The American Navy

by French Ensor Chadwick

Both the Serapis and Bonhomme Richard were terribly mauled. The latter’s rudder, stern frame, and transoms were cut away, and the sides between the ports were at points driven in. It was ten next morning before the fires could be extinguished. On examination it was decided that it would be impossible to keep the ship afloat if rough weather should come on (which in fact was the case), and during the night and next morning the wounded were removed. The men who had been brought from the Pallas to work the pumps were taken off the evening of the 25th (two days after the battle). Says Jones:

“They did not abandon her until after nine o’clock; the water was then up to the lower deck, and a little after ten I saw with unexpressible grief the last of the Bonhomme Richard. No lives were lost with the ship, but it was impossible to save the stores of any sort whatever. I lost even the best part of my clothes, books and papers; and several of my officers lost all their clothes and effects.”

The masts of the Serapis fell soon after the surrender, and jury masts were rigged from spars furnished by the Alliance, all the spare spars of the Serapis being too badly cut by shot. On September 26th she was able to steer for Holland in company with the rest of the squadron, and on October 3d entered the Texel after some demur on the part of the Dutch. Though Jones’s instructions gave the Texel as the port to be made at the end of his six weeks’ cruise, his own wish was to go into Dunkirk and thus be under the shelter of an ally. The other captains adhered to the letter of the instructions, and Jones felt obliged to yield. Much trouble would have been saved had his views prevailed. As an offset, however, to such disabilities as arose from the inability of Jones to dispose of the Serapis, the anger of the British Government against the Dutch as to the reception of the squadron in Dutch waters went far to bringing later the declaration of war by England against Holland. Jones was allowed to land his sick and wounded, who were cared for on an island in the bay, as were the prisoners, numbering 537, sufficient to release by exchange all the American seamen who were prisoners in England.

For Jones’s further history, his having to put all his ships but the Alliance under the French flag to avoid the difficulties raised by Great Britain with Holland; his going in the Alliance to Lorient, France; the arrival there and sale of the Serapis; the charges against Landais; his short cruise in the Alliance; his unjust treatment by Arthur Lee, by which Landais regained command of the Alliance; Lee’s embarkation in the Alliance for America and the necessity during the voyage of depriving Landais of the command on account of evident insanity; the dismissal of Landais from the service; Jones’s arrival in command of the Ariel at Philadelphia, February 18, 1781, after more than three years’ absence, and his reception of the thanks of Congress; his appointment to the command of the new line-of-battle ship America which he lost through its presentation to France; his return to Europe, and the rest of his adventurous career must be read in the many books devoted to the history of his life, not the least interesting part of which is to be found in Fanning’s graphic narrative. He will always stand out boldly as one of the most fearless spirits of the sea, and had he lived in the Napoleonic epoch he would have been met by Napoleon as a kindred soul who might have saved him the great misfortune of Trafalgar, which so changed the history of Europe and the world.

CHAPTER VII

The activity of American privateers as well as Continental ships in British waters during 1777-1779 was very great, that of the Reprisal, Lexington, Dolphin, and Revenge (the first two, Continental brigs) being particularly notable.

