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Title: The history of our Navy from its origin to the present day, 1775-
1897, vol. 1 (of 4)

Author: John Randolph Spears

Release date: October 5, 2023 [eBook #71794]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY
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1897, VOL. 1 (OF 4) ***

Transcriber’s Note
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New original cover art included with this eBook is granted
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THE HISTORY OF OUR NAVY

JOHN PAUL JONES.
From a mezzotint of the painting by Notté.

THE
HISTORY OF OUR NAVY
FROM ITS ORIGIN TO THE PRESENT DAY
1775–1897

BY

JOHN R. SPEARS
AUTHOR OF “THE PORT OF MISSING SHIPS,”
“THE GOLD DIGGINGS OF CAPE HORN,” ETC.

WITH MORE THAN FOUR HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS
MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOLUME I.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1897

COPYRIGHT, 1897, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
MANHATTAN PRESS
474 W. BROADWAY
NEW YORK

TO ALL WHO WOULD SEEK PEACE
AND PURSUE IT

PREFACE
This work is to tell the story of the American navy from the time when
the fathers of the nation first conceived the idea of sending warships to sea
“at the expense of the Continent” down to this year of our Lord 1897. It
seems to me that the memory of what the naval heroes of the nation have
done is worth preserving if only as a mark of gratitude—gratitude to the
men whose sole incentive was patriotism and whose only greed was for
honor. It seems worth while to tell anew the story of these men who had a
noble ambition. It may help to prevent their race becoming extinct. But if
that appeal does not secure the attention of the reader, let me say that self-
interest demands that he heed the lessons in the story of the navy.
Because naval officers and their friends are very properly jealous of
their rights in the matter of titles and rank, it is necessary to explain that
officers have very often held one rank on the naval list while entitled to a
higher one by courtesy. Farragut was a midshipman under Porter, and yet,
for a time, while in command of a captured ship, was by courtesy called
captain. Lieutenant Macdonough was entitled to the title of commodore
while in command on Lake Champlain. I have in nearly all instances used
the title which courtesy demanded, but, for reasons which I hope will be
apparent, the title of actual rank seemed proper at times.
To sum it all up, I am bound to say I have tried to tell the story
accurately, interestingly, and usefully. If there are errors, they are
unpardonable blunders; if the story lacks interest or usefulness, the fault is
entirely with the writer. Any story of the navy—even this one—should
rouse the enthusiasm of the patriot because of the stirring character of the
deeds that must be described; and I believe that when the reader has
considered it well, he will conclude, as I do, that because of the growth of
civilization and the spread of the pure doctrines of Christianity throughout
the world, and the progress in the arts of making guns and armor-plate in
the United States, we shall continue to pursue, for many years, our daily
vocations in peace.

J. R. S.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Chapter I. Origin of the American Navy 1
The Curious Chain of Events that Led to the Creation of a National Sea Power—The
Gaspé Captured by Men Armed with Paving-stones—Tea Destroyed in Boston—The
Battle of Lexington and the Attack of the Machias Haymakers on the Margaretta—
British Vengeance on Defenceless Portland and its Effect on the Continental Congress—
The “Colonial Navy” Distinguished from the Temporary Cruisers—The First Officers
and the First Ships of the American Navy—John Paul Jones and the First Naval Ensign
—The Significant “Don’t Tread on me”—Putting the First American Naval Ships in
Commission.

Chapter II. First Cruise of the Yankee Squadron 48
A Fairly Successful Raid on New Providence, but they Let a British Sloop-of-war Escape
—Character of the First Naval Commander-in-chief and of the Material with which he
had to Work—Esek Hopkins, and his Record as Commander of the Fleet—Crews
Untrained and Devoid of Esprit de Corps—Good Courage, but a Woeful Lack of other
Needed Qualities—Hopkins Dismissed for Disobedience of Orders.

Chapter III. Along Shore in 1776 63
Brilliant Deeds by the First Heroes of the American Navy—Why Nicholas Biddle Entered
Port with but Five of the Original Crew of the Andrea Doria—Richard Dale on the sleek
Lexington—The Racehorse Captured in an even Fight—Captain Lambert Wickes in the
Reprisal Beats off a Large Vessel—John Paul Jones in his Earlier Commands—A Smart
Race with the Frigate Solebay—Sixteen Prizes in Forty-seven Days in Cape Breton
Region—Poking Fun at the Frigate Milford—The Valuable Mellish—An Able Fighter
who Lacked Political Influence.

