John Manly, in command of the schooner "Lee", took the brigantine "Nancy" from London, as she entered Massachusetts Bay, laden with military stores for Howe.[1229] We have the contemporary records of the joy of the Americans at Cambridge, and the dismay of the besieged in Boston. The extemporized camp of the besiegers read with delight from the invoice of her stores such phrases as "two thousand muskets", "one hundred and five thousand flints", "sixty reams of cartridge paper", "thirty-one tons of musket shot", "three thousand round-shot for 12-pounders, four thousand for 6-pounders."

COMMODORE TUCKER'S ORDERS.

After original in the Tucker Papers, in Harvard College library, giving him, by direction of Congress, charge of the frigate "Boston."—Ed.

Before the end of 1775 the Continental Congress ordered that five ships of thirty-two guns should be built, five of twenty-eight, and three of twenty-four. This order was carried out, and these vessels are the proper beginning of the navy of the United States.[1230] Almost every one of them, before the war was over, had been captured, or burned to avoid capture. But the names of the little fleet will always be of interest to Americans, and some of those names have always been preserved on the calendar of the navy. They are the "Washington", "Raleigh", "Hancock", "Randolph", "Warren", "Virginia", "Trumbull", "Effingham", "Congress", "Providence", "Boston", "Delaware", "Montgomery." The State of Rhode Island, at the very outbreak of hostilities, commissioned Abraham Whipple, who went with his little vessel as far as Bermuda, and, from his experience in naval warfare earned in the French War, he was recognized as commodore of the little fleet of American cruisers. England had no force at Bermuda to resist him, and he found the inhabitants friendly. A raid, directed by Congress, had already brought from the island all the powder in their stores, and this was one of the first supplies which Washington received at Cambridge.[1231] Meanwhile, every maritime State issued commissions to privateers, and established admiralty or prize courts, with power to condemn prizes when brought in. Legitimate commerce had been largely checked,[1232] and, as has been said, the seamen of the country, who had formerly been employed in the fisheries,[1233] or in our large foreign trade with the West India Islands and with Europe, gladly volunteered in the private service. Till the end of the war the seamen preferred the privateer service to that of the government. This fact, indeed, materially affected the somewhat bold proposals with which the Continental Congress began the war; and, at the time when the war virtually closed by Cornwallis's surrender, the national government, if it can be called such, had very few vessels in its service.

The larger maritime States had in commission one or more vessels from the beginning, but they found the same difficulty which the Congress found in enlisting seamen, when any bold privateer captain came into rivalry with them. The States of Massachusetts, of Rhode Island, of Connecticut, of Pennsylvania, of Virginia, and of South Carolina had, however, as we shall see, each nominally a naval force of its own, all through the war. The general disposition of all parties being the same, it was not difficult to unite Continental ships, state ships, and privateers, on occasion, in the same endeavor.

In March, 1776, the English fleet in Boston Bay, with a large number of transports, carried to Halifax the whole English army, and those inhabitants of Massachusetts who did not venture to remain.[1234] Meanwhile, the English government at home was sending large reinforcements to Howe, and he was not as successful as he could have wished in meeting at sea the vessels which brought them, and turning them into Halifax. Among the first considerable successes of the privateers and the armed ships of Massachusetts Bay were the capture of several of these vessels as they came unsuspiciously toward the harbor of Boston. The Connecticut brig "Defence", of fourteen guns, the Massachusetts State schooner "Lee", of eight, and three privateer schooners attacked two armed English transports off Cape Cod, and captured them after a sharp action of an hour. The next day they took a third, and in this way five hundred prisoners fell into the hands of the Americans. This was on the 17th and 18th of June, 1776.[1235]

As early as the 22d of December, in 1775,[1236] Congress had appointed Esek Hopkins, of Rhode Island, commander-in-chief of its navy, and had named four captains beside, with several lieutenants, the first of whom was John Paul Jones. Hopkins and the rest fitted a squadron of eight small vessels, of which the "Alfred" (twenty-four guns) was his flag-ship. Jones was with him as his lieutenant. With this force they made a descent upon New Providence in the Bahamas, and although they failed in obtaining a stock of powder, which they had hoped for, they did capture a hundred cannon and a large quantity of other military stores.

ESEK HOPKINS.

From an engraving in An Impartial History of the War in America, London, 1780, p. 310, where he is called "Robert Hopkins, Commodore of the American Sea-forces", in a sketch of his life which is far from accurate, and which is cited in the United Service, Feb., 1885, etc. A more common picture is given in Murray's Impartial History (vol. ii.), which has been quently reëngraved. (Cf. The Providence Plantation for 250 Years, Prov., 1886, p. 61; Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 844 Cyclop. U. S. Hist., i. 844; Harper's Mag., xxiv. 160.) There is a German print in the Geschichte der Kriege in und ausser Europa (1778), and a Dutch one in Nederlandsche Mercurius, xxiii. p. 128.

The best known picture is one published in London, Aug. 22, 1776, by Thomas Hart, of which a reproduction is given in Smith's Brit. Mezzotint Portraits, and in the United Service (xii. 137, 300), Feb., 1885, accompanying a memoir by Admiral Geo. H. Preble. (Cf. Preble's Hist. of the U. S. Flag.) It represents "Commodore Hopkins" standing on his deck, sword in hand, with two ships in the background, one bearing a Liberty Tree flag with the motto "An appeal to God;" the other having a striped flag with a serpent across the stripes, and the motto "Don't tread on me." (Cf. E. M. Stone's Our French Allies, p. 12, and Lossing's Field-Book, ii. p. 844.)—Ed.

On his way home, Hopkins took a tender of six guns and a bomb brig off Long Island, and on the 6th of April, with a part of his squadron, engaged the English ship-of-war "Glasgow", of twenty guns. He did not take her, but the audacity of the attack, made by vessels each of which was her inferior, pleased the country, and it was at first represented as a great victory. When it was learned that Hopkins had five vessels, however small, to the Englishman's one, a reaction of public feeling took place, from which he never recovered. He was honorably acquitted by a court-martial, but never regained full public confidence, and he does not appear in the public naval service afterwards. This hasty public condemnation seems to have been unjust, and to have cost the country the service, in its national navy, of a skilful and brave commander.[1237]

While Hopkins was undergoing his trial, on the 10th of May, 1776, Paul Jones was appointed to the command of the "Providence", in place of Hazard, who did or did not fight her as he should have done in the engagement with the "Glasgow." Through the summer, Jones was engaged in cruising. At one time he ran as far as Bermuda, and afterwards to the eastward as far as Canso. In this summer cruise he made sixteen prizes, and his reputation as a favorite dates from this time.

On the 10th of October a resolution of Congress fixed the rank of captains in the navy. James Nicholson[1238] was first, Manly second, McNiel third, Saltonstall fourth, Lambert Wickes eleventh, John B. Hopkins fourteenth, and Paul Jones eighteenth on a list of twenty-four.[1239]

Jones was not pleased that his rank was not higher, but eventually his achievements were such that his reputation probably now stands higher as a successful officer than that of any of the number.

While he was cruising at the East, Nicholas Biddle,[1240] in the "Andrea Doria", a little brig carrying fourteen 4-pounders, took two armed transports filled with soldiers, and captured many merchantmen. On returning from his cruise he was appointed to the "Randolph" (thirty-two guns), which had been built that summer in Philadelphia and was launched in the autumn. Biddle's reputation was high in consequence of his success, and early in 1777 he sailed on the "Randolph's" first cruise. He captured four Jamaica-men when he was three days out, one of which had an armament of twenty guns, but he was then blockaded in Charleston by an English force through the summer.[1241]

In the autumn of 1776, Jones, at Newport, took command of the "Alfred" (twenty-four guns) and "Providence" (twelve guns), and in the month of November went to sea. He was fortunate enough to take the armed ship "Mellish", with stores for Burgoyne's army. But while returning to Boston with her, he met the "Milford" (thirty-two), an English frigate. He succeeded in turning her away from his prize and brought it into Boston harbor. The "Mellish" had ten thousand suits of uniform on board, in charge of a company of soldiers. It was when he arrived that Jones found that he was only eighteenth on the list of captains, and this really meant that there was hardly a ship which he could expect in the service, and that if he found any it would be even inferior to the "Alfred."

On this occasion he first used Poor Richard's rule, "If you want a thing done, do it yourself." He went to Philadelphia to urge his own claims on Congress or its naval committee. But they could not work impossibilities, and it was not till some months later that he was appointed to the "Ranger." He believed that she was the first armed vessel to display the national American flag. It was not till November, 1777, that he got to sea with her. He hoped to carry out the great news of Burgoyne's surrender. But the government of Massachusetts had been too quick for him. They had commissioned the brigantine "Perch", with a special messenger, Jonathan Loring Austin, and he had arrived in France with the news some days before Jones appeared.

Lambert Wickes, the eleventh on the list of captains, had been the first officer to carry a national cruiser across the ocean. He was directed to take Dr. Franklin to France in the "Reprisal", and did so,—in a voyage which gave Franklin a high opinion of his ability. Several times he beat to quarters when an attack from a hostile force seemed possible, but with such a passenger he did not, of course, court an action. When near the coast of France he made two or three prizes and brought them in with him.

His arrival and theirs, and the arrival of some other prizes which had been taken early in the year by other privateers, opened all the questions regarding neutrality, which recently, in our civil war and afterwards, made the history of the cruiser "Alabama" so important a feature in modern international law. France made no treaty with America until the end of 1777. Till that time—indeed, until the formal rupture with England—she was under very strict treaty obligations with that power. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) provided that "it shall not be lawful for any foreign Privateers to fit their ships in the Ports of one or the other of the aforesaid Partys, to sell what they have taken, or in any manner whatever to exchange either Ships, Merchandises, or any other Ladings." Wickes was annoyed and provoked at the treatment he received from French officials, who pretended to observe the obligations by which the French king was thus bound. But he succeeded in going to sea again, and made a successful cruise around Ireland, taking several prizes.[1242]

The French people looked with great satisfaction on such captures. But war was not yet declared with England by France, and the French cabinet knew perfectly well that the act of Wickes involved a flagrant violation of French neutrality. The fitting out war-vessels in French ports was not only wrong, under a fair construction of international law, but the king of France had specially waived all right to harbor privateers of foreign powers—unless they were in actual distress—by these special articles in this treaty. Wickes could never understand this. He knew that France was sending munitions of war to his countrymen. Why should France not permit him to bring his prizes into French ports to sell? And the temptation was great. Once and again he slipped out to sea; and he sent in one and another prize. But at last Vergennes, the French minister, could bear it no longer. Poor Wickes's last letters show how strong the hand of France was, even upon her friends.[1243]

All the diplomacy of Franklin, the good-nature of Vergennes, and the real sympathy of the French people could not forever prevail. Wickes was at last ordered squarely to make ready for America, and did so. But, alas! the refitting seems to have been incomplete, and he never reached the United States. His vessel was lost off Newfoundland, and only one man was saved.

