The Navy of the American Revolution

by Charles Oscar Paullin

PART I
THE CONTINENTAL NAVY

CHAPTER I
THE NAVAL COMMITTEE

The history of the Continental navy covers a period of ten years, extending from 1775 to 1785. During this time the Continental Congress made many experiments in naval legislation and devised several organs of naval administration. The first of these organs, with whose origin and work this chapter is concerned, was the Naval Committee. It lasted for only a few months. Its lineal successors, each of which will be duly considered, were the Marine Committee, the Board of Admiralty, and the Agent of Marine. These four executive organs, for the most part, administered the Continental navy. Certain odds and ends of the naval business, however, fell to the commander-in-chief of the army and his officers, and to the American representatives in foreign countries. The second chapter will treat of the fleets of the army, and the closing chapters of the narrative of the Continental navy will consider the naval services of our representatives in foreign lands.

In maritime countries the military service is generally ambidextrous. Whether the army or navy is first brought into play at the opening of a war depends upon various circumstances. The presence of a British army at Boston, already on colonial soil, when the American Resolution broke out early in 1775, naturally led to the immediate organization of an army by the colonists. The need of a navy was at this time not quite so insistent. Moreover, the building, or even the purchase, of an armed fleet required more time than did the raising of an army, which was rendered comparatively easy by the previous training of the colonists in the local militia. Nevertheless, since both countries engaged in the war were maritime, the creating of a navy could not long be delayed.

The reader recollects that by the middle of 1775 the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill had been fought, a Continental army had been organized, and Washington had been made commander-in-chief. Outside of Congress the agitation in behalf of a Continental navy had begun. That the first suggestions and advances for a navy should come from New England, where the concrete problems of the defence of her ports and coasts were being faced, was to be expected. One of the first men to make such suggestions was Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts. On July 11, 1775, he wrote to John Adams in Philadelphia that the best method of securing the coastwise navigation of the colonies was by row-galleys. He then continued: “As the whole Continent is so firmly united, why not a Number of Vessels of War be fitted out and judiciously stationed, so as to intercept and prevent any supplies going to our Enemies; and consequently, unless they can make an Impression inland, they must leave the Country or starve.”[1] The first formal movement in behalf of a Continental navy came from Rhode Island, which state was during the summer of 1775 suffering serious annoyances from the British ships. On August 26 her legislature instructed the Rhode Island delegates to the Continental Congress to use their influence at the ensuing session of Congress to obtain a fleet for the protection of the colonies.[2] On September 2, 1775, Washington, in order to prevent reinforcements from reaching the enemy at Boston, instructed Nicholson Broughton to proceed in the schooner “Hannah” on a cruise against the British transports.[3]

That the question of providing a Continental navy would come up during the fall session of Congress was certain. The arguments in its behalf, which were made almost unanimously later in the session, must have been on the lips of several of the members when they assembled in Philadelphia in September: an army had been organized, why not a navy? The situation of the combatants, separated by the great Atlantic highway; and their character, one a great naval and commercial power, and the other with maritime interests by no means inconsiderable, would necessarily make the impending struggle in no small part a naval one. America had seacoasts and seaports to be defended, a coastwise navigation to be secured, and above all commercial and diplomatic communications with foreign powers to be kept open. These communications were a jugular vein, whose severing would mean death to the United Colonies. The urgent and specific calls for armed vessels, which were being made, must be met at once. Had not America conveniently at hand materials for ships, and abundant men who had the “habit of the sea”?

In the early months of the session there certainly would arise opposition to the new military project. The inertia and conservatism of some of the members would set them against so great an innovation. To others the fitting out of a fleet, at a time when the length, seriousness, and meaning of the war with the motherland were but half unveiled, would seem an unwise and hasty action.

The question of procuring a fleet of armed vessels was first brought to the attention of Congress on October 3, 1775, when the Rhode Island members presented their instructions, an account of which will be given in a succeeding chapter.[4] It is sufficient for present purposes to say that until December the Rhode Island instructions had little other result beyond crystallizing and clarifying opinion on naval affairs by means of the debates which they caused in Congress.

On October 5 sundry letters from London were laid before the Congress and read. They conveyed the intelligence of “the sailing of two north country built brigs, of no force, from England, on the 11th of August last, loaded with arms, powder, and other stores, for Quebec, without convoy.” Congress at once saw the importance of capturing these two vessels, in order both to deprive the British of these stores and to obtain them for the Continental army around Boston, which sorely needed all the munitions of war it could get. A motion was therefore made that a committee of three be appointed to prepare a plan for intercepting the two brigs, and that it “proceed on this business immediately.”[5] John Adams in his autobiography says that the opposition to this motion was “very loud and vehement,” and included some of his own colleagues, and also especially Edward Rutledge of South Carolina. It seems to have been recognized that the carrying of the motion would be the initial step in the establishment of a Continental navy. Such an undertaking its opponents declared, with a greater display of rhetoric than judgment, was the “most wild, visionary, mad project that ever had been imagined. It was an infant taking a mad bull by his horns; and what was more profound and remote, it was said it would ruin the character and corrupt the morals of all our seamen. It would make them selfish, piratical, mercenary, bent wholly upon plunder, etc., etc.” The friends of the motion, in colors equally glowing, set forth “the great advantages of distressing the enemy, supplying ourselves, and beginning a system of maritime and naval operations.” On the taking of the vote the motion passed in the affirmative; and according to John Adams’s recollection, he, John Langdon of New Hampshire, and Silas Deane of Connecticut, “three members who had expressed much zeal in favor of the motion,” composed the committee.[6]

A little later on the same day this committee reported; and thereupon Congress decided to write a letter to Washington directing him to obtain from the Council of Massachusetts two of that state’s cruisers, and to despatch them on the errand of intercepting the two supply ships. It also directed that letters be written to the governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island asking for the loan of some of their armed vessels, which were to be sent on the same mission. “The committee appointed to prepare a plan for intercepting the two vessels bound to Canada” made another report on the 6th, which was ordered to lie on the table “for the perusal of the members.”[7] This report was acted upon on October 13, when Congress decided to fit out two armed vessels, one of ten and the other of fourteen guns, to cruise three months to the eastward for the purpose of intercepting the enemy’s transports laden with warlike stores and other supplies. A committee consisting of Silas Deane, John Langdon, and Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina was appointed to estimate the expense which would be incurred in fitting out the two vessels.[8]