The Story of Commodore John Barry

by Martin I. J. Griffin

The "Alliance" was the only American vessel in the expedition sent out by King Louis XVI, under John Paul Jones, which resulted in the ever memorable encounter with, and capture of, the "Serapis" by the "Bonne Homme Richard," commanded by Captain John Paul Jones. During the battle the "Alliance" twice fired into Jones' vessel and did damage. For this, on arrival in France, he was called on to make explanations and John Paul Jones, as Commodore of all American vessels in Europe, was appointed by Commissioner Benjamin Franklin, on June 16, 1780, to take "command of the 'Alliance' in her present intended voyage to America." But Silas Deane supported Landais, who ordered Jones off the vessel and set sail for America. On the voyage, his mental faculties becoming more erratic, the officers took the command from him and entrusted it to Lieutenant James Degges.

On arrival at Boston, Captain Barry was appointed to the command and the Courts of Inquiry and Courts-Martial tried Landais and dismissed him from the service. He died in New York in 1818 and is buried in St. Patrick's graveyard.

Captain Barry now commanded "the most perfect piece of naval architecture" than which the navies of France or England had none more complete. Landais and Barry were the only duly commissioned and regularly appointed by Continental authority commanders of the "Alliance," who at sea, on voyage or in battle ever directed her operations, yet a block of timber of the "Alliance" exhibited in the Revolutionary Relic Museum at Independence Hall is inscribed: "Commanded by John Paul Jones during the Revolutionary War."

There is no mention of its chief commander, John Barry, and that ignoring of his right to recognition is within sight of his statue erected by The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, of Philadelphia, March 16, 1907. Let that Society now secure the Commodore's right to the command his country gave him.

The appointment of Captain Barry had special significance at the time it was made—after the discovery of the treason of Benedict Arnold. He had issued on October 7, 1780, an "Address to the Soldiers of the American Army," in which he declared he thought "it infinitely wiser and safer to cast his confidence upon Great Britain's justice and generosity than to trust a monarchy too feeble to establish your Independence, so perilous to her distant dominions and the enemy of the Protestant faith."

Washington, in almost faint-hearted despair on the discovery of Arnold's treachery, had asked: "Whom can we trust now?" Was the answer to Washington and Arnold that made by the Marine Committee of the Continental Congress by the appointment of Captain John Barry to the largest, finest and best American war-vessel named in honor of an alliance with France, the alleged "enemy of the Protestant faith," as Arnold had declared?

Was that the answer to Arnold by the Congress whom he had denounced "as mean and profligate" and "praying a soul out of purgatory," because the members had attended the Requiem service in St. Mary's Church, Philadelphia, in behalf of the soul of Don Juan de Miralles, the Spanish Agent to the Congress, and in the very church which Captain Barry attended when in Philadelphia.

The Irish-born Catholic, John Barry, could be trusted with the very best when the native-born Protestant, Arnold, had betrayed the country for pelf and position among the oppressors of the native land of John Barry and the native land of the infamous Benedict Arnold.

What more could the adopted land of John Barry do for one who had been so faithful and so helpful from the first day of opportunity to serve her? It will erect a monument at the Capital of the Nation for America as Ireland's Sons of St. Patrick have erected one at Independence Hall. His new country had given him the first, and at all times the best, she had to bestow, as his native land had given to America. Place of birth nor creed of faith made no disparagement of such superior worth as John Barry possessed.

The Congress that had, to the people of Great Britain, denounced Barry's religion as "one fraught with impiety, bloodshed, rapine and murder in every part of the globe," had given to the Irish-born Catholic who gave the best he possessed in talent, ability and service to the cause of America, had also given him the first of her war vessels, continued to give him the best she, too, possessed and, finally, while the native-born traitor almost paralyzed the hearts of the patriots, gave to the foreign-born and staunch Catholic, the foremost vessel in her navy, one "so swift, so warlike, stout and strong," as to be the admiration of Europe's most expert naval commanders, while America had dismissed from her service, as incompetent, the native-born Esek Hopkins, the first Commander-in-Chief of the Navy of the Colony. It is somewhat singular, therefore, that the foremost naval commanders of the Navy during the Revolutionary War were John Barry, of Ireland, and John Paul Jones, of Scotland—"foreigners," as John Adams spoke of both in 1813.