The other name which should rank with those of Jones and Wickes as one of those early naval heroes who in a courageous though fitful manner kept the stars and stripes afloat in European waters, and infested the English shores to the annoyance of their merchant marine and the terror of the maritime towns, is that of Gustavus Conyngham. In the spring of 1777, before Wickes had rendered himself so utterly obnoxious to the French ministry as he afterwards did—before the complaints of Lord Stormont had received much attention, Silas Deane, ever on the lookout for the accomplishment of some successful naval enterprise, took thought with William Hodge, a Philadelphia merchant, and planned what was to be the boldest raid yet made upon the English shipping. A lugger was purchased at Dover and sent around to Dunkirk, that old nest of smugglers and privateersmen. She was fitted out with an armament and crew, and given, with the name of the "Surprise", to Gustavus Conyngham, for a raid on the English marine. The expedition was partly public and partly private in its nature. Conyngham was, however, an officer in the navy, for he was furnished with one of the blank commissions given the commissioners for that very purpose, signed by John Hancock, president of Congress. This point was of some importance to him afterwards, when he was accused by the English of piracy. The charge was groundless. The commissioners had received power to create officers in the navy of the United States, by virtue of these blank commissions, which were to be filled out to suit the circumstances. Conyngham sailed from Dunkirk with instructions to cruise in the British Channel for merchant vessels, and to look particularly for the "Prince of Orange" packet from Harwich. He was fortunate. On one of the very first days of the cruise he came across the packet, captured her without a blow, and then made sail with his prizes for Dunkirk. He had also taken a brig.

But this breach of French neutrality was too shameless. A storm of English complaint compelled the French court to take firmer measures than they may have desired. Conyngham and his crew were put in prison, the lugger was confiscated, the prizes were returned. The French, indeed, went so far that the English government, quite deceived by their great zeal, sent over vessels to bring to England Conyngham and his crew to be tried for piracy. But to this point the French could not quite go.

The affair caused great excitement in England. It was so unexpected, so bold, so audacious, that no one could tell what would come next. As a consequence, insurance rose quickly. British ships were no longer considered safe, even in the English Channel. There were at one time in the Thames as many as forty French vessels loading with English merchandise, while it is said that ten per cent. was sometimes paid as insurance for the short passage between Dover and Calais. Although the measures of the French government tended to quiet apprehension, it was some little time before confidence was restored.

Meanwhile, the planners of the first scheme had resolved to repeat the outrage. Another cutter was bought, again at Dover, and equipped with fourteen sixes and twenty-four swivels. Conyngham's release was obtained through the courtesy of the French ministry, and that of his crew, by the representation that they were to sail upon a trading voyage. Mr. Hodge himself went surety for the truth of this statement. The French court did not like the business; they would have preferred that the expedition should be abandoned, and they offered to purchase the cutter of its owners. But it was declared to the ministers that the voyage was for trading purposes only, and that the owners would suffer serious loss if it were not allowed to proceed, and they gave way. The business is not a clear one. It seems evident that the French suspected that all was not as it should have been, but that they were deceived as to the real object of the expedition. It is not probable that they desired to blind themselves to the truth, for they were at this time in a delicate position with England through the operations of Wickes, Johnston, and Nicholson, and there was but little in the aspect of American affairs that would have tended to make them consider an alliance with the United States with such seriousness as to be willing to allow the English ministry to have more cause for complaint than could be helped. However this was, Conyngham sailed in the "Revenge" on the 18th of July for another cruise, by no means a trading voyage. In this case, also, although the ship was undoubtedly fitted out in a measure by private parties, Conyngham himself sailed with a regular commission. His former one had been taken from him when he was imprisoned, and sent to Versailles, and was never heard of again. This second commission was drawn on one of the blanks with which the commissioners were furnished.

This cruise was even more successful than the former, although no such capture was made as that of the Harwich packet. Conyngham made prize of several ships, alarmed the English merchant marine again, threatened the English coast, actually refitted his vessel in an English port, having made his way thither in disguise, and escaped with safety to Spain in course of time. Most of his prizes were disposed of to the benefit of the United States government as well as of the private parties concerned. There was more English complaint in Paris, but nothing actually came of it beyond the imprisonment of Mr. Hodge in the Bastille. But he was shortly released on such representations by the commissioners as seem to have satisfied the French court.

Captain Johnston does not appear among the twenty-four captains first commissioned by Congress; but in the spring of 1777 he took the "Lexington" across to Europe, and arrived there in April. With the "Dolphin", under Lieutenant Nicholson, a brother of Nicholson who was senior captain, he went to sea under Wickes's command in the cruise which has been described. But in a second cruise fortune failed him. He engaged the "Alert", an English man-of-war cutter of force somewhat less than his own; but after a long action, having expended all his ammunition, he was obliged to surrender. It is said that his little vessel was the first to bear the American flag in an ocean victory. She had already been taken once, and once recaptured by her own crew, after they had been placed under an English prize crew. She had taken many prizes, and had won for herself a reputation in both hemispheres in only one year and eight months, which comprise all her American service.

As a consequence of her capture, Johnston and his crew were made prisoners. At one time the English had nearly one thousand American seamen imprisoned in Forton, near Portsmouth. But the successes of Jones and other cruisers, after the French alliance enabled the Americans to keep their prisoners, compelled the English administration to assent to an exchange; and in the winter of 1779-80, most of the Americans were released by such exchanges.[1244]

It is impossible, within the space at our command, to give any detail of the successes of the various armed vessels, whether fitted out by individuals, by States, or by the Congress on the shores of the United States. A good authority[1245] says that, in 1776, 342 sail of English vessels were captured by the Americans. Of these, forty-four were recaptured, eighteen released, and the rest carried into port. The same authority tells us that in the year 1777 the commerce of England suffered a loss of 467 sail, though the government kept seventy cruisers on the American coast alone. Such successes were not of course without their compensations. In March the English captured the brig "Cabot", of sixteen guns, one of the first American cruisers. When Gen. Howe took Philadelphia the Americans were obliged to destroy the "Andrea Doria", the "Wasp", and the "Hornet." The "Raleigh", one of the Continental frigates, got to sea from New Hampshire. She engaged the "Druid", an English vessel in convoy of the Windward Island fleet, and disabled her, so that she returned to England.

When 1778 began, of the new frigates ordered in 1775, the "Congress" and "Montgomery" had been burned in the Hudson that they might not be taken; the "Delaware" had been captured in the bay whose name she bore, and the "Hancock" taken off Halifax. At about the same time the "Randolph" blew up, as has been told. In 1778 the "Washington" and "Effingham" were burned in the Delaware by the enemy, and the "Virginia" was captured by a squadron of theirs on her first voyage. To supply the places of the unfortunate ships which were lost so soon after they were built, the government had commissioned the "Alliance", the "Confederacy", the "Deane", afterwards called "The Hague", and the "Queen of France." Of these, the three first carried thirty-two guns each, and the last twenty-eight. The "Alliance" and "The Hague" were the only two, of all the seventeen, which remained in the service when the war was over. While the American naval force, so far as it was under Continental orders, was thus insignificant for any action against an English fleet of more than seventy vessels, the arrival of D'Estaing with a large French fleet off the capes of the Delaware, in July, did much to hold that force in check and to compel it to act on the defensive. Before describing the movements of D'Estaing's fleet, we must return to the eastern side of the Atlantic, and continue the history of naval warfare on the coast of England.

Such captures as those made by Wickes and Conyngham, under the very eye of the English nation, naturally attracted more attention among those who led the public opinion of England than did any captures made by the navy of America on her own coast, and there were bolder movements yet to claim their attention than any we have chronicled.

John Paul Jones was a native of Scotland, but at an early age he removed to America, and he had been engaged there in commerce many years before the breaking out of the war. As the reader has seen, he crossed the Atlantic in hopes of obtaining a better vessel than Congress could give to him on this side of the water. But he found on his arrival that no such vessel was to be had at once. He therefore refitted the "Ranger", the vessel in which he had crossed the ocean, and in the month of April, 1778, he made a bold descent on the coast of Scotland and England. In this expedition he took the English ship "Drake", of a force quite equal to his own, and he brought her with him as a prize into the harbor of Brest. In this voyage he made a landing on the Scotch coast, and his men carried off the family plate from the mansion of the Earl of Selkirk. Jones himself had been in the service of this nobleman, and he made it a point of honor to buy back the plate from his men and send it to the Countess of Selkirk.

The news of his exploit was of no little importance for the American name in France. It seemed to open an opportunity for giving to Jones the command of the "Indian", a fine vessel then upon the stocks, and through the summer he was amused by this hope and by various enterprises which were proposed for so energetic a leader. Of his disappointments and of his renewed expectation full record has been left in his letter-books. One of the plans was that of a descent on the English coast, to be made by a French force under the command of La Fayette. Jones was to be the naval leader of this expedition. But as the alliance of France with America was now determined on, the French government enlarged their plans. D'Estaing was sent to the American coast, and La Fayette and Jones were told that their services would not be needed. In the midst of these disappointments, Jones had given up the command of the "Ranger", which he would have thought better than nothing. It is at this moment that he says he adopted "Poor Richard's" motto, which, as our reader knows, he had tried before in America,—"If you want a thing done, do it yourself",—and went to Paris himself to urge his claims for employment. The result of his visit was that an old Indiaman was bought for him, which he transformed into a two-decked frigate, and to this ship, in compliment to Franklin, his fast friend, he gave the name of "Bonhomme Richard", that being the French translation of "Poor Richard." She was armed and equipped in haste, which, as it proved, was almost ruinous. The "Alliance", under Landais, the "Pallas", hired for the expedition, and two smaller vessels, joined the squadron. These two vessels were privateers, and the cost of the whole expedition seems to have been borne, in part at least, by private adventurers. The seamen were persons of all nationalities. But Jones and his own officers on the "Richard" were Americans serving under the American commission. With this heterogeneous squadron Jones sailed, and the several vessels made a good many rather insignificant prizes. They passed around the north of Scotland, and came down on the east side of the island into the Northern Ocean. On the 23d of September he discovered the Baltic squadron of merchantmen in the convoy of the frigate "Serapis", and the "Countess of Scarborough." Jones's squadron at this time consisted of the "Richard", the "Alliance", and the "Pallas." The English squadron was commanded by Richard Pearson.

