[1232] See note at the end of this chapter.
[1233] On the fisheries as a school for the navy of the Revolution, see Lorenzo Sabine's Report on the Fisheries of the U. S. (Washington, 1853), p. 198, and Babson's Gloucester. The histories of the maritime towns of Massachusetts touch this point, like Rich's Truro, Roads's Marblehead, E. V. Smith's Newburyport, etc.—Ed.
[1234] Cf. ante, ch. ii.
[1235] Adams's Familiar Letters, 186. The continued naval exploits of Seth Harding and Samuel Smedley, of the Connecticut armed vessels, are recorded in sundry letters in the Trumbull Papers (MSS.), vol. v., etc.—Ed.
[1236] Journals of Congress, i. 213.
[1237] Cf. Sparks's Washington, iii. 353; John Adams's Works, iii. 65. Bancroft, in his orig. ed., ix. 134, charges Hopkins with incompetency, but omits the accusation in his final revision, v. 50.—Ed.
[1238] Cf. United Service, xii. 411.
[1239] American Archives, ii. 1394.
[1240] There is a portrait of Biddle in the Pennsylvania Hist. Soc. gallery. Catal. of Paintings, no. 138.
[1241] The government of South Carolina gave him four war-vessels of their own, and early in 1778 he went out to meet the English blockading squadron of four vessels, hoping to find himself of superior force to them. He did not meet the squadron, but east of the Barbadoes, on the 7th of March, he did meet the "Yarmouth", sixty-four guns, and, apparently relying on the four small vessels he had with him, he bravely engaged her. But after an action of twenty minutes the "Randolph" blew up, nor was it until five days after that a part of her crew were picked up by the "Yarmouth" on a piece of the wreck. The other vessels of Biddle's squadron escaped.