The Navy of the American Revolution

by Charles Oscar Paullin

On September 8, 1781, Morris wrote to the President of Congress accepting, in words of modesty and reluctance, his appointment as Agent of Marine. “There are many Reasons,” he said, “why I would have wished that this Burthen had been laid on other Shoulders, or that at least I might have been permitted to appoint a temporary Agent untill the further Pleasure of Congress. As it is I shall undertake the Task however contrary to my Inclinations and inconsistent with the many Duties which press heavily upon me, because it will at least save Money to the Public.” He then added, in a characteristic way, some observations on his new task. “True Oeconomy in the public business,” he declared, “consists in employing a sufficient Number of Proper persons to perform the Public Business.” He wished the accounts of the marine department to be speedily settled.[283]

Morris filled the office of Agent of Marine from September 7, 1781, until November 1, 1784. It is believed that he received no salary as Agent of Marine. In addition to Morris the personnel of the Marine Office consisted of James Read, Secretary to the Agent of Marine, at a salary of $1,000 a year; Joseph Pennell, paymaster, at a salary of $1,000; and George Turner, Commissary of Naval Prisoners, at a salary of $1,200; the latter officer was authorized on July 24, 1782.[284] Read, who had been one of the commissioners of the Navy Board of the Middle Department, was of great service to Morris in conducting the business of the Marine Office. The clerical work of the Office was performed by the clerks of the office of the Superintendant of Finance, an instance of Morris’s economies.

According to the resolutions of September 7, 1781, the positions of the commissioners of the navy boards were abolished and the positions of the prize agents were vacated. The Navy Board at Boston continued however to fit out vessels until March, 1782. It was not until some time later that it delivered over the books and papers of the Board to John Brown, the former secretary of the Board of Admiralty, whom Morris had appointed naval agent for settling the business of the navy in New England. In the four New England states, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, Morris either re-appointed the prize agents of the Board of Admiralty, or appointed new ones; in the other states, he served in this capacity himself.[285]

The Agent of Marine, like the Board of Admiralty, communicated with Congress by means of written reports, which that body referred to special committees of its own members. Accordingly, when naval business was discussed in Congress, it usually came up in the form of a “report of a committee on the report of the Agent of Marine.” The subjects upon which the Agent of Marine reported were similar to those dealt with by his predecessors in naval administration. Not a few of his reports were concerned with the settling of marine accounts, and the satisfying of claimants against the government, which business was now insistent. During his tenure of the office of Agent of Marine, Morris prepared the larger part of the naval legislation of Congress. The changes or additions to his work which were made by committees of Congress were unimportant.

The law that provides for a change in a governmental system is often incomplete, and experience under the new order of business soon suggests the need of supplementary legislation. This was the case with the laws which transferred the naval business from the Board of Admiralty to the Agent of Marine. Morris, in one of his first reports, explained to Congress that he had no power to hold courts of enquiry; thereupon, Congress, on November 20, 1781, revived the law of February 8, 1780, on the holding of courts of enquiry and courts-martial, which had lapsed with the passing of the Board of Admiralty. Morris’s business-like care for the saving of time and effort is well shown, when in this report he tactfully suggests that Congress adapt their act not only to the Agent of Marine, but also to the Secretary of Marine, so that when the latter is appointed, “it may not be necessary for him to bring this matter again under Consideration.”[286]

By the law of November 20 Morris was empowered to constitute a court of enquiry with three persons; and to constitute a court-martial with three captains and three first lieutenants of marines, “if there shall be so many of the marines then present”. But in the event that so many officers for a court-martial could not be conveniently assembled, he might appoint any five persons to hold it. Morris, convinced of the impropriety of constituting naval courts with civilians, did not wish to avail himself of this latter alternative. Accordingly, on June 8, 1782, he made a report on naval courts, which became the basis of the resolutions of Congress of June 12 on this subject. These provided that in the future a marine court of enquiry or court-martial for enquiring into and trying capital cases should consist of five navy and marine officers, two of whom should be captains; and in all cases not capital, should consist of three navy and marine officers, one of whom should be a captain in the navy. No sentence in capital cases was to be executed until approved by the Agent of Marine. All naval courts for commissioned officers must be appointed by the Agent of Marine. A captain in the navy might appoint a court-martial for the trial of offences committed by any other than a commissioned officer, provided that the sentencing of a warrant officer to be cashiered should have the confirmation of the Agent of Marine.[287]