Pearson signalled to his convoy to take care of themselves, and at once engaged the American squadron, unless we say that they engaged him. The "Pallas" took the "Countess of Scarborough" in an action of which we have not any such account as could be wished for. The fight between the "Richard" and the "Serapis" was long and close, and proved indeed to be one of the most remarkable naval duels in history. The two vessels were of about the same force in respect to the number of guns. But on the first discharge of the lower-deck guns of the "Richard", two of them burst, so inferior was their metal, and the men at the other guns on that deck refused to fight their batteries, probably not unwisely. They repaired to the upper deck, and through the rest of this remarkable action the lower-deck guns of the "Serapis" were served against the main deck of the "Richard" without receiving any reply. Jones fastened the ships together, it is said, with his own hand, as soon as they first touched each other. Through the action their sides were so close that not only at the moment when one party attempted to board the other, but for most of the battle, it was easy to pass from ship to ship. They had been for some time engaged when the firing of the "Richard" slacked, and Pearson called to know if she had struck. It was then that Jones made the ominous reply which has become almost proverbial: "I have not begun to fight." When he did begin to fight he showed all the remarkable qualities which certainly made him a great naval commander. He was willing to serve guns with his own hands, but he kept an eye on everything which was passing on both ships. He succeeded in so placing one or two of his guns that he nearly raked the enemy's deck fore and aft, and it was almost impossible for any man to stand against his fire. This terrible action raged through several hours of the night. The anxieties attending it for the Americans were the more acute, because Landais, in the "Alliance", rendered no direct assistance, but hovered around, firing occasional shots, which the American seamen always declared were aimed at their vessel and not at their enemies. The crisis came at last, when some sailors on the main-yard of the "Richard" succeeded in dropping hand-grenades through the open hatchways of the "Serapis" upon the men at work there. One of these grenades fired some loose powder, which was followed by the explosion of a powder-chest, which demoralized all the crew in that part of the vessel. Pearson was obliged to surrender. But so close and so confused had been the action that it is said that his first officer, when he heard the cry "She has struck!" believed that it was their antagonist that had surrendered, so confident was he still of victory.

Jones carried the prizes, the "Serapis" and the "Scarborough", into the Texel, in Holland. The "Richard" was so damaged that she sank the day after the battle.

It may readily be imagined that this exploit, by which two English men-of-war were carried away in triumph under the very eyes of the people of Scarborough, excited immense attention in all Europe. Jones was the hero of the hour. He was literally crowned with laurel at the theatre, and the French government made him the most flattering proposals with a view to his taking command in their service. Jones himself and all his officers were mad with rage at the conduct of Landais. Nothing but the enthusiasm of the alliance between the two nations had made him the commander of an American frigate. Franklin and Jones would have been glad to try him by court-martial, but this proved impossible. He was sent home in the "Alliance", and on the way became evidently insane. All necessities of a court-martial were thus avoided.[1246]

This ill-success of Landais was a good enough illustration of the danger of entrusting seamen of one nation to a commander from another. Either this danger or some other consideration prevented the French government from employing Jones. But the hope of such service was so constant with him that he took no command from the government of the United States for some time. And thus his service, which might have been of great importance, was lost, while he was dangling in antechambers.

These conflicts on the coast of Europe attracted, as has been said, more of the attention of Europe than the naval battles between England and America in other seas. But the years 1777 and 1778 had not passed without frequent naval engagements on the American coast, some of them of considerable importance. In May, 1777, Manly took the "Hancock" and "Boston", frigates from the port of Boston, with which he captured the English frigate "Fox." The three vessels looked into the harbor of Halifax, and drew into action the "Rainbow", the "Flora", and the "Victor", a superior force. The two smaller American vessels escaped, but the "Hancock" was sacrificed.

The "Raleigh", one of the thirteen frigates built for the Continent, had, as the reader knows, made a successful cruise in the end of 1777. The next year, with the "Alfred", one of the little favorites in the beginning of the war, she sailed from France. Both vessels were overtaken by a superior English force, and the "Alfred" was lost, though the "Raleigh" succeeded in reaching Boston. At that time most of the naval force of the Congress was in Boston harbor. It consisted of but three vessels, the "Warren", the "Raleigh", and the "Deane", each of thirty-two guns. The State of Massachusetts had in the same harbor the "Tyrannicide", the "Independent", the "Sampson", and the "Hancock", of fourteen guns and of twenty. But besides this little fleet, so insignificant in itself, hundreds of privateers were afloat, many of them of force nearly equal to the largest of the vessels which have been named.

It had been the hope of Franklin in Paris, of Paul Jones, his naval adviser, and of the court to which they both gave counsel, that D'Estaing's fleet might arrive off Delaware Bay in time to shut up the English fleet there. The same issue was feared in England.[1247] But D'Estaing was just too late. He arrived on the 7th of July off the capes; he only landed his passengers, Deane, and Gérard, the new French minister, and without even watering his fleet followed the English fleet to New York. Had he entrapped them in the Delaware, a crisis like that of Yorktown might have come three years earlier.

But the harbor of New York was too well protected by the intricacies of its channels to make an attack possible. D'Estaing remained in the offing off Sandy Hook for some days, and then bore away for Newport. His coöperation with the army of Sullivan is described in another place.[1248]

A full letter from Cooper to Franklin exists among the Franklin papers,[1249] which gives D'Estaing's own view of the transactions which followed, and that view is probably substantially correct. When he threatened the English fleet in New York Bay, it consisted of six ships of the line, six fifty-gun ships, two of forty-four guns, with smaller vessels. When he entered Newport Bay the English burned the "Orpheus", the "Lark", the "Cerberus", and the "King-Fisher",—of various force, from thirty-two guns to twenty,—and several smaller vessels. When, in conjunction with Sullivan, D'Estaing attacked the town, the English burned the "Grand Duke" and the "Flora", of thirty-two guns, with fifteen transports. While he was in Newport Bay, Byron's English fleet reinforced the fleet in New York, and they were now strong enough to retaliate on D'Estaing and give to him the challenge which he had so lately given to them. With a fleet of thirty-six sail, fourteen of which were double-deckers, they appeared off Newport.

D'Estaing was not averse to a contest. On the 10th of August, with the advantage of a fresh north wind, he took his squadron to sea. The English admiral, Howe, slipped his cables and went to sea also. D'Estaing did not avoid a battle, and, in the gale which followed, engaged the rear of the English fleet. But his own flag-ship, the "Languedoc", was dismasted in the gale, and, after communicating with Sullivan again, he went round to Boston to refit.

Samuel Cooper, in writing the letter to which we have alluded, is well aware that there was some popular disappointment because the Count D'Estaing had not done more. But he resumes the whole by saying: "The very sound of his aid occasioned the evacuation of Philadelphia by the British army; his presence suspended the operation of a vast British force in these States, by sea and land; it animated our own efforts; it protected our coast and navigation, obliging the enemy to keep their men-of-war and cruisers collected, and facilitated our necessary supplies from abroad. By drawing the powerful squadron of Admiral Byron to these seas, it gave security to the islands of France in the West Indies, an equilibrium to her naval power in the Channel, and a decided superiority in the Mediterranean."

When it is remembered that, in the events of the summer and autumn, the English lost twenty vessels in their collisions with D'Estaing's fleet, it must be granted that its exploits were by no means inconsiderable.

Of the American ships which have been spoken of, the "Raleigh" was the only one which was seriously engaged in this year. She put to sea on the 25th of September, with a small convoy. Before night she was pursued by two cruisers of the enemy. Barry, the commander, ran his ship on shore and saved his officers and men; but the "Raleigh" was floated by the English and taken into their service.[1250]

Meanwhile, in adventures which separately do not claim the dignity of historical narrative, the public and private cruisers from New England so swept the ocean that they sent into Boston most of the provision ships intended for the English army in New York. D'Estaing was able to leave Boston on the 3d of November for an expedition to the West Indies, with a fleet provisioned with the very stores which had been provided for his enemies. His vessels had been thoroughly repaired, cleaned, and sailed in good condition, and well fitted for the important duty assigned to them.

Early in 1779 the "Alliance" was fitted out for France, from Boston, to take General Lafayette on an important mission home. She was under the command of Pierre Landais, of whose misbehavior afterwards, in the battle of the "Serapis", the reader has been informed. Landais was already so unpopular that American sailors would not enlist under him, although the "Alliance" herself was a favorite vessel. Lafayette was, however, eager to be on his way, and at his urgent instance a crew was made up by accepting the services of English seamen, prisoners of war, who had been taken when the "Somerset" was shipwrecked on Cape Cod. As might have been expected, a mutiny was planned before she reached France; but it was fortunately revealed by an Irish seaman who was loyal to his new country. Passengers and officers united in confining the mutineers, and the ship was safely brought to France. She was a fine, new, swift vessel. Seamen liked her, though they disliked Landais. Another crew was obtained for her, and it was thus that she sailed with Paul Jones. It has been more convenient to speak of her after-history as we described transactions in the European waters.

In April, a squadron of three vessels, commanded by Hopkins in the "Warren", sailed from Boston and overtook a fleet of transports and store-ships which Clinton had sent from New York to Georgia. Hopkins captured eight out of ten vessels, of which three were armed. By this brilliant success the Americans took as prisoners twenty-four officers and a large number of private soldiers.

In the same summer, Whipple, one of the old commanders, in the "Providence", fell in with a large convoy of English merchantmen bound from the West Indies to England. The American officer disguised his vessel, or concealed her character, so that he boldly entered the fleet as one of their number. As night fell, on each of ten successive days he boarded and captured some vessel from the convoy, and eight of the prizes thus taken arrived in Boston. Their cargoes were sold for more than a million dollars, and the bold venture is spoken of as the most successful pecuniary enterprise of the war.

Early in the same year, Hallett, in the "Tyrannicide", a cruiser of the State of Massachusetts, took the "Revenge", a privateer cruiser from Jamaica.[1251] In the same summer, John Foster Williams, in the Massachusetts cruiser "Hazard", engaged the "Active", an English vessel with a larger force, with success. He was then transferred to the "Protector", a ship of twenty guns, in which he engaged the "Duff", an English privateer, which blew up after an action of an hour.[1252]

These successes, perhaps, stimulated the State of Massachusetts to attempt an enterprise which proved the most unfortunate in her military history, and was the end of her separate state naval force. John Foster Williams, who had commanded the "Protector", was very popular, and he was placed at the head of the state squadron, consisting of the "Tyrannicide", the "Hazard", and the "Protector", fitted out by the State against the English post at Penobscot, which was then within her own borders. The state authorities obtained from Congress, as an accession to their own force, the "Warren", the "Diligent", and the "Providence", which were nearly all that were left of the Continental navy. Some privateersmen joined the expedition. The whole naval force was placed under Saltonstall, who had a Continental commission. The land force consisted of 1,500 militiamen. This little force landed near the end of July; but Lovell, the land commander, thought his force insufficient, and sent for reinforcements. While they were waiting, Sir George Collier appeared with five English vessels. Saltonstall did not dare engage them, and ran his own ship, the "Warren", on shore and burnt her. Most of the other vessels followed his example, and the rest were captured by the English. The crews, with the land forces, abandoned the expedition, and returned to Boston by land.

