[503] Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, XIII, Minutes of Supreme Executive Council, December 6, 1782.
[504] Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd, I, 256.
[505] Ibid., 1st, X, 26.
CHAPTER XIV
THE NAVY OF VIRGINIA
In July, 1775, Virginia began to raise and officer an army of more than one thousand men. By fall Lord Dunmore, the Provincial Governor of Virginia, who in June had retreated to His Majesty’s ship “Fowey” at Yorktown, had collected a small flotilla, and had begun a series of desultory attacks upon the river banks of Virginia. On October 25 he was repulsed at Hampton; on December 9 he was beaten by the Virginia patriots at Great Ridge; and on January 1 he burned Norfolk. His movements excited so much alarm that the leading patriot families on the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac rivers retreated inland for safety. In order to prevent the depredations of Lord Dunmore, and to provide effectually for the general defence of the state, the Virginia Provincial Convention in December authorized the Committee of Safety of the state “to provide from time to time such and so many armed vessels as they may judge necessary for the protection of the several rivers in this colony, in the best manner the circumstances of the country will admit.” The Committee of Safety was further directed to raise a sufficient number of officers, sailors, and marines; and settle their pay, which was not to exceed certain specified rates. The maximum wage of “the chief commander of the whole as commodore” was fixed at fifteen shillings a day.[506]
Between December, 1775, and July, 1776, the Committee of Safety procured and established a small navy. On April 1 it fixed the naval pay, generally at the maximum rates permitted. Captains in the navy were to receive a daily wage of 8s.; captains of marines, 6s.; midshipmen, 3s.; marines, 1s., 6d. The Committee resolved that two years ought to be a maximum period of service. It appointed a number of the most prominent officers in the Virginia navy, among whom were Captains James Barron, Richard Barron, Richard Taylor, Thomas Lilly, and Edward Travis. It fixed the relative rank between army and navy officers. It purchased the boats “Liberty” and “Patriot,” the brigs “Liberty” and “Adventure,” and the schooner “Adventure.” It contracted for the construction of a number of galleys on the different rivers of the state.[507]
George Mason and John Dalton were appointed a committee to build two row-galleys, and buy three cutters for the defence of the Potomac. In April, 1776, Mason wrote that the galleys were well under way, and that three small vessels had been purchased, of which the largest was a fine stout craft of about 110 tons burden, mounting fourteen 8’s and 4’s, carrying ninety-six men, and named the “American Congress.” A company of marines for this vessel, he said, were being exercised in the use of the great guns.[508] The Committee of Safety chose a “Lieutenant of Marines in the Potomac river Department.”
The Provincial Convention of Virginia, which met at Williamsburg on May 6, 1776, being convinced that the naval preparations would be conducted more expeditiously and successfully if proper persons were appointed to superintend and direct the same, chose a Board of Naval Commissioners, consisting of five persons.[509] The Board was authorized to appoint a clerk and assistants, and to elect from their membership a First Commissioner of the Navy—the title of a well-known officer in the English naval service. No member of the Board could sit in the legislature or hold a military office. Each Commissioner was to receive twenty shillings a day, when employed. On the depreciation of the currency this was doubled.[510] A majority of the Board constituted a quorum. Thomas Whiting served as First Commissioner of the Board throughout its existence.
In general, the business of the Navy Board was “to superintend and direct all matters and things to the navy relating.” It had charge of the building, purchase, fitting, arming, provisioning, and repairing of all armed vessels and transports. It had charge of the shipyards and the public rope-walk. In case of vacancies in the navy or marines it recommended officers to the Governor and Council. It could suspend an officer for neglect of duty or for misbehavior. It was to keep itself informed on the state of the navy through reports from the naval officers. It was authorized to draw warrants on the treasury for money expended in the naval department, and to audit the naval accounts.
The Navy Board had charge of naval affairs in Virginia for three years, from the summer of 1776 until the summer of 1779. During 1776 and 1777 vessels were built on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, on the Potomac, Rappahannock, Mattapony, Chickahominy, and James rivers, and at Portsmouth, Gosport, and South Quay. After 1777 vessels were chiefly built at the Chickahominy and Gosport shipyards. No other state owned so much land, property, and manufactories, devoted to naval purposes, as Virginia. In April, 1777, the Navy Board purchased 115 acres of land, for £595, on the Chickahominy, twelve miles from its confluence with the James.[511] On this site was located the Chickahominy shipyard. Virginia’s ships found here a safer retreat than at Gosport, which lay convenient for the enemy’s ships. It is said that before the Revolution the British had established a marine yard at Gosport, and named it for Gosport, England, where many supplies for the Royal Navy were manufactured. In some way Virginia came into possession of the shipyard at this place.[512] Two ships were built for the defence of Ocracoke Inlet, the chief entrance to Albemarle Sound, at South Quay, on the Blackwater, a few miles north of the North Carolina line.