[CHAPTER XII]
WAR ON THE OCEAN
[Importance of the control of the water] Until the war of independence the Americans had no navy of their own, such maritime expeditions as that against Louisburg having been undertaken with the aid of British ships. When the war broke out, one of the chief advantages possessed by the British, in their offensive operations, was their entire control of the American waters. Not only were all the coast towns exposed to their sudden attack, but on the broad deep rivers they were sometimes able to penetrate to a considerable distance inland, and by means of their ships they could safely transport men and stores from point to point. Their armies always rested upon the fleets as bases of operations, and soon lost their efficiency when severed from these bases. General Howe was not safe in Philadelphia until his brother had gained control of the Delaware river, and Burgoyne’s army invited capture as soon as its connection with the lakes was cut off. From first to last, the events of the war illustrated this dependence of the army upon the fleet. On the retreat from Lexington, it was only the ships that finally saved Lord Percy’s weary troops from capture; at Yorktown, it was only the momentary loss of naval superiority that made escape impossible for Cornwallis. For want of a navy, General Washington could not hold the island of New York in 1776; and for a like reason, in 1778, after the enemy had been reduced to the defensive, he could not prudently undertake its recapture. It was through lack of effective naval aid that the Newport expedition failed; and the events of 1779, in Virginia and Connecticut, bore sad testimony to the defenceless condition of our coasts.
[Feeble action of Congress] Early in the war this crying want was earnestly considered by Congress, and efforts were made to repair it by the construction of a navy and the equipment of private cruisers. But the construction of a regular navy, which alone could serve the purpose, was beset with even greater difficulties than those which attended the organization of a permanent army. There was, indeed, no lack of good material, whether for ships or for seamen. New England, in particular, with its great length of seacoast and its extensive fisheries, had always possessed a considerable merchant marine, and nourished a hardy race of seafaring people. How formidable they could become in naval warfare, Great Britain was destined, nearly forty years afterward, to find out, to her astonishment and chagrin. But the absence of a central government was even more seriously felt in naval than in military affairs. The action of Congress was feeble, unintelligent, and vacillating. The “marine committees,” “navy boards,” and “boards of admiralty,” to which the work of creating a navy was entrusted, were so often changed in their composition and in their functions that it was difficult for any piece of work to be carried out in accordance with its original design. As there was a total absence of system in the department of admiralty, so there was utter looseness of discipline in the service. There were the same wranglings about rank as in the army, and the consequences were even more pernicious. It was difficult to enlist good crews, because of the uncertainty arising from the general want of system. The risks encountered were excessive, because of the overwhelming preponderance of the enemy from the outset. Of thirteen new cruisers laid down in the autumn of 1775, only six ever succeeded in getting out to sea. During the war one ship-of-the-line was built,—the America 74, first commanded by Captain John Barry;[28] but she was launched too late for active service. Between 1775 and 1783, there were twenty small frigates and twenty-one sloops-of-war in the service. Most of these were either captured by the enemy, or destroyed to prevent their falling into the enemy’s hands.[29] The armaments of these ships were very light; the largest of them, the Bon Homme Richard, was constructed for a thirty-eight, but her heaviest guns were only twelve-pounders.
AUGUSTATUS KUNINGAM
[American and British cruisers] Yet in spite of this light force, weak discipline, and unsteady management, the little American navy did some very good work in the course of the war, and it was efficiently helped by a multitude of private cruisers, just as the Continental army often got valuable aid from the militia. Before the French alliance more than six hundred British vessels had fallen prey to the American cruisers, and so venturesome were these swift little craft that they even hovered around the coast of England, and merchant vessels going from one British port to another needed the protection of a convoy. During the same period, about nine hundred American vessels were taken by British cruisers; so that the damaging power of the American marine seems to have amounted to about two thirds that of such part of the British marine as could be devoted to the injury of American shipping. The damage inflicted upon the Americans was the more serious, for it well-nigh ruined the New England fisheries and the coasting trade. On the other hand, the American cruisers caused marine insurance in England to rise to a far higher point than had ever before been known; and we learn from a letter of Silas Deane to Robert Morris that, shortly before the alliance between France and the United States, the docks on the Thames were crowded with French vessels loading with British goods that sought the shelter of a neutral flag.
CONYNGHAM CAPTURING A BRITISH PACKET