The national navy of the United States was thus reduced to the very lowest terms. Of the few vessels left, four were taken by the English when they captured Charleston, namely, the "Providence", the "Queen of France", the "Ranger", and the "Boston." Nor had Congress much enthusiasm for replacing them. In the first place, Congress had no money with which to build ships; and in the second place, the alliance with France gave it the use of a navy much more powerful than it could itself create.[1253] It was also clear enough that the great prizes to be hoped for in privateering gave a sufficient inducement to call out all the force the country had for naval warfare. The history of such warfare can never be written, but the damage which the privateers inflicted upon the enemy's commerce was such that the mercantile classes of England became bitterly opposed to the war. On the other hand, it has been said, and probably truly, that New England, the home of the privateers, was never more prosperous than in the last years of the Revolution, so large were the profits made in privateering enterprises.

TUCKER'S PAROLE, May 20, 1780.

From the Tucker Papers, in Harvard College library. He commanded the "Boston" when surrendered.

After the fall of Charleston, the principal vessels left in the national navy were the "Alliance", the "Hague", formerly the "Deane", the "Confederacy", the "Trumbull", the "Saratoga", and the "Ariel." In February, 1781, the "Alliance" crossed to France, and started to return with the "Marquis de Lafayette", a ship of forty guns, laden with a very valuable cargo of stores for the government. A few days after, she took the "Mars" and the "Minerva", heavily armed privateers, and then parted from her consort. The "Lafayette" was captured soon after, to the great distress of the American army, which needed her stores; but the "Alliance" completed her cruise, and, on the 28th of May, captured the "Atalanta" and the "Trepasy", two English cruisers. The "Atalanta", however, was subsequently taken by an English squadron. The "Confederacy", which was launched in 1778, was captured by the English in the West Indies, on the 22d of June. Captain Nicholson, in the "Trumbull", after a romantic series of adventures, surrendered to the "Iris" and the "Monk" in August of the same year. The "Congress" in September captured the sloop-of-war "Savage." In the next year, which was the last of the war, the "Alliance" made a cruise in which she maintained her reputation. The "Hague", the only frigate which remained to the nation, having been given to Manly, whose success in the beginning of the war gave such joy to Washington and his army, "this officer in a manner closed it", as Fenimore Cooper says, "with a very brilliant cruise in the West Indies."

The signal success of Count de Grasse in blocking up Lord Cornwallis in the Chesapeake, and the history of his engagements with Rodney and others, belong more properly to another chapter of this history.[1254]

It is a misfortune for the history of this country that no intelligent man in New England interested himself in the systematic history of the privateer enterprises of the United States in the Revolution while the seamen lived who engaged in them. But no such person undertook this historical work, and the materials do not now exist from which it could be thoroughly done. Some details noticed by authors of the time excite attention and surprise as they reveal the magnitude and number of the prizes made by the privateers. Such is the statement, cited above, that the prizes sent in by Whipple in one cruise exceeded one million dollars in value. Hutchinson, in his diary, reports the belief that seventy thousand New Englanders were engaged in privateering at one time. This was probably an overestimate at that moment. But it is certain that, as the war went on, many more than seventy thousand Americans fought their enemy upon the sea. On the other hand, the reader knows that there was no time when seventy thousand men were enrolled in the armies of the United States on shore.[1255]

In the year 1781 the privateer fleet of the port of Salem alone consisted of fifty-nine vessels, which carried nearly four thousand men, and mounted seven hundred and forty-six guns. In 1780 the Admiralty Court of the Essex district of Massachusetts, which was the largest of the three admiralty districts, had condemned 818 prizes. It must not be supposed that other districts were insignificant. In the single month of May, 1779, eighteen prizes were brought into New London.

As has been said, there seems to be no method of making any complete computation of the magnitude of the privateer fleet at any one time. But an incomplete list in the Massachusetts Archives of those commissioned in that State gives us the names of two hundred and seventy-six vessels. As the reader has seen, the fleets from Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Philadelphia were also large. It would probably be fair to say that between the beginning and end of the war more than five hundred privateers were commissioned by different States. The magnitude of the injury inflicted upon the English trade by these vessels may be judged by such a comparison as is in our power of the respective forces. In the year 1777 the whole number of officers and men in the English navy was eighty-seven thousand. Although Hutchinson's estimate is probably an overestimate, it is to be remembered that, as the reader has seen, there were at the same time very considerable naval forces in the employ of the several States and of the United States government. This would seem to show that, man for man, the numerical forces engaged by the two parties were not very much unlike. In the Atlantic Ocean, the Americans seem to have outnumbered the English.

After the navy of the United States, which was officered and built or purchased by Congress, the largest separate force was that of the State of Massachusetts. So soon as O'Brien and his friends seized the "Margaretta", as has been told, the provincial government took her into its service, and christened her the "Liberty", keeping her at first under the care of O'Brien.

For the first five years of the war, Massachusetts was governed by a committee of the Council. Many of the members of this committee, from time to time, were Boston merchants, of large experience in maritime affairs. The State was acting as an independent sovereignty. It contributed to the resources of its allies, the other States in the confederation, but none the less did it carry on war against the common enemy. It would sometimes happen that the State needed to make a remittance to France in its purchase of military stores. If the market were favorable, the merchants on the council boards would arrange for the purchase or charter of a vessel on State account, and the State bought and sent to Europe the freight by which it made its payments to its agents. The naval archives of the commonwealth are therefore a curious mixture of warlike operations and of commercial adventure. It will sometimes happen that the vessel which appears in one month as a cruiser, officered and manned for war by the authority of the State, shall appear in another month as a merchantman, freighted for a foreign port and intended to bring home a cargo to be sold to the credit of the State. An interesting instance of the promptness of the government was its readiness in taking up and fitting for use a little brigantine which carried to Franklin, in Paris, the first news of Burgoyne's surrender. Paul Jones hoped, as has been seen, to carry out the same news in the "Ranger" from Philadelphia; but although his passage was but twenty days in length, he did not arrive at Bordeaux till the same day on which Austin, the messenger of Massachusetts, was telling the great news to Franklin and the commissioners at Passy.[1256]

The navy of Massachusetts, between the beginning and end of the war, numbered at least thirty-four vessels. One or two of these were vessels which ranked in the language of that day as frigates. The finest and largest of them was the "Protector", built on state account at Salisbury, Mass., where the fine frigate "Alliance", which proved so successful and popular, was also built, almost at the same time. It may be said, in passing, that the names of the New England vessels showed very distinctly that men had not yet lost the traditions of their ancestry. The "Tyrannicide" was a favorite cruiser in the state navy, and the action which has been spoken of, in which she took the "Revenge", was one of the best fought battles of the war. The "Oliver Cromwell" was a Massachusetts privateer, and the name of the "Hampden" appears twice on the lists of those days. The keel of the "Protector" was laid in 1778, and she sailed first in 1780. But she was also one of the unfortunate squadron destroyed in the Penobscot. The failure of the well-planned but disastrous expedition to that river resulted in the destruction of all the important vessels belonging to the State.

We have only a partial catalogue of the privateers commissioned by the State between 1775 and 1783. It is sometimes difficult to draw the line between state cruisers and privateers, and it will sometimes happen that a vessel which has one year been chartered by the State, and officered in her commission, falls back the next year into the hands of her owners, and is equipped and fought by them under a privateer's commission. In this list there are rather more than three hundred names of separate vessels. Of the privateersmen sent out from Salem there is a separate list. Between the beginning and end of the war, the Salem vessels alone numbered nearly one hundred and fifty. The Massachusetts Archives give a list of three hundred and sixty-five, as commissioned and belonging in Boston. If we had lists, equally full, of the privateers which sailed from Falmouth (Portland), from the Merrimac, from Marblehead, from Falmouth, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Barnstable, and the other towns on Cape Cod, it is probable that we should enlarge the list of Massachusetts privateers so that it should include more than six hundred vessels. It is to be remembered that all the regular operations of the fishing fleet were stopped, and that therefore, in every town on the coast, there were vessels and men ready for service, and very easily commissioned if a spirited commander appeared. To this number must be added the considerable list of what were virtually New England privateers among the vessels commissioned in France by Deane and Franklin.

The largest of these privateers, at starting, carried one hundred and fifty men. Such an exploit as Whipple's, which has been already recorded, would have been impossible unless he had as many as ten prize crews on his vessel, of fifteen men each. With each prize sent in, the fighting force of the captor was reduced, and in such reduction is the reason to be found why we often find that at the last a privateer captain was not able to fight his own ship, and, after he had sent in many prizes, was himself taken. On the other hand, the smallest of these vessels, equipped for short cruises, carried but few guns and few men.

Mr. Felt's statement of the privateer force of Salem and Beverly at the end of the war gives a total force of fifty-nine ships, carrying four thousand men. This would give an average of about sixty-six men to a vessel. The general estimate is higher, and we suppose that the average crew of a Massachusetts privateer, when she sailed, was about one hundred men.

If this estimate is correct, we must modify Hutchinson's statement so far as to say that, sooner or later, Massachusetts alone probably sent sixty thousand men out in warfare upon the seas. Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut probably sent twenty thousand more. Next to this fleet was that of the Delaware; next to that, the privateers commissioned in France; and to these must be added those from the Chesapeake and more southern waters.

The number of seamen and officers employed by the Continental Congress was probably largest in the earlier years of the war. No papers now exist which give full returns of this force. But it would probably be fair to estimate it as varying in different years from five thousand to ten thousand men. The several state navies represented, perhaps, as many more.

When one considers these forces in the privateer fleet and the national and state navies, the English force opposed seems surprisingly small. We have the official returns of the officers and men in the whole English navy for every year of the contest. The number comes up to 87,000, after England was well engaged with America, France, and Spain. But of this fleet a very considerable part was in the East Indies and on other stations. Almon's Remembrancer says distinctly that the number of men engaged against the colonies at sea in 1776 was 26,000. It is very sure that in that year the colonies had many more men at sea engaged against England. There were some English privateers; but their number was not considerable.

A comparison between the military and naval forces of America in the Revolution shows that the navy, in its various forms, embodied almost as many men as the army, and sometimes, indeed, more.

In a report sent by General Knox to Congress on the 11th of May, 1790, he gives the number of men actually in the Continental army year by year, the number of militia called out from time to time, and the number of men demanded in the quotas fixed by Congress. The last figures are of no great importance now, though they have some historical curiosity. The others exhibit the forces for seven years, thus:—

	Continentals.	Militia.
1775	27,443	37,623
1776	46,891	42,760
1777	34,820	33,900
1778	32,899	18,153
1779	27,699	17,485
1780	21,015	21,811
1781	33,408	16,048
1782	14,256	3,750
1783	13,476	No militia.

A curiously extravagant estimate of the extent of the continental forces engaged has been commonly set forth by adding these yearly figures, a process which takes no recognition of the fact that a man serving through three years, for instance, is counted in each year. The history of this confusion is traced in a paper by Justin Winsor in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Jan., 1886.—Ed.

