[179] Journals of Continental Congress, March 25, March 26, 1777.
[180] Ibid., January 2, 1778.
[181] Journals of Continental Congress, July 30, 1778.
[182] Edward Field’s Esek Hopkins, 237-38.
[183] Marine Committee Letter Book, Committee to Count D’Estaing, July 12, July 17, 1778.
[184] Journals of Continental Congress, July 23, September 24, October 27, November 4, 1778; January 21, June 7, 22, 23, July 30, August 2, 1779.
CHAPTER V
THE CONDITIONS OF THE CONTINENTAL NAVAL SERVICE
The nineteenth century worked its marvels on sea as well as on land. The progress of invention, the discovery of new sources of wealth and power in nature and in man, and the development of powerful states, have revolutionized transportation and communication by sea, maritime pursuits, and naval science. Commerce has found fleeter wings; and it no longer waits on the caprice of Aeolus. Countless steamships with enormous tonnage and high rates of speed have in large measure supplanted the small, snaillike sailing craft of our fathers. The hazards of sea-going trade have been greatly reduced. Invention has pacified Neptune’s fierce temper. The breed of pirates and corsairs has been exterminated by the long muscular arm of the modern state. The privations of ocean-travel which were distressing accompaniments of the colonial period in America, were succeeded about the middle of the last century by the comforts of the first steamships, and these within the memory of young men have yielded to the luxuries of the floating palaces of the sea.
Complementary to these transformations in commerce, navigation, and travel by sea, have come improved methods of their defence. Modern naval science in all of its aspects has been developed. Glancing for a moment in retrospect at the long line of naval progress, one sees it pass from the ancient row-galleys, to the sailing ship of the early Modern Age, and from thence to the steamships of to-day. The motive power has changed from human muscle to wind, and from wind to steam. Placed beside the iron-clad battleships, the light, wooden frigates of the Revolution look almost as antiquated as the Greek galley with its figured prow. Smart, trim, beautiful vessels were the Revolutionary craft, but how small, simple, and crude they now appear. Indeed, a new type of poet, one who loves raw force first, and the picturesque afterwards, has risen to sing the glories of new navies and new seas.
Other naval changes have been made, as significant as those in style of vessel and motive power. Ships of war now wear heavy coats-of-mail. The “great guns” and the “long guns” of the Revolution are neither great nor long beside modern cannon. A new type of sea officer has been trained to meet the new conditions of naval service. It would puzzle a modern officer to take a schooner from Boston to Plymouth, for his seamanship is now fitted to steamships. By over-study of modern armament, torpedo boats, and the latest naval manœuvres, his “weather eye” has lost something of its skill for reading in the skies the coming of storms or sunshine. Trim and immaculate in their uniforms, the American naval officers of to-day, who have entered the naval profession by the way of their technical studies at Annapolis, little resemble their hardy prototypes in the Continental navy, to whom clung the barnacles of their apprenticeship aboard merchantmen.