The Naval Office at Paris appointed several naval officers by filling out blank commissions and warrants, which had been signed and sent by the President of Congress for that purpose. Late in the war the question arose as to the proper rank in the navy of some of these appointments. In certain specific cases which were referred to Robert Morris as Agent of Marine, he recommended that new commissions be granted dated as the old, and that the officers receiving them take rank according to the dates of their old commissions. The Naval Office granted commissions of captain to Gustavus Conyngham, Samuel Nicholson, Peter Landais, and John Green. On the recommendation of John Paul Jones it appointed Richard Dale to be a lieutenant on board the “Bon Homme Richard.” Dale became an officer of distinction in the new navy under the Constitution, where he rose to the rank of commodore. Landais was the only Frenchman who received a permanent commission as captain in the Continental navy.
Silas Deane had a penchant for recommending French officers; and he was very credulous as to the compliments expressed by themselves and their friends in their behalf. On November 28, 1776, Deane wrote to the Committee of Secret Correspondence as follows, having just referred to certain army officers whom he was sending to America: “As to sea officers, they are not so easily obtained, yet some good ones may be had, and in particular two, one of whom I have already mentioned; the other is quite his equal, with some other advantages; he was first lieutenant of a man-of-war, round the World with Captain Cook, and has since had a ship, but wants to leave this for other service where he may make a settlement and establish a family. These two officers would engage a number of younger ones, should they embark. I send herewith the plans of one of them for burning ships.” The French officer who designed these plans, also made “drafts of ships and rates for constructing and regulating a navy,” of which Deane had the “highest opinion.” This officer, Deane said, “has seen much service, is a person of study and letters, as well as fortune, and is ambitious of planning a navy for America, which shall at once be much cheaper and more effectual than anything of the kind which can be produced on the European system.”[318]
That Deane gave too ready an ear to the soft words of the French, is clear from his extravagant recommendations of the erratic and troublesome French captain, Peter Landais. Deane said that Landais would be a “valuable acquisition to our Navy;” and that he was a “skilful seaman of long Experience in every Part of the World, of good judgment and the most unsuspicious honor and Probity.” In May, 1778, Congress continued Landais in the naval service; but directed “the commissioners of the United States at foreign courts” not to “recommend any foreign sea-officers, nor give any of them the least expectation of being employed as captains in the navy.”[319]
The Naval Office at Paris issued a few commissions to privateers. As early as October, 1776, Deane was writing to the Committee of Secret Correspondence for blank commissions. Private as well as public interests were involved in the cruises of Captain Gustavus Conyngham in European waters. Carmichael, a Marylander and an employee in France of Congress and the Commissioners at Paris, asserted that Deane in 1777 intended to equip a vessel in the Mediterranean sea partly on public and partly on private account, that an agent was employed who succeeded in buying a vessel, but that the state of Genoa interposed and stopped the enterprise.[320] Two famous, or better infamous, letters of marque were fitted out at Dunkirk and commissioned by the Naval Office in 1779. They were named the “Black Prince” and the “Black Princess.” Their crews were a malodorous medley, containing “a few Americans, mixed with Irish and English smugglers.” These smugglers had recently broken prison in Dublin, recaptured their smuggling vessel, and escaped to Dunkirk. Should they be recaptured by the English and their identity be discovered, they would be forced to suffer the penalty for smuggling. As they spoke English, it was thought that their past character might be best concealed by giving them an American commission, instead of a French one. These two privateers captured or destroyed upwards of one hundred and twenty sail of the British, and insulted “the coasts of these lords of the ocean.” In the summer of 1780, the “Black Prince” was wrecked on the coast of France, and the commission of the “Black Princess,” upon the request of Vergennes, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, was recalled by Franklin.[321] In 1780 certain American prisoners, who had escaped, fitted out a privateer at Cadiz in Spain and asked Jay, the American minister at Madrid, for a commission. He referred them to Franklin.[322]
When the American Commissioners assembled in Paris in December, 1776, to begin their mission, they had with them the orders of Congress to purchase, arm, and equip a frigate and two cutters. They were to send the frigate cruising against the enemy in the English channel, and were to employ the cutters in transporting supplies to America. The Commissioners were further directed to hire or buy at the French Court eight line of battle ships.[323] They began to carry out these orders in January, 1777, when Captain Samuel Nicholson was sent to Boulogne to purchase one of the cutters; in the spring a lugger was obtained at Dover, England; and in the early summer another cutter was bought at Dunkirk. In the two latter transactions William Hodge, a merchant from Philadelphia, acted as the agent of the Commissioners. Early in the year Captain Lambert Wickes, who had in December, 1776, arrived in France in the Continental sloop “Reprisal” with Dr. Franklin on board, was inspecting vessels for the Commissioners. Nicholson’s cutter was named the “Dolphin;” and Hodge’s two vessels were called, respectively, the “Surprise” and the “Revenge.” It is believed that the “Revenge” was purchased jointly on public and private account. After this vessel’s first cruise it is known that Hodge and possibly others were pecuniarily interested in its ventures.
