CHAPTER V
UNDER THE CRAGS OF THE “TIGHT LITTLE ISLE”
THE SAUCY YANKEE CRUISERS IN BRITISH WATERS—WHEN FRANKLIN SAILED FOR FRANCE—WICKES IN THE REPRISAL ON THE IRISH COAST—NARROW ESCAPE FROM A LINER—A PLUCKY ENGLISH LIEUTENANT—HARSH FATE OF THE AMERICANS IN THE BRITISH PRISON—STARVED BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT—DEEDS OF THE GALLANT CONNYNGHAM—WELL-NAMED CRUISERS—A SURPRISE AT A BREAKFAST TABLE—TAKING PRIZES DAILY—WHY FORTY FRENCH SHIPS LOADED IN THE THAMES—INSURANCE RATES NEVER BEFORE KNOWN.
Signal as has been the value of the services of the little vessels of the infant navy of the United States in their operations along the American coast and upon the woodsy waters of the highway from the north during the year of the nation’s birth, the American sailors had really only just begun to fight, and it was not until they carried the fight into the very harbors of Great Britain that they taught the British merchants, who had been supporting the British ministry in its oppression of the colonies, a lesson they were slow to learn. For the British merchants had looked upon the war in America as a blessing upon their business interests. It would be somewhat expensive in the way of taxation, but it would ruin their competitors, the enterprising colonists. It is in the spirit of trade and tradesmen of all classes to view with complacency the little expenses that ruin competitors. But some of the British merchants who rubbed their hands and smiled with satisfaction as they heard of the retreat of Washington across New Jersey in 1776, were to wring them in distress because of wounds in their pockets before the end of 1777—because of ships that were snatched away from under the very crags of what they were pleased to term their “tight little isle.”
“In the meantime the irruption of the Phœnix and the Rose into the waters of the Hudson had roused a belligerent spirit along its borders.” These were the first British warships to sail up the Hudson in the Revolutionary war, and their advent was in July, 1776. The Americans had no ships to send against them, and they commonly remained at anchor out of reach of shore batteries. It was because of their presence that it was proposed to stretch an iron chain across the river at Anthony’s Nose. Other obstructions were prepared, but the only thing done in the way of going afloat to attack them was when some rafts were brought down the river chained between a couple of old sloop hulls, the whole of which were covered with dry fat, pine, tar, turpentine, etc. These were fired and let drift with the tide, but as a substitute for the modern torpedoes they were not successful.
The war was, indeed, carried across the stormy Atlantic in the autumn of 1776, though only a small beginning was made that year. To Capt. Lambert Wickes was given the honor of commanding the first American naval ship to cross the Atlantic. Captain Wickes, while in command of the sixteen-gun brig Reprisal, had, as already told, made such a good fight when attacked by the British sloop-of-war Shark off Martinique that he beat her off and escaped. For this he was chosen to carry Franklin, who had been appointed American commissioner to France, across to Nantes.
Not only did Wickes carry his passenger safely into port; he captured two prizes on the way and sent them into port also. And then, after refitting in Nantes, he went on a cruise in the Bay of Biscay, where he captured two more prizes, of which one was the king’s mail packet plying between Falmouth and Lisbon, it being the custom in those days for the British government to employ swift brigs of the navy on the regular mail routes.
The Phœnix and the Rose Engaging the Fireships on the Hudson River.
From a lithograph of the painting by Serres after a sketch by Sir James Wallace.
France and England were at peace at that time, but by carrying the prizes out to sea, after they had been successfully brought to port, they were readily sold to French merchants, and the money was placed in the hands of Franklin and the other American commissioner, Silas Deane.