What with the enthusiasm that arose when he saw two prizes taken under his own eyes, and the satisfaction arising from having his scanty means augmented by the price of the prizes, Franklin joined heartily with the other commissioners in urging upon the Congress the advisability of keeping a naval force on the European side of the water, with French ports as a base of action. “We have not the least doubt but that two or three of the Continental frigates sent into the German Ocean, with some less swift-sailing cruisers, might intercept and seize a great part of the Baltic and northern trade.” So wrote Franklin.
The Congress had been building some frigates, but instead of sending one of them the brig Lexington, armed with sixteen long four-pounders (a brig of which something was told in a former chapter), was sent across, under command of Capt. Henry Johnson. Meantime the American commissioners purchased a ten-gun cutter called the Dolphin, which they placed under the command of Lieut. Samuel Nicholson, who afterwards died at the head of the American navy.
The Lexington arrived out in April, 1777. In June this fleet of two small brigs and one “single-sticker” sailed out of Nantes, under command of Captain Wickes, to prey upon British commerce.
It had been the boast of the British sailor, and it was still his boast, that
“Not a sail but by permission spreads.”
He sang his boast over his grog; but he was mistaken. Captain Wickes, after a brief cruise in the Bay of Biscay, sailed north to intercept a fleet loaded with linen on the Irish coast. He missed the linen ships, but he sailed twice around Ireland, and captured fifteen prizes, which were sent into port.
On coming back to the French coast the little fleet fell in with a British ship of the line—a big three-decker—that at once gave chase. The three Americans separated, and the Englishman followed the flagship Reprisal.
That was a close call for the Reprisal. Her crew at the last felt so hard pressed that they threw their guns overboard to lighten her, and “sawed her bulwarks and even cut away some of her timbers; expedients that were much in favor among the seamen of the day.” She arrived safely at the last, but the sawing of her timbers was a mortal wound, as will appear further on.
Not in years had the British commerce received such a blow, although this was only a trifle to what followed. A storm was raised in France by the British agents. The two countries were nominally at peace, and the French king was not yet ready for war. So the Reprisal and the Lexington were ordered to leave France, “while the prizes were ordered to leave port.”
As to the prizes, they were taken out of port and sold as others had been sold. The Reprisal sailed for America, but in a storm off the banks of Newfoundland she foundered, no doubt because her frames had been weakened by the sawing when she was fleeing before the British ship of the line. One man, the cook, was picked from the wreckage by a passing vessel.