For two months this squadron did nothing, but early in July they fell in with a great fleet of merchantmen escorted by a ship-of-the-line (seventy-four guns) and a number of frigates. Notwithstanding the efficiency of this guard, the Yankees cut out eleven of the merchant ships and carried them into port. It is recorded that the cargoes of these ships were worth over a million dollars in gold, and that this cruise was financially the most profitable of the war.
Meantime there was a fight between brigs that shows at once the wonderful courage and endurance of the Anglo-Saxon seaman, no matter on which side of the Atlantic his home is found, and the further fact that in 1779 the Yankee sailor was becoming somewhat skilled as a man-o’-war’sman. The American brig Providence, Capt. Hoysted Hacker, fell in with the English brig Diligent, Capt. Thomas Davyson, May 7th. At the end of an hour the Diligent struck her colors, but she had lost twenty-seven in killed and wounded out of her crew of fifty-three before she did so. The Providence lost only four killed and ten wounded.
The Diligent was at once taken into the American service, but disaster overtook the squadron in which she sailed. The enemy had established a fort on the Penobscot for convenience as a base for operating against Massachusetts. Accordingly 1,500 militia were sent with a fleet of transports and privateers to capture it. With this fleet went the frigate Warren, Capt. Dudley Saltonstall; the brig Diligent, and the old brig Providence, that had seen service from the first.
Signature of Hoysted Hacker.
From a letter at the Lenox Library.
The expedition reached the Penobscot on July 25, 1779, and found not only a fort, but three warships, aggregating forty-nine guns, ready for a fight. An attack was made, but the Americans were repulsed. They then began the slower process of reducing the works by siege, but on August 13th a British fleet of one ship-of-the-line (sixty-four guns), three frigates of thirty-two guns each, three sloops-of-war aggregating forty-eight guns, and a brig of fourteen guns, appeared.
At this the privateers scattered, each captain seeking safety as he thought best, regardless of the safety of the others. The American naval fleet, with the transports, retreated up the river, where all were destroyed to prevent the enemy getting them. It was a very heavy blow to the American naval forces.
Among the English squadron was the frigate Virginia that had grounded in the Chesapeake while trying to get to sea for the first time in 1778, when her commander, Captain Nicholson, abandoned her to the enemy.