It is to be observed that the number of militia stated here is largely conjectural; and in no instance were the men called out in service for any considerable time. A comparison of these figures with figures quite as authentic, which give the number of men who were afloat year by year for purposes of offence, either in the national or state navies, or in larger numbers in privateers, will show that, in some of the later years of the war, this naval service enlisted a larger number of men than were serving in the army. Indeed, as has been shown, Great Britain appears to have often had more American enemies afloat on the Atlantic than she had seamen and officers of her own upon that ocean.

[GENERAL EDITORIAL NOTES.]

The earliest account of the Revolutionary navy was in Thomas Clark's Naval History of the United States from the Commencement of the Revolution (Philad., 1813; second ed., 1814), in two volumes.

Chas. W. Goldsborough's United States Naval Chronicle, bringing the story down to 1822, was printed in Washington in 1824.

In 1828 there appeared at Brooklyn, N. Y., a General View of the rise, etc., of the American Navy,—a book of little importance.

The most important of all the accounts is the Naval Hist. of the United States, by James Fenimore Cooper, first published in Philadelphia in 1839, and in a second edition in 1840. In some respects, relating to the war of 1812, Cooper's views have been called in question; but his story of the Revolutionary navy is the result of investigations that have not, on the whole, been improved upon.[1257] Cooper gives a list of the Continental cruisers, with the fate of each; and Lossing, in the summary of the Revolutionary naval history in his Field-Book, ii. 851, copies this list. An official and authentic record, with no attempt at a readable narrative, is found in G. F. Emmons's Navy of the United States, 1775-1853, with a brief history of each vessel's service, to which is added a list of private armed vessels, previous and subsequent to the Revolutionary War (Washington, 1853, published under authority of the Navy Department). The book contains a list of captures during the Revolution, both by public and private armed vessels.

On the British side, the earliest connected narrative is that in the fourth and fifth volumes of Robert Beatson's Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain, 1727-1783 (London, 1804). Among the later books are C. D. Yonge's Hist. of the British Navy,[1258] and Allen's Battles of the British Navy.[1259]

[SPECIAL EDITORIAL NOTES.]

I. Paul Jones.—In respect to the lives of Paul Jones, Sabin's (ix. nos. 36,546, etc.) enumeration includes many anonymous and unimportant ones not now to be mentioned. The earliest biography of any original authority was one issued at Washington in 1825 (second ed. 1851), Life and Character of John Paul Jones, by John Henry Sherburne, register of the U. S. navy, and this was reprinted in an abridged form at London, the same year as The life of Paul Jones from original documents in the possession of John Henry Sherburne, register of the Navy of the U. S. This life was based upon documents in the naval archives of the government, upon some letters contributed by Thomas Jefferson, and upon some papers brought to light in a baker's shop in New York (No. Amer. Rev., Oct., 1826, p. 292). These papers had been left by Jones, when he went to Europe, in the hands of his friend Ross, of Philadelphia. At Jones's death, and on his heirs' orders, these papers were handed over to Robert Hyslop, and, upon this gentleman's death, came into the charge of his cousin, John Hyslop, the baker, in whose shop they were found by Mr. George A. Ward, of New York, by whom they were put at Sherburne's disposal. This biographer, hearing of other papers in Scotland, applied for them, but was refused, as it was intended to use them in another memoir. This other narrative appeared as Memoirs of Rear Admiral Paul Jones, now first compiled from his original journals and correspondence (Edinburgh, 1830, in 2 vols.; London, 1843, in 2 vols.). The author of it referred rather slightingly to the New York MSS. as "a few fragments", and claimed that Jones took to Europe the essential part of his papers, which by his will passed to his sisters in Scotland, and eventually to his niece, Miss Janette Taylor, of Dumfries, who possessed several bound volumes of them, beside other loose papers. Some of Jones's papers are in the possession of J. C. Brevoort, of Brooklyn; others are among the Force Papers in the library of Congress; and others in the Lee Papers in the libraries of Harvard College and of the University of Virginia. Franklin's letters to him are in Sparks's ed., vol. viii. The Taylor MSS. were the original material mentioned in the title of this Edinburgh edition, which was reprinted, under the editing of Robert Sands, in New York (1830) as The life and Correspondence of Paul Jones from original letters and manuscripts in the possession of Miss Janette Taylor. The Sparks Library has a copy of this book, with Miss Taylor's MS. annotations. Based upon the same material, but with some alterations and additions, was the Life of Rear Admiral John Paul Jones, compiled from his original Journals and Correspondence (Philad., 1845, 1847, 1853, 1858, 1869), which appeared under the editing of B. Walker. The Life of Paul Jones by Alexander Slidell Mackenzie (Boston, 1841, in two vols.) was written at the instance of Jared Sparks, and its merit is that it has sifted all the existing material, making a more readable and better constructed narrative than the others. Mackenzie acknowledges his use of the preceding lives, but says he has used guardedly a Memoir of the Life of Capt. Nathaniel Fanning, an American naval officer, who served during part of the American Revolution under Commodore John Paul Jones (New York, 1808), which is known in another edition as A narrative of the Adventures of an American Naval Officer (New York, 1806). Fanning is said to have been Jones's private secretary, though he is also spoken of as a midshipman on the "Bon Homme Richard." Thomas Chase, of Chesterfield, Va., published Sketches of the life, character, and times of Paul Jones (Richmond, 1850), which is of small extent, and in part derived from stories told by the author's grandfather, who had served with Jones.

A French Mémoire de Paul Jones (Paris, 1798) purports to be a translation under his own eyes, by "Citoyen André", of a narrative written by Jones himself. Poole's Index, p. 695, gives various periodical references to articles on Jones; and his career is the subject of J. F. Cooper's novel of The Pilot, and of its sequel, Dumas' Capitaine Paul. Cf. Herman Melville's Israel Potter. The Rev. E. E. Hale gives a chapter (no. xiv.) to his career in his Franklin in France.

For Jones's services in the "Ranger", see, beside the lives of Jones, the Annual Register (xxi. 176); Parton's Franklin (vol. ii.); a journal of Dr. Ezra Green in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1875, edited by Admiral Preble (whose own copy with additions is in the Mass. Hist. Soc.). A log of the "Ranger" is cited as belonging to a gentleman in Greenock in 1830; and one, Aug. 24, 1778, to May 10, 1780, is printed in the Granite Monthly, v. 64. The Memoirs of Andrew Sherburne, a pensioner of the navy of the Revolution (Utica, 1828; Providence, 1831) covers the service of a lad on the ship.

Of the remarkable fight of the "Bon Homme Richard" and the "Serapis" we have Jones's account in his letter from Texel to Franklin, also transmitted to Congress; the narrative of Dale, his lieutenant; and the letter sent to the admiralty by Capt. Pearson, of the English ship. These are given by Sherburne, the Edinburgh editor, and others. The account in Cooper's Naval History passed under the eye of Dale. The log-book of the "Richard" was in 1830 in the possession of George Napier, of Edinburgh. The statements about the progress of the fight are somewhat contradictory, and Dawson (Battles, 554) collates them. A letter of Jones to Robert Morris, Oct. 13, 1779, is in the N. Y. Hist. Coll., 1878, p. 442. Beside the accounts in the lives of Jones and the general histories, see Parton's Franklin (ii. 335); Analectic Mag. (vol. viii.); Allen's Battles of the British Navy; J. T. Headley's Miscellanies. The effect in England is depicted in Albemarle's Rockingham and his Contemporaries (ii. 381). The story of the flag of the "Bon Homme Richard" is told by Admiral G. H. Preble in his Three Historic Flags (N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Jan., 1874, and separately with additions, Boston, 1874,—the author's annotated copy being in the Mass. Hist. Soc.). There is a contemporary print of the fight by Peltro, after a painting by Robert Dodd (London, 1781). Cf. Barnard's Hist. of England, p. 693.

Jones accused Landais, who commanded the "Alliance", of failure to afford assistance, and of even firing into the "Bon Homme Richard." Landais published a Memorial to justify Peter Landais' conduct during the late war (Boston, 1784), and a Second Part (New York, 1787?), being his defence against the specifications of Charges and proofs respecting the conduct of Peter Landais (New York [1787]). Landais' quarrel with Jones and his subsequent career are traced in Hale's Franklin in France, ch. xvii. For Landais' claims on government, see B. P. Poore's Descriptive Catal. of govt. publications, pp. 61, 67, 82, 94; and Jones's claims can be traced in Ibid. Cf. Journals of Congress, iv. 796.

The Diplomatic Correspondence (vol. i.) shows the complications which the harboring of Jones and his prizes in Holland caused. For titles on this point, see Sabin (ix. 36,562, etc.) and Muller, Books on America (1872), p. 187, and nos. 1,181-1,187. The difficulty occasioned by the captures of Wickes and Conyngham, and their efforts to refit in French ports, as well as those of Jones, are set forth in Hale's Franklin in France.

II. Privateering.—The Provincial Assembly of Massachusetts, Nov. 13, 1775, authorized private-armed vessels to cruise, and established a court for condemning their prizes,—the law being drawn by Elbridge Gerry (Austin's Gerry, i. 92, 505; Barry's Mass., iii. 58, and references; Sparks's Washington, iii. 155; Frothingham's Siege of Boston, 261; Gent. Mag., Jan., 1776; Almon' s Remembrancer, ii. 149). For the provincial legislation, see Goodell's Provincial Laws, vol. v., under "Admiralty", "Letters of Marque", "Armed Vessels", and "Privateers", in the index.

For the early captures, see Siege of Boston, 269, 272, 289, 308; Adams's Familiar Letters, 208, 220, 230. Abigail Adams wrote, Sept. 9, 1776, "The rage for privateering is as great here as anywhere, and I believe the success has been as great" (Familiar Letters, 226). The Massachusetts Archives show how large the number of privateers was that hailed from that State. Cf. Mem. Hist. Boston, iii. 118, with references; and the Report on the Mass. Archives (1885), pp. 25, 27-29, 31, 34. Cf. a letter of Thomas Cushing on the building of armed vessels in Mass., in Penna. Mag. of Hist., Oct., 1886, p. 355; and a list by Admiral Preble of those fitted out in Massachusetts, 1776-1783, in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Oct., 1871. After Boston, the most activity was in Salem. Cf. extracts from Salem Gazette, quoted in A. B. Ellis's Amer. Patriotism on the Sea (Cambridge, 1884, and Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Jan., 1884); Annals of Salem, by J. B. Felt; Curwen's Journal, 589; W. P. Upham's General Glover; life of E. H. Derby in Hunt's Amer. Merchants, vol. ii; T. W. Higginson, in Harper's Monthly, Sept., 1886.

The records of the proprietors of the New Hampshire privateer "Gen. Sullivan" (1777-1780), showing how the business part of such enterprises was conducted, and the instructions given to commanders, have been printed by Charles H. Bell in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1869, pp. 47, 181, 289. Correspondence of Josiah Bartlett and William Whipple on privateering is in Hist. Mag., vi. 73.

