The Navy of the American Revolution

by Charles Oscar Paullin

[130] Miscellaneous Manuscripts, Division of Manuscripts, Library of Congress.

CHAPTER IV
THE WORK OF THE NAVY BOARDS AND THE MARINE COMMITTEE

There was a painful lack of system about the business methods of the Naval Department of the Revolution. Then, official routine was not settled as at present. Usage had had no opportunity to establish fixed and orderly forms of procedure; and amid the distractions of war, when some real or supposed emergency was continually inviting one authority or another to disregard regularity and order, usage could obtain but scant permission to begin its work. Wars are famous for breaking through, not for forming a crust of official precedent. The administrative machinery of armies and navies tends to adapt itself to the conditions of peace—now the normal state of nations. During long periods of partial stagnation this machinery becomes complicated; its tension is weakened; and many of its axles grow rusty from disuse. When war breaks out, the conditions of administration are greatly changed. A thousand extra calls for work to be done at once are loud and inexorable. Expedition must be had at all hazards and costs. Rapid action of the administrative machinery must be obtained, its tension screwed down, extra cog wheels discarded, and efficient machinists substituted for the dotards of peace. It is obvious that with this sort of difficulty those who managed the naval affairs during the Revolution did not have to contend, for the organ of naval administration was then created from its foundation. Their difficulties sprang not from the age, but from the newness of this organ. It lacked a nice correlation of parts, the smooth action that comes from long service, and the system that immemorial routine establishes.

The absence of system in the Naval Department was most conspicuous in the appointment of naval officers, from the captain to the coxswain. This work was shared by Congress, the Marine Committee, the Navy Boards, the Continental agents, the Commander-in-chief of the navy, the commanders of vessels, recruiting agents, the Commissioners at Paris, and the commercial agents residing in foreign countries. Appointments were sometimes actually determined by the governors of states, “conspicuous citizens,” and local governmental bodies. A good illustration of the way in which convenience was sometimes consulted is found in the resolution of Congress of June 14, 1777, which designated William Whipple, the New Hampshire member of the Marine Committee, John Langdon, Continental agent at Portsmouth, and John Paul Jones, the commander of the ship “Ranger,” to select the commissioned and warrant officers of the “Ranger,” then at Portsmouth.[131] In a new navy without esprit de corps, to permit a commander to have a voice in choosing his own officers often made for proper subordination.

It was a source of annoyance and confusion to the Navy Boards to find through accidental sources of information, as they sometimes did, that the Marine Committee had given orders to naval agents to transact business, the immediate control of which was vested in the Boards. Naval agents sometimes discovered that they were serving in a single task two or three naval masters. Irregularities were chargeable not alone to the Naval Department. The governor of a state was known on his own authority, to the vexation of the rightful executive, to take part in the direction of the cruises of Continental vessels. Naval commanders were now and then guilty of breaches of their orders. Congress had its share in the confusing of business. On one occasion, making a display of its ignorance, it suspended Captain John Roach from a command to which he had not been appointed; Roach in fact was not an officer in the Continental navy.[132] It sometimes made impracticable details of the armed vessels. It also exercised its privilege of referring to special committees bits of business that logically belonged to the Marine Committee.

These irregularities, notwithstanding their number, were after all exceptions. The very nature of business forces it to follow some system, however imperfectly. Where there is a number of agents there must be a division of labor. Without such arrangements chaos would exist. It is therefore possible to set forth with some detail the respective duties of the Marine Committee, the Navy Boards, and the various naval agents. The work and duties of the naval agents have already been treated with sufficient particularity. The work of the Navy Boards and the Marine Committee will be considered in this chapter.

The duties of the Navy Boards were of a varied character. Each Board superintended the building, manning, fitting, provisioning, and repairing of the armed vessels in its district. It kept a register of the vessels which it built, showing the name, dimensions, burden, number of guns, tackle, apparel, and furniture of each vessel. Each Board had records of all the officers, sailors, and marines in its district, and required the commanders to make returns of these items upon the termination of their cruises. It was the duty of the Boards to notify the Marine Committee of the arrivals and departures of the Continental vessels. They were required to settle the naval accounts and “to keep fair Books of all expenditures of Publick Moneys.” The records of their transactions were to be open to the inspection of Congress and the Marine Committee. They rendered to the Committee annually, or oftener when required, an account of their disbursements. The Boards paid the salaries of officers and seamen, and audited the accounts of the prize agents.[133]

In the appointment of officers the Navy Board at Boston was given a freer rein than was its colleague at Philadelphia. The share of the Navy Boards in selecting officers and in enlisting seamen was about as follows. The Boards superintended the appointing of petty officers and the enlisting of seamen, both of which duties were chiefly performed by the commanders of vessels and by recruiting agents. The Boards generally selected the warrant officers, very frequently on the recommendation of the commanders. If the one appointment to the office of Commander-in-chief be disregarded, there existed but two classes of commissioned officers in the Revolutionary navy, captains and lieutenants. The Boards often chose the lieutenants; and they generally recommended the captains to the Marine Committee. The Committee furnished the Boards with blank warrants and commissions, signed by the President of Congress. When one of these forms was properly filled out by a navy board for an officer, the validity of his title to his position and rank could not be questioned.

The Boards were empowered under certain circumstances, and in accordance with the rules and regulations of the navy and the resolutions of Congress, to order the holding of courts of enquiry and courts-martial. They could administer oaths to the judges and officials of these courts. A Board might suspend an officer of the navy who treated it with “indecency and disrespect.”[134] On October 23, 1777, the Navy Board at Boston was given power to suspend a naval officer, “until the pleasure of Congress shall be known.”[135] Not always did the kindliest relations exist between the Navy Boards and the commanders of the vessels. Officers who but yesterday tramped the decks of their own merchantmen, giving commands but not receiving them, chafed under the subordination that their position in the navy exacted.

The Navy Boards made public the resolutions of Congress on naval affairs, copies of which they lodged with the prize agents, the commanders of vessels, and all interested persons. They distributed among the naval captains the rules and regulations of the navy, the sea-books, and the naval signals. The Boards acted in an advisory capacity to the Marine Committee, which frequently called upon them for information or opinions; when a revision of the rules and regulations of the navy was under consideration their assistance in the work was requested. Sometimes they volunteered important suggestions looking to the betterment of the navy. They communicated frequently with the Committee, giving in detail the state of the naval business in their respective districts.