In November, 1775, Congress authorized the construction of six 32-gun frigates and seven other war vessels of less dimensions. Four of the frigates were allotted to Philadelphia shipyards. They were the “Washington,” the “Randolph,” the “Delaware,” and the “Effingham.” The first two were frigate-built from their keels, but the “Delaware” and “Effingham,” to save time, were built upon frames already on the stocks for merchant ships when the war began. On this account they were not quite as large as the regular frigates and rated twenty-eight instead of thirty-two guns.
From 1775 till the peace of 1783, Philadelphia yards built a great number of privateers and converted a few ships for the “State Navy,” as it was called, that is to say, ships provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and assigned to the Continental service. One of these, a converted bark of two hundred tons and mounting sixteen 6-pounders, has passed into fame as the “Hyder Ali.” Under Lieutenant Joshua Barney she took the “General Monk,” a regular sloop-of-war, mounting fourteen 9-pounders and four 6-pounders. The “Hyder Ali” was a small French bark which arrived at Philadelphia with military supplies early in February, 1782. She was at once bought by the State and placed in Humphrey’s yard for conversion into a cruiser. Within six weeks she was put in commission, and she took the “General Monk,” April 8, about two months after her arrival in port as a merchant vessel. This was the last capture of an English man-of-war in the Revolution.
The peace of 1783 found Philadelphia possessing only thirteen merchant vessels, all built before the war and nearly all of which had served as privateers during the conflict. No new merchant keel had been laid in a Philadelphia yard between 1775 and 1782; but the industry revived with wonderful energy. From 1782 to 1787, one hundred and fifty-five vessels were built, of which fifty-six were square-rigged ships averaging over three hundred tons. From this period on the progress was very great. The outbreak of the wars of the French Revolution in 1793 at once threw a vast carrying trade into American bottoms, the United States being for a long time the only neutral maritime nation. By the year 1801, when the treaty, or truce, of Amiens was signed, nearly three hundred sea-going ships were owned in Philadelphia, all home-built, and fourteen shipyards were in operation,—eight in the northern or Kensington and six in the southern or Southwark district. These were all first-class shipyards, building the largest full-rigged ships of that epoch. In that period and for a long time afterward the leading Philadelphia shipyard was that of Joshua Humphreys, in Southwark, and its proprietor and manager was himself the foremost naval architect of his time. When Congress, in 1794, authorized the construction of six frigates, and thereby laid the foundation of what we call the modern or “regular” navy, as distinguished from the old Continental navy of the Revolution, prominent ship-builders were asked to submit plans, the government then having no naval constructors. The plans of Mr. Humphreys were adopted for all six frigates. Three of them embodied a distinct advance in size and weight of armament over vessels of similar rate in other navies, and were classed as 44-gun frigates. The other three were designed as 38-gun frigates, and were an improvement upon the 36-gun ships of European navies. These six ships were built by contract,—one of the forty-fours and one of the thirty-eights at Philadelphia; one forty-four at Boston; one at New York; one thirty-eight at Baltimore, and one at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In addition to these, a 32-gun frigate, the “Essex,” was built at Salisbury Point, Massachusetts, by private subscription, and given to the government.
CLIPPERSHIP MANITOU
Mr. Humphreys had the contracts for the Philadelphia-built frigates, and on May 10, 1797, he launched the 44-gun frigate “United States,” which was the first ship of the regular navy to be water-borne. Thus to Philadelphia belongs the credit of having fitted out the first squadron of the Continental navy in 1775, and of launching the first ship of the regular navy in 1797. In 1799, Mr. Humphreys completed a third frigate, named the “Philadelphia.” This ship is described in some histories as a “forty-four,” and in others as a “thirty-eight.” As a matter of fact, she was neither; but properly rated, under the rules then in vogue, as a 40-gun frigate. This difference was due to the fact that she carried thirty long 18-pounders on her gundeck as against twenty-eight 18-pounders in the “Constellation” class, or as against thirty long 24-pounders in the “Constitution” or 44-gun class. The “Philadelphia” was beyond question the most perfect frigate of her day. She was the same length as the “Constitution,” but of less beam, slightly less draught, and on finer lines. In her design, Mr. Humphreys had sacrificed to speed some of the battery power of the forty-fours, and therefore had to substitute 18-pounders for 24-pounders on the gundeck. She was the fastest sailing war-ship in the world, beating the “Constitution” by nearly two knots an hour. In her first, and unfortunately her last, voyage, from this country to Tripoli, she logged on one occasion three hundred and thirty-two knots in twenty-four hours, and on another three hundred and thirty-seven, the latter run being an average slightly exceeding fourteen knots. She was lost in Tripoli harbor in 1803. It is not too much or too little to say of either that Joshua Humphreys held a professional rank similar to that of Charles H. Cramp, that of the foremost naval architect of his era; and with exceptions, not worth mention, they are the only American naval architects whose designs for sea-going war-ships have been adopted by the navy.
It is worthy of remark in this connection, that when the plans of Mr. Humphreys were adopted in 1794-95, the government not only had no naval constructors of its own, but in fact no Navy Department, except a Bureau in the War Department, so that Mr. Humphreys could have no competitors but other private ship-builders. Mr. Cramp’s designs, however, have been adopted under the scrutiny of a highly competent and most critical corps of regular naval constructors and marine engineers.
The renewal of general war in Europe in 1803 gave a fresh impetus to the neutral carrying trade of the United States, and with it a corresponding stimulus to ship-building all along the coast, though most pronounced and on a larger scale at Philadelphia than elsewhere. Between the above date and 1812 nine more shipyards were established, making twenty-three all told in operation at one time. The largest merchant vessel up to that time built in America was one of seven hundred and five tons, constructed by Samuel Bowers for the East India trade, and her dimensions were not exceeded in merchant construction until after the War of 1812-15. Her contract price was $24,000; at the rate of $34 per ton gross measurement. At that time vessels of similar class cost ten guineas ($50) per gross ton in British shipyards.
In a public document on the statistics of ship-building, we find a statement that “in June, 1787, the ship ‘Alliance,’ owned by Robert Morris and commanded by Captain Thomas Read, sailed from Philadelphia for Canton and Batavia. She was of seven hundred tons burthen, and the largest ship built for commerce in America at that time.”
The statement that the “Alliance” was “built for commerce” is an error. She was the famous old Revolutionary frigate which Paul Jones and John Barry had commanded at different times. After the peace of 1783 she was sold to Mr. Morris, or rather turned over to him in part payment for advance he had made to the Continental government. She was converted into a merchant ship and made several China voyages. The government then bought her back again in 1790, but she was not refitted as a war vessel.