[83] Force, American Archives, 5th, II, 1039. One galley which was fitting at Ticonderoga is not included in the above list. The exact number of men in Arnold’s fleet is uncertain.
[84] Ibid., 481, 834.
[85] Force, American Archives, 5th, II, 1178-79; Clowes, Royal Navy, III, 353-370, Chapter XXXI, written by Captain A. T. Mahan.
[86] Force, American Archives, 5th, II, 1079-80; Almon’s Remembrancer, 1777, 356.
[87] Clowes, Royal Navy, III, 363, 368. In the campaign of Burgoyne, in July, 1777, the British destroyed or captured a small American flotilla at Skenesborough.—Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VI, 297.
CHAPTER III
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE MARINE COMMITTEE
In the years immediately preceding the Revolution the four New England colonies were largely engaged in shipbuilding, fishing, whaling, and commerce. The forests of Maine and New Hampshire afforded incomparable oaks and white pines for ships. Indeed, not a few of these trees were sealed for the use of the Royal Navy, and their high quality authenticated, by the mark of the “King’s broad arrow.” New England’s hardy dwellers on the seacoast had long engaged in fishing on the Newfoundland banks, or in whaling in many seas, and had bred a race of sailors. The Atlantic withheld few secrets from the bold Yankee skippers. They were equally at home in the coastwise navigation, reaching from Nova Scotia to Florida, in deep-sea voyages to the motherland or the Continent, in skirting the Guinea coast in quest of its dark-skinned trade, or in slipping down the trade winds with canvas set for the sunny sugar islands of the West Indies or the Spanish Main. In no other section of the revolting colonies was the first formal movement for the building of a Continental navy so likely to be made as in New England. Here were ships, sailors, and a knowledge of the sea.
Certainly not a whit behind the other three New England states in nautical interests was little sea-cleft Rhode Island. In the establishing of state navies she had moved first, and on June 15, 1775, had put two vessels in commission. On the same day her Commodore Whipple captured an armed tender of the British frigate “Rose”—the first authorized capture made by the Americans at sea during the Revolution.[88] Already her coasts and her trade were being annoyed by the enemy. It was then in keeping with her maritime character, with her forwardness in naval enterprise, and with her needs for defence, that her Assembly should have instructed her two delegates to the Continental Congress, on August 26, 1775, “to use their whole influence, at the ensuing Congress, for building at the Continental expense, a Fleet of sufficient force for the protection of these Colonies, and for employing them in such manner and places as will most effectually annoy our enemies, and contribute to the common defence of these Colonies.” The Assembly was persuaded that an American fleet “would greatly and essentially conduce to the preservation of the lives, liberty, and property of the good people of these Colonies.”[89]
The naval situation in Congress during the fall of 1775 and the winter of 1775-76 should be clearly understood. The debates and legislation of Congress concerning naval affairs are attached, as it were, to two threads. One thread, beginning with the appointment of a committee, on October 5, 1775, to prepare a plan for intercepting two British transports, has already been unraveled. The other, which had its origin in the introduction in Congress of the Rhode Island instructions, will now be followed.
The delegates of Rhode Island to the Congress in the fall of 1775 were two sterling patriots, Samuel Ward and Stephen Hopkins. Each had been governor of Rhode Island, and each had grown old in the public service. Once bitter political rivals, they were now yoked together in the common cause of their state and country. On October 3, 1775, one of the Rhode Island delegates, presumably Samuel Ward, laid before Congress the instructions of his state in behalf of a Continental fleet. On this day the consideration of the instructions went over until the 6th, and on the 6th until the 7th.[90]