Concerning the Rhode Island privateers, we have William Paine Sheffield's Rhode Island privateers and privateersmen (an address, Newport, 1883); and an account of the privateer "Gen. Washington", in E. M. Stone's Our French Allies, p. 275. (Cf. Arnold's Rhode Island, etc.) Newport is thought to have furnished more seamen than any port except Boston.

For those of Connecticut, see N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1873, p. 101; and on the whale-boat warfare, of which a large part was on Long Island Sound, see Mag. of Amer. Hist., March, 1882, p. 168; N. Y. Evening Post, July 18, 1853 (quoted by Ellis); Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 851; Onderdonk's Rev. Incidents of Long Island, i. 170-234. Cf. also F. M. Caulkins's New London, ch. 31; Hinman's Conn. during the Rev., 592. The British expedition to Danbury was offset by the incursion of Connecticut whale-boats (May, 1777), under Return Jonathan Meigs, to Sag Harbor, where captures were made and shipping burned. Cf. Hildreth's Pioneer Settlers of Ohio, 532; Sparks's Washington, iv. 440; Mag. of American History, April, 1880. Judge Jones (N. Y. during the Rev.) asperses Meigs's character, and Johnston (Observations, etc., 23) defends him.

For those of New York, see N. Y. City Manual, 1870, p. 867. We know less about the privateers fitted out south of New York; but Robert Morris is said to have grown rich on the profits of such enterprises (Chastellux's Voyages, Eng. tr., i. 199, etc.). These ventures were far from uniformly successful, and the losses were many (cf. such instances as are detailed in Moore's Diary, i. 284, 316, etc.), but the losses inflicted by privateers on the British were vastly greater. Lecky (iv. 17) thinks that, though the allurements of such service helped to stay enlistments in the army, it was quite worth such a cost in the damage which the British suffered.

Congress first authorized privateers under Continental commissions March 23, 1776, and regulations were adopted April 2d and 3d,—Washington having made suggestions (Journals, i. 183, 296, 305; John Adams's Works, iii. 37). A collection of Extracts from the Journals of Congress relative to prizes and privateers was printed at Philad. in 1777 (Brinley, no. 4,112). For prize claims, see Poore's Descriptive Catalogue p. 1347; and for lists of prize cases, cf. Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., 2d ser., ii. 120.

We have various journals and narratives of cruises in privateers: the MS. Journal of Capt. J. Fish in the Amer. Antiq. Soc. (1776-77); Timothy Boardman's Log-book, kept on board the privateer Oliver Cromwell, during a cruise from New London, Ct., to Charleston, S. C., and return, in 1778; also, a biographical sketch of the author, by S. W. Boardman, issued under the auspices of the Rutland County Historical Society (Albany, N. Y., 1885); Solomon Drowne's Journal of a cruise in the fall of 1780, in the private sloop of war Hope, with notes by H. T. Drowne (New York, 1872), and reprinted in The R. I. Hist. Mag., July, 1884; narrative of Capt. Philip Besom, of Marblehead, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., v. 357.

PAUL JONES.

After the medal struck in his honor by Congress, to commemorate his victory over the "Serapis." Cf. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xi. 299; Loubat's Medallic Hist. U. S.; Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 845; Gay's Pop. Hist. U. S., iii. 622; Thomas Wyatt's Memoirs of the Generals, Commodores, etc. (Phil., 1848, no. 23); John Frost's Pictorial Book of the Commodores (New York, 1845). Madison called Houdon's bust of Jones "an exact likeness." The familiar portrait by C. W. Peale represents him full face, with chapeau, has been engraved by J. B. Longacre, and is in Sherburne's Life of Jones. For a contemporary English print, see J. C. Smith's British Mezzotint Portraits, v. 1735.

Respecting the international complications occasioned by the privateers, see the Diplom. Corresp. of the Rev. Capt. John Lee, of Marblehead, carried some prisoners taken from prizes, which he had sent home, into Bilbao in 1776, where he was put under arrest; but the news of the Declaration of Independence arriving at Madrid, he was discharged (George Sumner's Oration at Boston, July 4, 1859, p. 12; Dipl. Corresp., i. 53). The Grantham correspondence, copied in the Sparks MSS. (no. xxiii.), shows much on these complications. The histories of American diplomacy in Europe at this time necessarily cover these points; and the copies of the Lord Stormont and Sir Joseph Yorke Papers, among the Sparks MSS., show the complications which the ministers of England had to encounter in France and Holland. E. E. Hale's Franklin in France has a chapter on the American privateers sailing from Dunkirk. On the participancy of Franklin and Deane in the movements of the privateers, see Parton's Franklin, ii. 239. There were instances of privateers being retaken by their prisoners and carried into England (P. O. Hutchinson's Gov. Hutchinson, ii. 86).

III. The Rhode Island Campaign of 1778.—In 1776 all the entrances to Narragansett Bay had been fortified, except the westerly, or that one lying between Conanicut Island and the western shore of the bay; and accordingly, in December of that year, Sir Peter Parker with a British fleet entered by this passage, and, passing round the northern end of Conanicut, landed Sir Henry Clinton and a force of British and Hessians on Rhode Island, and occupied Newport (New Hampshire State Papers, viii. 411, 431; Bancroft, ix. 200, 357. Cf. G. C. Mason on the English fleet in R. I. in the R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., vii. 301). The Journals of Congress, ii. 233, show a proposition to send fire-ships against the British in August, 1777. The Americans, under the direction of a French engineer, Malmedy, completed at once the defences of all vulnerable points round the bay, and the chart of the bay, made by the English engineer Blaskowitz in 1777, shows what some of these points were. The American as well as the British defences are enumerated in Gen. George W. Cullum's Historical sketch of the fortification defences of Narragansett Bay (Washington, 1884). Cf. also his paper in Mag. of Amer. Hist., June, 1884. A section of Blaskowitz's map of the bay, 1777, given in E. M. Stone's French Allies, shows the defences of Providence.

CAPTAIN PEARSON.

D'Estaing, by reason of the draft of his heavier ships, had declined to risk entering New York harbor (Sparks, Corresp. of the Rev., ii. 155; Mag. of Amer. Hist., iii. 387). A sketch in the Montresor Papers (N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1881, p. 505) gives the positions of the English and French fleets, July 22, 1778, respectively, within and without Sandy Hook. When D'Estaing sailed to Newport, it was in pursuance of a plan contrived with Washington for the capture of that place and the British forces there. On July 29, 1778, D'Estaing anchored near Point Judith. Sullivan was now in command of about ten thousand men, largely militia, and under him were Greene and Lafayette commanding divisions, and they all were gathered about the head of the bay. Copies of Lafayette's letters during this campaign, made by him for Sparks, are in the Sparks MSS. no. lxxxiv. There were about 6,000 men under Maj.-Gen. Pigot in the Newport defences. On Newport in the hands of the British, see Hist. Mag., iv. 1, 34, 69, 105, 133, 172, and the Journal in Narragansett Hist. Reg., i. 28, 91, 167, 277. There was a small British fleet, mostly of thirty-two guns each, protecting their water-front. When on August 5 D'Estaing began to send his ships in, the British burned or sunk their ships. The plan agreed upon by the joint forces was to attack the British on August 10; but Sullivan had crossed his troops over to the island earlier than D'Estaing expected, since he found that Pigot was drawing in his troops from the northern end of the island, and massing them nearer Newport, while the French troops had not yet landed so as to be ready to act in concert. This was the condition, when one morning, as the fog lifted, the English fleet of Howe was seen off the entrance of the bay. Some of the French ships were outside and exposed, and so D'Estaing promptly passed out to keep his fleet together and present his strongest front. Howe declined battle, because the French had the weather-gauge. A gale coming on, both fleets sought sea-room and were widely scattered, so that little fighting took place except as opposing vessels chanced to come together. The storm damaged both fleets equally, and each commander sought a harbor as best he could; Howe at New York, and D'Estaing at Newport.

COUNT D'ESTAING.

After a copperplate engraving of a picture by Bonneville.

The movements of the British fleet are followed in a Candid and impartial narrative of the transactions of the fleet under Lord Howe (London, 1779). Cf. also Sir John Barrow's Life of Richard, Earl Howe (London, 1838). In the Third report of the Hist. MSS. Commission, p. 124, there is noted a diary on the fleet, July 29-Aug. 31, 1778. There is an account of a participant on the French fleet, given in Moore's Diary, ii. 85. Paul Revere speaks of the storm as being of unexampled severity (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiii. 251).

D'ESTAING.

From Andrews' Hist. of the War, London, 1785, vol. i. It is also engraved in Extrait du Journal d'un officier de la marine [Paris?], 1782 (two editions, but with different engravings). Cf. the portrait in Hennequin's Biographie Maritime (ii. 221); an engraving by Porreau in Jones's Georgia,] vol. ii.; Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 78, etc.

Meanwhile, on August 15, Sullivan began a movement down the island, and the British retired behind their two lines of defences. When D'Estaing reëntered the bay on the 20th, Sullivan had begun his approaches against the British works, but not wisely in plan, as General Cullum says. Sullivan urged D'Estaing to join in the attack; but that officer thought that his first duty, under his instructions, was to make the safety of his fleet sure, and accordingly did not dare risk, in his shattered condition, an attack from Howe, should the English admiral chance to have fared better in the gale, and have made ready to fall upon him. So D'Estaing told Sullivan he must go to Boston to refit, and on the 22d he set sail, expressing regret that Sullivan had been so precipitate in passing over from the main. He declared that he could not help the American general, and this purpose he insisted upon, despite the protests of Sullivan and his officers. The predicament of the American commander was certainly an unfortunate one, but he was not steady enough of head to refrain from publicly casting reproach on the French general, in an order which he found he must in part recall after the mischief had been done (Lodge's Hamilton's Works, vii. 557. Cf. Lafayette's letter to Washington in Sparks's Corresp. of the Rev., ii., Aug. 25; and a letter of Greene, in Ibid., Aug. 28; also Greene's Greene, iii. 148). Sullivan thus gave the militia an excuse for deserting him. While in front of the British works and in this condition, Sullivan got intelligence from Washington that Clinton had sailed from New York with reinforcements for Pigot. Beginning a retrograde movement on the 26th, Sullivan stopped at the northern end of the island and strengthened his position, while Lafayette made a fruitless visit to Boston to induce D'Estaing to return. That officer was not yet ready; his ships not yet repaired.

SIEGE OF NEWPORT, 1778.

From the map in the atlas of Marshall's Washington. Cf. E. M. Stone's Our French Allies, p. 68; and the map given in Diman's address on the capture of Prescott. A MS. plan of the attack on Rhode Island, Aug., 1778, is among the Faden maps (no. 88) in the library of Congress.

NEWPORT.

This plan, by Charles Blaskowitz, was published by Faden in 1777, and is here somewhat reduced. Cf. fac-simile in the Mag. of Amer. Hist., July, 1879. A MS. map of the mouth of Taunton River and Newport harbor, by Charles Blaskowitz, is among the Faden maps (no. 89) in the library of Congress. There is another plan by Des Barres, published April 24, 1776, and making part of the Atlantic Neptune. A plan of Newport and the bay is in the American Atlas, nos. 17 and 18. The British had contemplated founding a navy yard at Newport in 1764 (Rhode Island Hist. Mag., July, 1885, p. 42). Rider (Hist. Tracts, no. 6) gives a fac-simile of an old map.

Meanwhile, on the 29th, the British, who had followed Sullivan, began to press him, and some fighting took place. The centennial of this action was celebrated August 29, 1878, and S. S. Rider includes an account of it in his R. I. Hist. Tracts, vi. S. G. Arnold delivered the historical address. This book has also Sullivan's Report, Aug. 31st; Pigot to Clinton; and the German account from Eelking's Hülfstruppen, translated by J. W. De Peyster. Cf. also R. I. Hist. Soc. Proc. (1877-78), p. 88. A letter of Col. Trumbull, Aug. 20th, is in the Trumbull MSS., and the fight is described in his Autobiography. A letter of James Lanman, Sept. 16th, is in the Sparks MSS. (xlvii. p. 29). Cf. Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 89, and Arnold's Rhode Island and other histories of the State, and of Newport.

The British strength on the island, Aug. 22d, is given as 6,860 men; and the loss in the action of the 29th is given at 207 in all. Sparks MSS., xlix. vol. iii.

As night fell, the Americans deceived Pigot into thinking them at work on their defences, when in fact they were crossing to the mainland by two ferries. An hour before midnight Lafayette got back from Boston, and found this retreat going on. He took at once charge of the rear-guard, and by midnight the entire army was rescued.

GENERAL SULLIVAN'S CAMPAIGN MAP, August. 9-30, 1778.

This follows a sketch in E. M. Stone's Our French Allies, p. 108, which is a reduction of the original (38 inches long,—scale, one inch to mile), given by Sullivan, after the retreat, to the government of Rhode Island, and discovered in the State House a few years ago.

Key: A, "American army under the command of the Hon'ble Gen'l Sullivan." B, "British lines." B L W, "British Lines and works." B A, "British Army. Order of March." "Here a severe cannonading and bombarding on both sides began Aug. 17, 1778, and continued till the 27th." C, "British Army. Order of Battle." D, "Daify Hill" is properly Durfee's Hill. Y, Turkey Hill. A H, Almy's Hill. O, "British redoubts", north of Easton's pond. Windmill. "Here the British army came up with the Light Corps of Gen. Sullivan, which was in advance Aug. 29th, 1778, 7 o'c'k A. M., when the battle of that day began." A B, "American batteries and covered way." R, Howland's Ferry. "Here the American army landed Aug. 9th, 1778, beginning after 6 o'clock A. M., and retreated the 30th in the evening."

The sentences above in quotation-marks are legends on the map at the points indicated. A letter of Sullivan, Oct. 25, 1778, respecting this map is in the Trumbull MSS., iv. p. 181.

The conduct of Sullivan in this brief campaign has been much criticised, and Thomas C. Amory attempts his defence in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. (Sept., 1879), vol. xvii. p. 163; and Mag. of Amer. Hist. (1879), vol. iii. pp. 550, 692. Cf. Amory's Sullivan, p. 70, and his papers in the R. I. Hist. Mag., 1884, p. 106; 1885, pp. 244, 271. Sullivan's general orders are in the Sparks MSS., no. xlvii., and in Upham's John Glover, p. 46. Letters of Sullivan are in Sparks MSS., no. xx., including his correspondence with Pigot; others are in the Trumbull MSS.; some to Laurens, Aug. 6th and 16th, in the Laurens Corresp. (ed. by F. Moore), pp. 116, 120. One of the miscellaneous volumes of MSS. in the Mass. Hist. Soc. library (Letters and Papers, 1777-1780) is mostly made up of the papers of Meshech Weare, President of New Hampshire, and they include various letters from Sullivan, Whipple, and others during this campaign.

The French side of the controversy with D'Estaing is given in Chevalier's Histoire de la Marine Française pendant la guerre de l'Indépendance Américaine, and in a Journal d'un officier de la Marine (1782). The correspondence of D'Estaing is in the Archives de la Marine at Paris, and copies of much of it are in the Sparks MSS. (lii. vol. i.) Arnold (Rhode Island, vol. ii.) used papers from these French archives.

Note.—This view of the action of August 25th, taken from Mr. Brindley's house, is from the Gentleman's Mag., 1779, p. 100. The key is wanting. Cf. Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 83, and Drake's New England Coast.

Note.—The map on the preceding page is sketched from a colored map belonging to the Lafayette copies in the Sparks collection at Cornell University, called Carte des positions occupées par les troupes Américaines après leur retraite de Rhode Island, le 30 août, 1778.

The contemporary English engraved maps of Narragansett Bay of the most importance are those published by Des Barres and Faden. That of Des Barres is called A chart of the harbour of Rhode Island and Narreganset Bay, published at the request of the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Howe, by F. F. W. Des Barres, 20 July, 1776, in two sheets, which subsequently made part of the Atlantic Neptune. It bears the following "Notes and references explaining the situation of the British ships and forces after the 29th of July, 1778, when the French fleet under the command of Count D'Estaing appeared and anchored off the harbour. The same day two French frigates went up the Seakonnet Passage. July 30th two French line-of-battle ships anchored in the Narraganset Passage, on which the king's troops quitted Connanicut Island. Aug. 5th the French ships came towards Dyer's Island where the British advanced frigates were destroyed and the seamen encamped. 8th, the rest of the French fleet came into harbour and anchored abreast of Gold Island [small island south of Providence Island], upon which the king's troops withdrew within the lines [north of Newport]. 9th, the enemy's forces landed." It places the sinking and burning of the "Alarm" (10 guns), "Cerberus" (28), "Juno" (32), "Kingfisher" (18), "Lark" (32), "Orpheus" (32), "Pigot" (8), "Spitfire" (8), "Flora" (32), and "Falcon" (18).

The Faden map was published July 22, 1777, and is entitled A Topographical Chart of the Bay of Narraganset, in the Province of New England, with all the Isles contained therein, among which Rhode Island and Connonicut have been particularly surveyed ... to which have been added the several Works and Batteries raised by the Americans, taken by order of the Principal Farmers on Rhode Island, by Charles Blaskowitz.

A marginal table gives the names of the farmers, and enumerates ten batteries, mounting one hundred and twenty-seven guns in all. The map is dedicated to Earl Percy.

A French reproduction of it. Plan de to Baie de Narragansett makes part of the Neptune Américo-septentrional, no. 6. It is given in fac-simile in the Mag. of Amer. Hist., July, 1879.

The Sparks Catalogue, p. 206, shows a "Map of the Nara Gansett Bay, by Lieut.-Col. Putnam, Jan. 7, 1776, presented to his Excellency, George Washington, Esq.;" but it is not among the maps at Cornell University.

There is in the British Museum a colored plan (1778) of Rhode Island and the adjacent islands and coast, made by Edward Page, second artillery (measuring 1 2-12 × 7 6-12 inches); and a colored view of Bristol Neck (1765).

Modern eclectic war maps of the bay are given in Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 80; Carrington's Battles, 456 (the last repeated in the R. I. Hist. Mag., 1884, p. 106).

The despatch of Pigot to his government is in the Gent. Mag., Nov., 1778, p. 537; in Dawson; in Rider's R. I. Hist. Tracts, vi.; in Newport Hist. Mag., ii. 253; in E. M. Stone's Our French Allies, p. 111. Cf. also paper of Aug. 31, to Clinton, in London Gazette, Oct. 15; Gent. Mag., Nov., 1778; Almon's Remembrancer; Stone's French Allies. See diaries at Newport in Hist. Mag., 1860, and Mrs. Almy's in Newport Hist. Mag., July, 1880. Stedman (ii. ch. 23, 24) tells the story.

The loyal wits had now their chance, and some of their effusions can be seen in Moore's Songs and Ballads of the Rev., p. 231. Wells (S. Adams, iii. 38) traces the effect of Sullivan's retreat on the country. Upon the general management of the campaign a committee of Congress reported, Aug. 7, on the early stages (Journals, iii. 9). An orderly-book of Glover's is in the Essex Inst. Hist. Coll. (vol. v.; cf. also i. p. 112), and another is noted in the Cooke Catal. no. 1,897. Maj. Gibbs' diary (Aug.) is in Penna. Archives, vol. vi. A diary of Manassah Cutler, who was a chaplain in Titcomb's regiment, is in E. M. Stone's Our French Allies, p. xv. Lafayette gave an account fifty years afterwards which is in the Hist. Mag., Aug., 1861. His letters to Washington are in Sparks's Corresp. of the Rev. (ii. 181, 196). Cf. also Sparks's Washington, v. 29, 40, 45; vi., etc.; Irving's Washington, iii. ch. 36; Marshall's Washington, iv.; Bancroft, ix. 209, 357; x. ch. 5; Greene's letter in Sparks's Corresp. of the Rev., ii. 188, and Greene's Greene, ii. 100, etc. A long letter of Dr. Cooper of Boston, Aug., 1778, to Franklin, defending D'Estaing's action, in Hale's Franklin in France, p. 183; Heath's Memoirs; John Trumbull's Autobiog. 51; Stuart's Gov. Trumbull, ch. 32; Williams' Gen. Barton, ch. 3; Arnold's Rhode Island, ii. 419; Barry's Mass., ii. 150; Hamilton's Republic of the U. S., i. ch. 17. There are rolls of the campaign in the Mass. Archives; and in N. H. Rev. Rolls, ii. 500, 508. Connecticut did not respond (Hist. Mag., ii. 7; cf. also iv. 145).

RHODE ISLAND, August, 1778.

Sketched from a colored plan among the Sparks maps at Cornell University, which follows a plan made for Lafayette. It is called Plan de Rhode Island avec les différentes opérations de la flotte Française, et des troupes Américaines, commandées par le Major Général Sullivan, contre les forces de terre et de mer des Anglais, depuis le 9 Août, jusqu'à la nuit du 30 au 31 du même mois, 1778, que les Américains ont fait leur Retraite.

