The Navy of the American Revolution

by Charles Oscar Paullin

Meanwhile the General Court had prepared and adopted the legislation necessary to establish a navy. It had drafted proper naval forms; and it had appointed a number of naval officers. A partial pay-table was established on February 8.[394] This on April 12 was succeeded by a new one, which generally raised wages, and which provided for a number of new offices. A captain was now to receive a monthly wage of £8; a first lieutenant, £5, 8s.; a second lieutenant, £5; a master, £4; a mate, £3; a surgeon, £7; and an ordinary seaman, £2. Each vessel was to be provided with 115 officers and seamen. No better proof of the rawness of the naval service is needed than that afforded by the regulation that recruits, whether officers, seamen, or marines, should furnish themselves with “a good effective Fire Arm, Cartouch Box, Cutlass, and Blanket.” The captains were ordered to recommend to the Council a list of inferior officers and to enlist the proposed number of seamen and marines. Captors were given one-third of the proceeds of prizes.[395]

On April 27, 1776, the General Court fixed the respective shares of the proceeds of prizes for officers and seamen: a captain was to receive six shares, and “all the Cabbin Furniture;” a first lieutenant, five shares; a drummer, one and one-fourth shares; a seaman, one share; and a boy, one-half a share.[396] On April 29, in order to encourage enlistment, an advance of one month’s wages was voted to recruits. On the same day it was decided that “the Uniform of Officers be Green and White, and that the Colours be a white Flagg, with a green Pine Tree, and an Inscription, ‘Appeal to Heaven.’”[397] On July 26 the Council appointed a prize agent in each of the three admiralty districts, whose duty was to represent the state in receiving, trying, and selling prizes.[398] At times the prize agents assisted in fitting out vessels.

During the first half of 1776 the law of November 1, 1775, establishing privateering, was three times amended and remodelled.[399] The law was thereby accommodated to the resolutions of the Continental Congress fixing the kinds of property subject to capture, and the respective shares of captors and recaptors. Doubts which had arisen as to the proper construction of the original act were now removed. The procedure before admiralty courts was made more specific. In cases of captures made by Continental vessels, appeals were permitted from state admiralty courts to the Continental Congress; in all other cases, appeals were allowed to the superior state courts. In each of the three admiralty districts in Massachusetts additional towns were named where court might be held. The towns named for the Middle district were Boston, Salem, Ipswich, and Newburyport.

During the summer and fall of 1776 the instructions and orders to the captains of the armed vessels were issued to them by the Council, having been previously prepared by a committee. The following instructions, which were drafted by Thomas Cushing and Daniel Hopkins, were given to Captain John Fisk, and will suffice as a sample of such documents:

“The Brigantine Tyrannicide under your Command being properly Armed and Man’d and in other respects fitted for a Cruise you are hereby Ordered and directed immediately to proceed to sea and use your utmost Endeavors to protect the Sea Coast and Trade of the United States and you are also directed to exert yourself in making Captures of all Ships and other Vessels Goods Wares and Merchandise belonging to the King of Great Britain or any of his subjects wherever residing excepting only the Ships and Goods of the Inhabitants of Bermuda and the Bahama Islands—You are directed not to Cruize further Southward than Latitude Twelve North nor farther East than Longitude Nine Degrees West from London nor farther West than the Shoals of Nantucket. At all times using necessary precautions to prevent your Vessel from falling into the hands of the Enemy.

“And Whereas you have received a Commission authorizing you to make Captures aforesaid and a set of Instructions have been delivered you for regulating your Conduct in that matter; these Instructions you are Hereby directed diligently to attend to, and if you are so fortunate as to make any Captures you are to Order them to make the first safe Harbor within the United States.-and you are further Ordered not to expend your Ammunition unnecessarily and only in time of Action or firing Alarm or Signal guns.”[400]

Until October, 1776, the Massachusetts navy was administered by the General Court, committees of its members, the Council, and naval agents. The General Court for the period of its recess in May, 1776, placed the armed vessels in the charge of “the committee for fortifying the harbor of Boston.” By the fall of that year it realized that “secrecy, dispatch, and economy in conducting the war” demanded a special executive department. Accordingly, on October 26 it established a Board of War consisting of nine members, any five of whom constituted a quorum. The Board of War was “empowered to Order and Direct the Operations of the Forces in the Pay of this State, both by sea and land, by giving the Commanders of the Troops, Garrisons, and Vessels of War, such Orders for their Conduct and Cruizes from time to time as they shall think proper.”[401] It organized by electing a president and secretary; and it rented permanent quarters near the State House in Boston. In December, 1776, James Warren, later Commissioner for the Continental Navy Board at Boston, was president of the Board of War. Philip Henry Savage was for a long time its president. Savage presided at the meeting in 1773 at Old South Church which decided that the tea should not be landed.[402] The Board of War entered upon its work with vigor in November, 1776. It was yearly renewed, until it was dissolved in February, 1781.

The principal business of the Board of War was the administration of the naval, commercial, and military affairs of the state. Its naval and commercial duties were quite engrossing. The Board kept fairly distinct the activities of its “armed” and “trading” vessels. It is true that the armed vessels were now and then sent on commercial errands, or combined in a single voyage naval and trading duties. The sloop “Republic,” used for a short time as a naval vessel, was taken into the commercial service. The Massachusetts Archives contain a list of thirty-two trading vessels owned or chartered by the Board of War.[403] These vessels visited Nantes, Bilbao, Martinique, Guadaloupe, St. Eustatius, Cape Francois, Baltimore, and the ports of North and South Carolina. They carried as staple exports, fish, lumber, and New England rum.

As a rule the work of the Board of War in looking after its trading vessels exceeded its naval work. At times, as in the case of the Penobscot expedition, the naval duties were the important ones. A week’s work of the Board in behalf of its armed vessels shows a curious mixture of orders on the commissary-general for clothing and provisions, and on the state storekeeper for naval stores; and of directions to the prize agents, the agents for building armed vessels, and the naval captains. The General Court permitted the Board a rather free hand in its management of the navy. The Board carried on a considerable correspondence with the commanders of the armed vessels. The following letter written to the Board by Captain John Clouston of the armed sloop “Freedom” on May 23, 1777, from Paimboeuf, France, will illustrate this correspondence from the Captain’s side. Clouston’s disregard of orthography and punctuation is exceptional even for a Revolutionary officer.

“Gentlemen: