On August 3 the Governor and Council of Safety appointed Captain Giles Hall of Norwich captain and commander of the “Minerva.” A pay-table and a small list of officers were now established. Captain Hall was to receive a monthly salary of £7; the first lieutenant, £5; the second lieutenant, and master, £4 each; seamen, £2, 5s.; and marines, £2. Hall was instructed to raise forty seamen and forty marines.[436]
When the committee for obtaining the spy-vessel reported on August 14, the Governor and Council of Safety resolved to buy the schooner “Britannia,” belonging at Stonington, at a price not to exceed £200. Robert Niles was made captain of the “Spy,” the name now given to the schooner, in place of Samuel Niles.[437] The “Spy” was cruising early in October, 1775, when she recaptured and brought into New London a large ship containing eight thousand bushels of wheat,[438] the first capture of the Connecticut navy.
By October the “Minerva” was ready for sea, and on the ninth of this month, in response to a request of the Continental Congress, the Governor and Council of Safety ordered this vessel to intercept two transports bound from England for Quebec.[439] This detail was not carried out by the “Minerva” for the very sufficient reason “that all the hands or soldiers and marines on board, except about 10 or 12, being duly noticed of said orders, utterly declined and refused to obey the same and perform said cruise,” which through their disobedience wholly failed.[440] The Governor and Council of Safety ordered the mutinous men discharged, and others enlisted in their places; but before the “Minerva” was again ready for service, the General Assembly in December directed Captain Hall to return his vessel to its owner and dismiss his crew.
In December, 1775, the General Assembly deciding to increase the naval forces of the colony, appointed Colonel David Waterbury of Stamford and Captain Isaac Sears of New Haven to examine a certain brigantine at Greenwich with a view to ascertaining its fitness for the naval service; and it resolved to build or otherwise procure an additional armed ship and four row-galleys “for the defence of this and the neighboring colonies.” Waterbury and Sears reported that the Greenwich brigantine was a new vessel which had made one voyage to the West Indies, and that she would mount sixteen six-pounders and twenty-four swivels.[441] The Governor and Council of Safety at once purchased the brigantine, which they named the “Defence,” and appointed Captain Seth Harding of Norwich to command her. By April, 1776, the “Defence” was manned and ready for sea.
On January 9, 1776, the Governor and Council of Safety appointed Benjamin Huntington of the Council of Safety and Captain Seth Harding a committee to visit Middletown and other towns on the Connecticut river to ascertain the terms upon which the second vessel could be purchased or built.[442] In the end the Governor and Council of Safety decided to build a ship of 200 tons burden at Saybrook, and they employed Captain Uriah Hayden at six shillings a day to undertake the task.[443] The ship was built during the spring and summer of 1776. An important event in the history of the “Oliver Cromwell,” as the new ship was called, is thus chronicled in the Connecticut Gazette of August 23, 1776, published at New London: “Last Lord’s Day, the new Ship of War belonging to the State of Connecticut, built at Say-Brook, and commanded by William Coit, Esq., came out of the River and arrived here Tuesday: she is the largest Vessel that has ever come over Say Brook Bar, and was piloted by Capt. James Harris.”[444]
Before building the row-galleys the Governor and Council of Safety sent one builder to Philadelphia and another to Providence in order to take advantage of the experiences of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island in constructing this sort of craft. Of the four galleys ordered in December, 1775, but three were built, the “Whiting” at New Haven, the “Shark” at Norwich, and the “Crane” at East Haddam. They were rigged as schooners; and by July, 1776, their construction was completed and they were officered and manned.
The General Assembly permitted the Governor and Council of Safety a free hand in their control of naval affairs. They were given full power and authority to order, direct, furnish, and supply the navy, during the recess of the General Assembly. It does not appear, however, that the sessions of the General Assembly caused much change in the management of the naval affairs. It was not in session longer than a few weeks or a few days at a time. In October, 1776, the General Assembly directed the Governor and Council of Safety to execute and continue all naval business which they had begun, the sessions of the Assembly notwithstanding.[445] Matters, which in some states were determined by legislation, such as the establishing of naval rules and regulations, the shares of prizes, and the naval pay, were in Connecticut for the most part left to administrative orders. In such work the Governor and Council of Safety often followed Continental models. In July, 1776, they ordered Richard Law, a member of the Council of Safety, to “compile a Code of Laws for the Naval Service of this Colony, as much in conformity to the laws of the naval service of the United Colonies as may consist with the service of this colony.”[446]
The Governor and Council of Safety transacted the naval business, as has already been seen, by means of committees of the Council of Safety, naval agents, and mixed committees composed of members of the Council of Safety and men from the outside. The sending of prizes captured by Connecticut ships of war into the ports of Massachusetts, and the refitting of the state’s vessels in Boston, necessitated the employment of a naval agent in Massachusetts. In April, 1777, Samuel Elliot of Boston was acting for the Governor and Council of Safety in this capacity. In October, 1777, the General Assembly authorized the appointment of a naval agent for Massachusetts, and on the 22nd of this month the Governor and Council of Safety appointed Elliot agent in all marine affairs to be transacted by Connecticut in Massachusetts.[447]
During the Revolution the chief seaport of Connecticut was New London, then one of the largest and most important towns in New England. The most complete naval news of the time is to be found in the Connecticut Gazette published at New London, and not in the Hartford Courant, or in the New Haven paper, the Connecticut Journal. New London was the naval station of the Connecticut fleet, the port where it was refitted and repaired. One of the most wealthy, influential, and public-spirited merchants of New London was Nathaniel Shaw, jr. He was an ardent patriot and was on intimate terms with Washington and other Revolutionary leaders.[448] The Governor and Council of Safety naturally turned to Shaw when naval duties were to be performed in New London. We have already seen that Shaw was present at a meeting of the Council of Safety in July, 1775, and was consulted on the initial naval project of the colony. From 1775 to 1779 the Governor and Council of Safety availed themselves of his services in fitting out their naval vessels. In July, 1776, they appointed him “Agent for the Colony, for the purpose of naval supplies and for taking care of such sick seamen as may be sent on shore to his care.”[449] In October, 1778, the General Assembly appointed Shaw Marine Agent for Connecticut and authorized him to equip the state vessels, to direct their cruises, and to receive and sell their prizes, in all, taking the advice of the Governor and Council of Safety from time to time.[450]
The Governor and Council of Safety showed an enterprising willingness to experiment in naval warfare, when in February, 1776, they permitted David Bushnell to explain to them his machine for blowing up ships, and voted him £60 to complete his invention.[451] Bushnell’s “American Turtle,” as his contrivance was called, anticipated modern inventions in submarine warfare. It consisted of a tortoise-shaped diving boat which could be propelled under water. It contained a supply of air sufficient to last the operator a half-hour, and was guided by means of a compass made visible by phosphorus. Upon reaching the doomed vessel a screw was driven into it by the operator. A magazine of powder was attached by a string to the screw. The casting of the magazine from the diving-boat set going a certain clock-work which gave the operator time to get beyond the reach of danger before it ignited the powder. In 1777 a trial of the “Turtle” against the British ship “Eagle,” 84, in New York Harbor was unsuccessful. The operator succeeded in getting under the “Eagle,” but was unable to drive the screw into her bottom.