During the incumbency of Morris, no captain in the navy was cashiered. The findings of a court-martial, which was held in Boston in the early summer of 1781, possess a peculiar interest, because of the light which they throw upon the penal code of the Continental navy, and because this case is one of the first in which a seaman in the American navy was sentenced to be hanged. Three seamen, who were enlisted on board the “Alliance,” were tried for a breach of the 29th article of the rules and regulations of the navy.[288] Of Patrick Sheridan, the court adjudged that he should be whipped three hundred and fifty-four lashes upon the naked back, one hundred and seventy-seven thereof alongside the ship “Alliance,” and the remainder alongside the ship “Deane.” John Crawford was sentenced to wear a halter around his neck, and receive fifty lashes. Sheridan and Crawford were to lose certain wages and their share of prize money. The court found the third seaman, William McClehany, “peculiarly Guilty of a breach of all the Clauses in the Article aforesaid,” and it adjudged that he should “suffer the punishment of death, and that he be hanged by the neck on the starboard fore Yard Arm of the said ship ‘Alliance’ until he is dead.”

The Board of Admiralty laid the proceedings of this court-martial before Congress in July, 1781, but owing to the confusion of the naval business at this time, and to the carelessness of Congress, no action was taken on them. When John Brown, the naval agent of the Agent of Marine, reached Boston, towards the end of 1781, he found the three men in prison, waiting the execution of their sentences, and “perishing with cold for want of Cloathing.” The fate of the three men is best told in Brown’s words: “Under these circumstances it was the opinion of the Board (and I agreed with them) that as the proceedings had lain so long before Congress without anything being done, and it being uncertain when they would act upon them, to save expence it was best to dispose of the Men in the best manner we could. Accordingly the two who were sentenced to be whipped were put on board the Deane, the other was sold by the Sheriff to pay his bill of fees, keeping, &c., and with the surplus of the money he procured us three good seamen for the Deane. My motive for concurring in this proceeding was to save expence and preserve the public Money in my hands for more Material purposes.”[289]

In December, 1781, and January, 1782, Congress passed an ordinance, “in pursuance of the powers delegated by the Confederation,” which codified in great part the previous legislation on captures and condemnation of prizes, recaptures and salvage, contraband, and the sharing of prizes between the captors and the government and between the captors themselves. Several changes were made in previous resolutions, and a few new ones were added. On their receiving a reasonable salvage, the recaptors of negroes, mulattoes, Indians, and indented servants, were to return all such property to its owners. The new ordinance specified in some detail the various forms of property which were subject to capture. It contained a revised list of articles of contraband. It declared that the rules of decision in the several admiralty courts should be “the resolutions and ordinances of the United States in Congress assembled, public treaties when declared to be so by an act of Congress, and the law of nations, according to the general usages of Europe;” public treaties were given precedence over the two other classes of rules.[290] This ordinance went into operation on February 1, 1782. Its importance is diminished by reason of its being in force during only the last year of the war, when the naval activities of the American fleets had decreased.

It is believed that this ordinance was entirely the work of Congress. Indeed, it soon appeared that there was at least one provision, the giving of the whole of certain prizes to captors on board of Continental vessels, which the Agent of Marine disapproved. In June, 1782, Morris made a report to Congress in which he showed that, owing to the government’s liberality to its officers and seamen, it had lost ten thousand dollars on the late successful cruise of the frigate “Deane,” during which she had captured five prizes of considerable value. He thought that wages, bounties, and one-half of prizes were quite sufficient inducements for manning the fleet. In all cases, however, in which the capture of a vessel of the enemy was especially meritorious, Morris would have Congress encourage and stimulate effort and merit in the navy by giving the captors, by a special act of Congress, the whole of their prizes. On July 10, 1782, Congress passed an ordinance embodying Morris’s recommendations.[291]