Key: The British works are solid black, their troops diagonally black and white; the American works of open lines, and their troops shaded obliquely. The British in Newport were protected on the water side by batteries (3, 3, 3); on the land side by an inner line of defence (4) and an outer line (5, 6, 7, 8), with nine guns (8) commanding the water approach by Easton Pond. At the north end of the island they had works (16, 18, 20,—solid black) to resist attack from the mainland. Upon the entrance of the French fleet by the Newport batteries, the English evacuated these advanced posts, and some frigates were sent into the East passage (15) to protect the movements of the Americans, who, moving over to the island, threw up redoubts (17) to protect their first position, and erected a battery of two guns at 20 to cover their retreat across Howland's Ferry, should that become necessary. They now advanced, and on August 15th took position on the line 11, and began their approaches (9). The French had landed from the ships at 22, and joined the left wing under Lafayette. The redoubts on the extreme left and right of the line 11 were never completed. The fire from the parallels was kept up from the 19th to the evening of the 28th, when the retreat began, and the Americans in the night of the 28th, erected the breastworks (19, 19) flanking the abandoned British forts (18), and during the night of the 30th left the island by Howland's Ferry, while the British were at Turkey Hill (16). The position of the British fleet was at 1.

Sparks has added to the plan these references: 12, Overing's house, where Col. Barton captured Gen. Prescott; 13, guard-house; 14, round redoubt thrown up by the New Hampshire militia,—skirmishing commenced here under Col. Laurens; and 10, Bishop Berkeley's house. The broken lines are roads.

The most elaborate of the manuscript contemporary maps is one belonging to the Mass. Hist. Society, which is reproduced, full size, in the Proceedings of that society (vol. xx. p. 350), and is given in its essential parts in Gen. G. W. Cullum's Historical Sketch of the Fortification Defences of Narragansett Bay (Washington, 1884). It is on a scale of nearly an inch and a quarter to the mile, and is signed "J. Denison scripsit." The French fleet is represented as going out to join battle with Lord Howe's fleet, exchanging shots with the English shore batteries, which are more numerous than in the Lafayette map. The French ships in the East passage are shown as sailing out to sea, to join D'Estaing on his way to Boston. In the battle of the 29th, near Butt's Hill, English ships are drawn as engaging both the American right and a battery on the Bristol shore. The first line of the Americans stretches across the island in this order from west to east,—Livingston, Varnum, Cornell, Greene, Glover, Tyler. These are without the breastworks. Behind them are Lovell at the west, Titcomb between the abandoned British forts, with a reserve under West behind them.

There are general surveys in Carrington and Dawson; in Mag. of Amer. Hist., by J. A. Stevens, July, 1879; in Stone's Our French Allies (Providence, 1884), part iii. On the British side see the contemporary account in Gent. Mag., xlix. 101; the Tory account in Jones, N. Y. during the Rev., ii. ch. 12; the German in Ewald, Belehrungen, ii. 249; Eelking's Hülfstruppen, i. 105; ii. 14, 30; epitomized in Lowell's Hessians, 215, 220. Cf. J. G. Rosengarten on the German soldiers in Newport, in R. I. Hist. Mag., vii. 81. Silas Talbot, a Rhode Islander, who had gained credit in the land service, and had managed some fire-ships against the British fleet in New York, captured a floating battery of the enemy near Newport, and made his subsequent record on the water as an officer of the navy. Henry T. Tuckerman wrote the Life of Silas Talbot, which had been intended for Sparks's Amer. Biography, but was published separately in N. Y. in 1850. Cf. Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 849.

The next morning Clinton's reinforcements appeared, brought by Howe's fleet. They were not needed; and so, while Gen. Grey made some raids, with transports and light craft, upon Fairhaven and other ports, whose privateers had annoyed the British (cf. Harper's Monthly Mag., 1885, p. 823; and statement of losses in Sparks MSS., lii. vol. ii. 29), Clinton took his troops back to New York, and Howe went round Cape Cod and cruised off Boston harbor, trying in vain to allure D'Estaing to battle. The French commander remained in port till November. As the time for his sailing approached, another English fleet, under Admiral Byron, appeared off the harbor; but a storm scattering his ships, the French, on the 3d of November, left the port unmolested, and sailed for the West Indies.

D'Estaing, while in Boston, addressed a letter to Congress (Sparks MSS., lii. vol. iii.), and promulgated a proclamation (Oct. 28th) to former French subjects in Canada, seeking to detach them from English interests (Andrews's Late War, iii. 171; Niles's Principles, 1876 ed., p. 136, Doc. rel. to Col. Hist., N. Y., x. 1165).

The reports which reached Boston relative to the campaign under Sullivan, and the impressions respecting the French, are given in Ezekiel Price's diary (N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Oct., 1865, p. 334). Hancock, who had been in command of the Massachusetts militia during the campaign, returned to Boston to do what he could by his hospitality to prevent the general indifference of the Boston people producing evil effects on the French (Memorial Hist. Boston, iii. 185; Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, 102; Adams's Familiar Letters, 342; Greene's Greene, ii. 143). On the unfortunate riot (Sept. 17, 1778) in the town, in which the French were roughly handled, see Mag. of Amer. Hist., viii. 785, 856, xv. 95. Considerable apprehension was felt lest the British, elated by success, should push towards Boston from Rhode Island, and beacons were got in readiness (Sept. 7th) on Blue Hill in Milton. A regiment of artillery had been raised for the defence of the town, and an orderly-book covering its service, June 8, 1777, to Dec. 18, 1778, is given in the Essex Inst. Hist. Coll., xiii. 115, 237; xiv. 60, 110, 188. Heath (cf. his Memoirs for this period), at a time when the French were making ready to sail, wrote from Boston, Oct. 22, 1778, to Weare, of New Hampshire, that he feared the British were planning an attack by water (Letters and Papers, MSS., 1777-1780, in Mass. Hist. Soc. cabinet).

IV. The Penobscot Expedition, 1779.—This expedition was fitted out in Boston by the Massachusetts authorities, with some assistance from New Hampshire, for the purpose of dislodging a British force, which in June, under General McNeill, supported by a few vessels under Captain Mowatt, had taken possession of the peninsula now called Castine. The treasury of Massachusetts issued bills to cover the cost (Goodell's Province Laws, v. 1191).

Solomon Lovell was put in command of 1,200 militia and 100 artillery, while Peleg Wadsworth was second in command, and Paul Revere had charge of the artillery. The general government lent the "Warren" and "Providence", Continental vessels, and Dudley Saltonstall, a Continental officer, commanded the fleet. The expedition, consisting of nineteen armed vessels, of three hundred and twenty-four guns, with twenty transports, and 2,000 men in all, left Boston harbor July 19th. Quarrels between Lovell and Saltonstall prevented prompt action, and before success could be insured the expedition was overcome by a naval force which Clinton had sent from New York when he heard of the undertaking. Our main sources on the American side are The original Journal of General Solomon Lovell, kept during the Penobscot Expedition, 1779, with a sketch of his life by Gilbert Nash, published in 1881 by the Weymouth (Mass.) Hist. Society; the Boston Gazette, March 18, 25, April 1, 8, 1782; journal on board the Continental sloop "Hunter", July 19-Aug. 11, in Hist. Mag., viii. 51. Further on the American side Thacher's Military Journal; Heath's Memoirs; Thomas Philbrook's account in Cowell's Spirit of '76 in Rhode Island; Pemberton's journal in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., ii. 172; letters of Artemas Ward, Peleg Wadsworth, and Charles Chauncey; a letter of James Sullivan, saying that it had involved Massachusetts in a debt of $7,000,000, "which is not so distressing as the disgrace" (Amory's James Sullivan, ii. 376; Sparks MSS., xx.); Wheeler's Pentagoet, p. 36; Kidder's Military Operations in Eastern Maine, p. 265; Williamson's Maine (ii. 471) and Belfast, ch. 12; Willis's Portland, ch. 19; William Goold's Portland in the Past, p. 374; Barry's Mass., ii. ch. 14; J. W. De Peyster in the N. Y. Mail, Aug. 13, 1879.

The Revolutionary Rolls, in the Massachusetts Archives, give the personnel of the expedition; the orders, vessels, etc. (vols. xxxvii., xxxviii., xxxix.)

On the English side we have John Calef's Siege of Penobscot by the Rebels (London, 1781,—Sabin, iii. no. 9,925), which is copied in Wheeler; the journal, July 24-Aug. 12, in the Nova Scotia Gazette, Sept. 14, 1779, which is reprinted in the Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., vii. 121, and that in the Particular Services, etc., edited by Ithiel Town. There is a Tory view in Jones's N. Y. during the Rev., i. 297.

SIEGE OF PENOBSCOT, 1779.

Lovell's troops and the seamen struggled in disorder through the Maine wilderness, and the general himself reached Boston about Sept. 20th. A court of inquiry, under Gen. Artemas Ward, exonerated Lovell, and blamed Saltonstall. Nash prints its report, which is preserved in the Mass. Archives, vol. cxiv. It is examined by Eben Hazard in a letter printed in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., iv. 129, in which he intimates that the blame was not all the naval commander's, and that it was a part of the plan to throw the responsibility on a Continental officer, in order to force the cost of the expedition upon Congress.

The annexed sketch is a combination of the two maps on a much larger scale in Calef's Siege of Penobscot (London, 1781). On the approach of the American fleet up the river, the British garrison was encamped on the peninsula of Maja-big-waduce (the modern Castine) at Q, and their main fortification, Fort George (A), was not completed. Capt. Mowatt, the naval commander, placed his three vessels in line (L) to defend the harbor. The Americans were first seen July 24th. On the 25th the American transports passed up the river and anchored, while nine armed ships in three divisions at K attacked the British ships at L; the American land forces, meanwhile, attempting to land at R, were repulsed. On the 26th, towards night, the Americans placed some heavy guns on Nautilus Island, whereupon the British ships moved back to a position at M. On the 27th the American ships engaged the British battery D with little result. On the 28th the Americans succeeded in landing at R, captured the battery D, and established the lines C. The battery on Nautilus Island disturbing the ships at M, they moved farther up to N. On the 29th the Americans opened their batteries along the lines C, and the British moved some guns from the half-moon E to the fort, and the ships sent ashore some cannon to be mounted at E. On the 31st the American seamen and marines attempted a landing between D and E, but were repulsed. On August 4th the Americans opened a battery at G, annoying the ships at N, and endangering their communications with the forts. The American batteries at F and H were not completed, and the one at H was abandoned on August 9th. On August 5th the British naval commander began the battery B to protect his communications with the fort; and while building it, the Americans planted, on the 8th, a field-piece at F to annoy the men working.

On the 13th arrangements were making for a vigorous attack, when the reinforcing British fleet appeared in the offing. During the night the Americans reëmbarked, and all their vessels fled up the river. Only the "Hunter" and "Hampden" attempted to escape down the river, and these were captured. Night coming on, the British anchored; while the Americans landed their men, and then blew up their vessels. The commodore's ship, "Warren", of thirty-two guns, was burned at Oak Point.

Calef's map is given in Wheeler's Pentagoet. A MS. plan of the operations of the English fleet is among the Faden maps (no. 101), in the library of Congress. As a result of their success at Penobscot, the British government, the next year, attempted to erect Maine into a province under the name of New Ireland (Bancroft, x. 368; Barry's Mass.; Me. Hist. Soc. Coll., vii. 201).

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