By the fall of 1777 the Commissioners had completed the construction of a 32-gun frigate at Nantes, which they called the “Deane.” They also purchased a ship which they fitted out as a 28-gun frigate and named the “Queen of France.” Early in 1778 they sent the “Deane” under the command of Captain Samuel Nicholson, and the “Queen of France” under the command of Captain John Green, both vessels laden with supplies, to Boston. The “Deane” remained in the navy until the end of the Revolution. The “Queen of France” was surrendered to the British in May, 1780, on the fall of Charleston, South Carolina. On the application of the Commissioners to the French Court for the loan or sale of some ships of the line, they were told that the French government considered it absolutely necessary to keep the whole of its fleet at home ready for the defence of France in case of a rupture with Great Britain; but, that, since England was apprehensive of a war with France, such a disposition of the French naval forces was serviceable to America in so far as it forced England to retain an equal force in the British seas.[324]
In the spring of 1777 the Commissioners received orders from Congress to build six vessels of war; but before this, they had on their own responsibility contracted with “one of the ablest sea officers of France, skilled in all the arts relating to the marine,” who had offered “his services to our States, with the permission of the minister,” to “superintend the building of two ships of war, of a particular construction, which, though not of half the cost, shall be superior in force and utility to ships of sixty-four guns.” This officer had already built a vessel of this type for the King of France which the Commissioners were told “exceeds everything in swift sailing.”[325] Only one of these frigates, which was named the “Indian,” was placed upon the stocks, and this one at Amsterdam. To conceal its ownership and destination it was built in the name of a private individual. The Commissioners wrote in the fall of 1777, when the ship was almost finished, that it was a large frigate and was supposed to equal a ship of the line, as it would carry thirty 24-pounders on one deck. The ship did not get to sea under Continental colors. Owing to the many difficulties of equipping and manning so large a ship in a neutral port, and to the lack of money necessary for such work, the Commissioners sold it to the King of France for a sum equal to that which they had expended upon it; the King at the same time agreed to pension well the officer who had built it.[326] With the sale of this frigate the work of the Naval Office at Paris in naval construction came to a close. The “Indian” was finally rented to the state of South Carolina. In 1779 and 1780 the French government loaned several vessels to the Naval Office.
During the years 1777, 1778, and 1779, the fitting out of Continental armed vessels, as well those which were sent to France from America, as those which were originally obtained by the Commissioners, was a severe tax on the slender resources of the Continental treasury at Paris. After a long voyage or cruise a wooden sailing vessel needed much repairing. Perchance, it must be careened and cleaned or repaired below the water line; new masts and spars were often needed; and old sails had to be mended and new ones provided. Always, the vessel before beginning a new cruise must be freshly provisioned; and its crew, depleted by battle, desertion, and the dispensations of Providence, had to be replenished. The enlisting of a few recruits was not a difficult thing at this time, for there was human driftwood in every port of Christendom, of divers nationalities, willing to ship under any flag. Many Frenchmen enlisted in French ports on board American vessels. In 1782 Franklin said he was continually pestered by such Frenchmen, who, being put on board prizes, had been captured by the English, and were now demanding arrears of pay.[327] In May, 1779, Franklin was complaining to Congress that the expense of fitting out each Continental cruiser which it sent to France amounted to 60,000 or 70,000 livres. He said that Mr. Bingham, the Continental agent at Martinique, had recently drawn upon him for the expense of fitting out two Continental cruisers which had recently put in to that island, but for lack of money he would be obliged to protest Bingham’s bill.[328] The American representatives in France fitted out and loaded with supplies for America both Continental vessels and French and American merchantmen. This work properly forms a part of their commercial duties. Deane tells us that while he was in France he expended more than ten million livres for stores, goods, and ships; and that he loaded sixteen ships for America.[329] The commercial agents had much to do with this work; Nantes was the principal shipping port.
Before the treaties of February, 1778, between the United States and France, the disposing of prizes captured by American vessels in French ports was exceedingly informal. Since France was obliged to at least make a pretence of observing her treaties with England and the laws of neutrality, she could not permit a trial of American prize cases in her admiralty courts. Consequently, prizes captured by American vessels were disposed of without trial and legal condemnation; they were taken into the offing of French ports and secretly sold to French merchants at a great sacrifice to the captors. After February, 1778, the prizes were legally tried, but not according to a uniform practice. Some cases were tried by the French admiralty courts; but in other cases the French courts prepared the proces verbaux, which they sent to Franklin; he then condemned the prizes and ordered the court to sell them. After July, 1780, Franklin ceased to exercise such judicial functions.[330]
One of the objects of the cruises of Continental vessels in European waters was to capture Englishmen and exchange them for American naval prisoners languishing in prisons in England. These imprisoned Americans were confined chiefly at Forton prison at Portsmouth, and Mill prison at Plymouth. A list of prisoners confined at Mill prison during the Revolution, which contains 947 names, has been made out.[331] In April, 1782, there were eleven hundred Americans in the jails of England and Ireland, all committed to prison as charged with high treason.[332] A few Americans were confined at Gibraltar. These prisoners often suffered greatly from a lack of sufficient food, clothing, bedding, and fuel. This was in part caused by the cruelty and fraud of those whom the British government entrusted with the supply and control of its prisons. The rigors of their captivity were softened, and their deprivations in a measure relieved by money which Franklin sent from Paris, and by private subscriptions in their behalf made by generous Englishmen.