France was at this period (1777) made a basis for the fitting out of Continental vessels and privateers, and for the supply of men in a way which would be far from possible to-day. Captain Lambert Wickes of the Continental brig Reprisal and Gustavus Conyngham of the Continental lugger Surprise and cutter Revenge, both of which latter were bought and fitted out by our commissioners in France, were two of those most active and prominent in the operations on the British coast. Their names have come down to this day as specially brave and adventurous men. The former had cruised very successfully on our own coast and in the West Indies in 1776, and had been the first, as mentioned, to carry a ship of the regular navy to Europe, December, 1776, though privateers had preceded him. Two prizes taken into Nantes caused strong protests from Great Britain. The treaty of Utrecht, 1713, expressly closed the ports of either power to the enemies of the other, so that the British case had a very sound basis. Vergennes unquestionably, before our alliance, had to hold a course favoring the Americans which was full of difficulties. The details of the diplomacy of the moment cannot be entered upon. Suffice that the Reprisal refitted went to sea early in 1777, and brought in five prizes to add to Vergennes’s difficulties. The British Ambassador, Stormont, demanded their release. He was answered that both captor and captured had been ordered to leave port and were probably already at sea, to which Stormont was later able to make reply that the Reprisal was undergoing repairs at Lorient, and that the five prizes had been sold. The questions were bandied to and fro between the American commissioners, the French Minister, and the British Ambassador, with the result that the Reprisal received orders not to cruise near the French coast, but apparently the prizes remained in the hands of the purchasers. On May 28th Wickes sailed in the Reprisal from St. Nazaire with the Continental brig Lexington, Captain Henry Johnson, and the cutter Dolphin, Captain Nicholson, all under Wickes as senior officer, for a cruise through the Irish Channel. They were back in St. Malo on June 27th, having captured twenty prizes, of which three were released and seven sunk. In July the commissioners were obliged to give orders that the Reprisal and Lexington should return directly to America, for which the Dolphin had already sailed as a packet, and to cruise no longer in Europe. They left in September; when only two days out the Lexington was captured. The Reprisal was lost on the Newfoundland Banks, but one man being saved. The loss of her enterprising captain was keenly felt and deplored.

Gustavus Conyngham had been selected to command the lugger Surprise fitting at Dunkirk, and was given one of the commissions, of which a number had been sent out in blank signed by Hancock, President of Congress, and dated March 1, 1777. He got to sea by May and, returning almost at once with two prizes, was, on the demand of the British Ambassador, with most of his crew, put in prison. His vessel was seized and the prizes released. His commission was taken from him and not returned. Released, he was at once put in command of a newly purchased cutter, the Revenge, with a crew of 106 men. He was given a new commission which was dated May 2, 1777. He cruised off the coast of Spain with remarkable success and then went to the West Indies. He was reported to have captured, by the time of his arrival there, sixty vessels, twenty-seven of which had been sent into port and thirty-three sunk or burned. After cruising successfully in the West Indies he arrived at Philadelphia on February 21, 1779. The Revenge was sold, but the purchaser fitted her out as a privateer with Conyngham in command, using his Continental commission, dated May 2, 1777; this nearly caused Conyngham to lose his life, for he was captured by a British frigate in April, taken to New York, confined in irons, and was sent to England under an accusation of piracy in that his cruise and captures in the Revenge early in 1777 had been before the date of this commission. In November, 1779, he escaped from Mill prison, where he had been confined. His active career, however, was ended.[8]

In 1779 occurred one of the great naval disasters of the war. Some 800 British troops convoyed by ships-of-war had in June taken possession of Penobscot Bay to establish there some of the many loyalists who had gone to Halifax, their chief refuge during the war. Maine was then a part of Massachusetts, and it was this state which took on the burden of dislodging the enemy. The Navy Board at Boston lent the Warren, 32; the Providence (sloop), 14; and the Diligent, 12. These and three state brigantines, of 14 or 16 guns each, and thirteen privateers (insured by the state) made up the naval part. In all they mounted 324 guns and were manned by over 2,000 men. Captain Dudley Saltonstall was in chief command. There were about 1,000 militia commanded by General Solomon Lovell. This carefully prepared effort was a complete failure through the incompetency and want of push of Saltonstall. Arriving in the bay on July 25, 1779, the attack on three British vessels present and on the fort which was now ready was so dilatory and ineffective that at length, on August 13th, a British fleet which had had time to come from New York appeared and drove the American vessels up the river, where all except two, which were captured, were burned. The American loss was 474 men. The remainder had to find their way back with great hardship through the Maine woods. This humiliating affair cost Massachusetts a debt estimated at $7,000,000.

The year 1779, however, had been the most brilliant of the war for the small American navy. The exploits of John Paul Jones, of Gustavus Conyngham and Lambert Wickes in European waters made an undying page of history; nor should those of our small frigates, the Queen of France, Deane (later the Hague), Warren, Boston, and Ranger on our own coasts as well as of the swarms of privateers in this year (289 of which were commissioned by Congress alone) and whose sweeping captures of the enemy’s commerce went so far to supply the needs of our ever-dwindling army, be forgotten.