[628] Journals of Continental Congress, July 5, 1776.
[629] Collections of Georgia Historical Society, V, part I; Proceedings of Georgia Council of Safety, 96, 101-02, 113.
[630] Jones, History of Georgia, II, 269.
[631] McCall, History of Georgia, II, 137-38; Moultrie, Memoirs of American Revolution, II, 375.
[632] McCall, History of Georgia, II, 179, 224-25.
[633] Jameson, Essays in Constitutional History of United States, 10.
CHAPTER XVII
THE MINOR NAVIES OF THE NORTHERN STATES
Rhode Island was the first colony to undertake a defence by means of armed vessels. Her initial legislation preceded that of the Continental Congress by almost four months. During 1775 her coasts and trade were annoyed by the vessels of the enemy. In the early summer the conduct of Captain James Wallace, the commander of His Majesty’s frigate “Rose,” was especially vexatious and insulting. On June 13 Nicholas Cooke, Deputy-Governor of Rhode Island, in accordance with a resolution of the General Assembly, wrote to Wallace demanding the immediate restoration of certain captured vessels, and especially of two packets belonging to citizens of Providence. The acts of Wallace were obviously in the minds of the members of the General Assembly, when, on June 15, it ordered the Committee of Safety to charter and fit out two suitable vessels for the defence of the trade of Rhode Island.
The General Assembly also appointed a committee of three to appraise and hire the two vessels. It ordered the larger vessel to be equipped with eighty men and ten 4-pounders; the smaller vessel was to be manned with not more than thirty men. It appointed Abraham Whipple commander of the larger vessel with the rank and power of commodore over both vessels, and named his lieutenants, master, and quarter-master. Officers were also chosen for the smaller vessel. The establishment of the little fleet was assimilated to that of the land forces of the state. Its cruises were to be determined by the Lieutenant-General, Brigadier-General, and the Committee of Safety.[634]
Two sloops, the “Katy” and “Washington,” were at once chartered. Commodore Whipple tells us that on the same day he received his commission, June 15, he captured a tender of the frigate “Rose.”[635] This was the first authorized capture of a naval vessel of the enemy. During the summer of 1775 the “Katy” and “Washington” cruised chiefly in Narragansett Bay for the defence of Rhode Island. In August the “Washington” was sent outside of the Bay to warn incoming vessels laden with powder and warlike stores of their danger from British craft. It was at this time that Washington proposed that one of the sloops should be sent to the Bermudas for powder, which military necessity was much needed by his army.[636] Commodore Whipple, in the “Katy,” was dispatched on this errand in September. Arriving at the Bermudas, Whipple found that he had come too late as the powder had already been sent to Philadelphia.