Facsimile of a Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Captain McNeil.
When the enemy was discovered the Boston was well out to sea, and having the weather gauge, she down with her helm and sailed away. The Hancock and the Fox were close in shore, and they were soon hard pressed. Manly, seeing himself deserted, at once began throwing overboard all unnecessary weights, and so lightened his ship that he was in a fair way to escape, when the wind failed him, although the enemy still held enough to draw within easy range and in a position to rake. He was thus under the guns of the Rainbow of forty-four guns and the Victor of twenty, and could not turn his ship in any direction. Of course he surrendered.
Meantime the Flora had recaptured the Fox, although the prize crew, few as they were in number, made a good fight.
It was the belief of Captain Manly that had the Boston come down to engage the Flora and so pitched the Victor against the Fox, he would have been able to account for the Rainbow, and when the affair came before Congress Captain Manly’s view prevailed, and Captain McNeil was dismissed from the service for running away.
On the theory that ships are sent to sea to fight to the last gasp, the fate of Captain McNeil was merited, even though one prominent naval historian tries to justify his conduct. Had a Biddle or a John Paul Jones had the Boston, one can well believe that the whole British squadron would have been carried into port.
As for Manly, it must be told that, in spite of the record he had made when he was in the service of Massachusetts—a record that had induced Congress to put him third on the list of captains when it made its first revision of the list—he was permitted to leave the navy for the privateer service after he was exchanged and returned to port.
The naval record for 1778 opens in January, when, on the 27th, in the Providence, armed with twelve four-pounders, Capt. John P. Rathburne descended on New Providence island in the Bahamas. He landed at 11 o’clock at night with twenty-five men (half of his crew) and released thirty odd American prisoners confined on shore. Then he captured Fort Nassau with its cannon and ammunition and 300 stand of muskets. At daylight he captured, without a fight, an armed vessel of sixteen guns, together with five merchantmen and another fort. A British sloop-of-war (ship) having appeared off the port, she was fired on from the shore, when she made haste to sail away.
After holding the place two days and getting all the portable munitions of war on board and spiking the cannon, Captain Rathburne burned two of the prizes and carried four home.
The loss of one of the new American frigates which the Congress had ordered, the Virginia, of twenty-eight guns, followed. She was coming down Chesapeake Bay and grounded at night. In the morning two British warships were seen near by, and her commander, Capt. James Nicholson, with his crew, took to the boats and escaped ashore. The congressional inquiry that followed cleared Nicholson of blame. It is said that he went ashore not to escape a fight, but because of very important papers he was carrying.