Chapter IV. He Saw “the Countenance of the Enemy” 84
The Story of Arnold’s Extraordinary Fight against Overwhelming Odds on Lake
Champlain—A Thousand Sailors, of whom Seven-tenths were Picked Men, Armed with
the Heaviest Guns, were Pitted under a Courageous Leader against 700 Yankees, chiefly
Haymakers, Poorly Armed and with Insufficient Ammunition—Savages with Scalping
Knives Aided the British—A Desperate Struggle at the End—The Best All-around
Fighter under Washington.

Chapter V. Under the Crags of the “Tight Little Isle” 112
The Saucy Yankee Cruisers in British Waters—When Franklin Sailed for France—Wickes
in the Reprisal on the Irish Coast—Narrow Escape from a Liner—A Plucky English
Lieutenant—Harsh Fate of the Americans in the British Prison—Starved by Act of
Parliament—Deeds of the Gallant Connyngham—Well-named Cruisers—A Surprise at a

Breakfast Table—Taking Prizes Daily—Why Forty French Ships Loaded in the Thames
—Insurance Rates never before Known.

Chapter VI. John Paul Jones and the Ranger 134
The First Ship that Carried the Stars and Stripes—Dash at a Convoy that Failed—When
the Dutch were Browbeaten—The Ranger Sent on a Cruise in English Waters—A Ship
Taken off Dublin—The Raid on Whitehaven—When one Brave Man Cowed more than
a Thousand—The Whole Truth about Lord Selkirk’s Silverware, with the Noble Lord’s
Expression of Gratitude when he Got it Back—How Captain Jones Missed the Drake at
First, but Got her Later on in a Fair and Well-fought Battle.

Chapter VII. The First Submarine Warship 157
It was Small and Ineffective, but it Contained the Germ of a Mighty Power that is as yet
Undeveloped—When Nicholas Biddle Died—He was a Man of the Spirit of an Ideal
American Naval Officer—Fought the Ship against Overwhelming Odds till Blown out
of the Water—The Loss of the Hancock—An American Captain Dismissed for a Good
Reason—Captain Rathburne at New Providence—Loss of the Virginia—Captain Barry’s
Notable Exploit—With Twenty-seven Men to Help him, he Captured a Schooner of Ten
Guns by Boarding from Small Boats in Broad Daylight, although the Schooner was
Manned by 116 Sailors and Soldiers.

Chapter VIII. Privateers of the Revolution 196
A Tale of the American Patriots who Went Afloat outside of the Regular Navy—Their Part
in Driving the British from Boston—Remarkable Work of the Lee—Truxton as a
Privateer—Daring Capt. John Foster Williams—When Capt. Daniel Waters, with the
Thorn of Sixteen Guns, Whipped Two Ships that Carried Thirty-four Guns between
them—Great was Joshua Barney—The Story of the most Famous State Cruisers of the
Revolution—Won against Greater Odds than were Encountered by any Successful Sea
Captain of the War—British Account of the Work of American Privateers—The Horrors
of the Jersey Prison Ship.

Chapter IX. John Paul Jones and the Bonhomme Richard 227
A Condemned Indiaman, Ill-shaped and Rotten, Fitted as a Man-o’-war—A Disheartening
Cruise with Incapable and Mutinous Associates—Attempt to Take Leith, and the Scotch
Parson’s Prayer—Meeting the Serapis—When John Paul Jones had “not yet Begun to
Fight”; when he had “Got her now”; when he would not “Surrender to a Drop of
Water”—Ready Wit of Richard Dale—Work of a Bright Marine—A Battle Won by
Sheer Pluck and Persistence.

Chapter X. After the Serapis Surrendered 260
Richard Dale too Bright for the British Lieutenant—A Fair Estimate of Captain Pearson of
the Serapis—The Treachery of Landais—Remarkable Escape from Texel—Honors for
the Victor—“The Fame of the Brave Outlives him; his Portion is Immortality.”

Chapter XI. The Year 1779 in American Waters 280
Lucky Raids of British Transports and Merchantmen—Disastrous Expedition to the
Penobscot—The Trumbull’s Good Fight with the Watt—The First Yankee Line-of-battle-
ship—When Nicholson, with a Wrecked Ship and Fifty Men, Fought for an Hour against

Two Frigates, each of which was Superior to the Yankee Ship—Captain Barry’s
Exasperating Predicament in a Calm—The Last Naval Battle of the Revolution.

Chapter XII. Building a New Navy 303
When England, in her Efforts to Wrest Commerce from the Americans, Incited the Pirates
of Africa to Activity, she Compelled the Building of the Fleet that was, in the End, to
Bring her Humility of which she had never Dreamed—Deeds of the Barbary Corsairs—
American Naval Policy as Laid down by Joshua Humphreys—The Wonderful New
Frigates—Troubles with the French Cruisers on the American Coasts—Trick of a
Yankee Captain to Save a Ship—A Midshipman who Died at his Post—Capture of the
Insurgent—A Long Watch over the French Prisoners—Escape of a Twice-beaten Ship—
The Valiant Senez—Story of Isaac Hull and the Lucky Enterprise.

Chapter XIII. War with Barbary Pirates 333
A Squadron under Richard Dale Sent to the Mediterranean—The Dey of Algiers became
Friendly, but the Bashaw of Tripoli Showed Fight—Fierce Battle between the Schooner
Enterprise and the Treacherous Crew of the Polacre Tripoli—Slaughter of the Pirates—
Tripoli Blockaded—Grounding and Loss of the Philadelphia.

Chapter XIV. Decatur and the Philadelphia 345
Story of the Brave Men who Disguised a Ketch as a Merchantman and Sailed into the
Harbor of Tripoli by Night, Drew up alongside the Captured Philadelphia, and then, to
the Order “Boarders Away!” Climbed over the Rail and through the Ports, and with
Cutlass and Pike Drove the Pirates into the Sea or to a Worse Fate—“The most Bold and
Daring Act of the Age.”

Chapter XV. Hand-to-hand with the Pirates 359
A Fight against Odds of Three Gunboats to One—Decatur and Macdonough Leading the
Boarders—Cold-blooded Murder and the Vengeance that Followed—When Reuben
James Won Fame—Eleven against Forty-three in a Hand-to-hand Struggle, and the
Remarkable Result—The Handy Constitution—Fired their Gun as the Boat Sank under
them—When Somers and his Mates Went to their Death in a Fireship—End of the War
with the Pirates.

Chapter XVI. Why We Fought in 1812 383
A Stirring Tale of the Outrages Perpetrated on American Citizens by the Press-gangs of the
British Navy—Horrors of Life on Ships where the Officers Found Pleasure in the Use of
the Cat—Doomed to Slavery for Life—Impressed from the Baltimore—A British
Seaman’s Joke and its Ghastly Result—The British Admiralty’s Way of Dealing with
Deliberate Murder in American Waters—Assault of the Leopard on the Chesapeake to
Compel American Seamen to Return to the Slavery they had Escaped—Building
Harbor-defence Boats to Protect American Seamen from Outrage on the High Seas—
Other Good Reasons for Going to War.

Appendix 415

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
John Paul Jones. (From a mezzotint of the painting by Notté),
Frontispiece
An Early American Floating Battery, 1
Commodore Esek Hopkins. (From a French engraving of the
portrait by Wilkinson), 3
The First Naval Flags, 4
Destruction of the Schooner Gaspé, 1772. (From an
engraving by Rogers of the painting by McNevin), 7
The State House at Newport, Showing the Gaspé Affair.
(From an engraving in Hinton’s “History of the United
States”), 10
The “Boston Tea-Party.” (From an old engraving), 13
A British Armed Sloop. (From a very rare engraving,
showing the first lighthouse erected in the United States—
on Little Brewster Island, Boston Harbor), 19
A Brig of War Lowering a Boat. (From a picture drawn and
engraved by Baugean), 29
The Admiralty Seal, 33
The Founders of the American Navy. (Drawn by I. W. Taber
—the portraits from engravings), 37
Vessel of War Saluting, with the Yards Manned. (From an
old French engraving), 40
Facsimile of a Letter from Abraham Whipple to General
Lincoln during the Siege of Charleston. (From the
original at the Lenox Library), 42
Nicholas Biddle. (From an engraving by Edwin), 45
A Frigate Chasing a Small Boat. (From an old French
engraving), 48

A Letter from Esek Hopkins. (From the original at the
Lenox Library), 50
A Corvette. (From an old French engraving), 52
Commodore Esek Hopkins. (From a very rare English
engraving), 55
An English “Seventy-four” and a Frigate Coming to
Anchor. (From an old engraving), 59
John Barry. (From an engraving of the portrait by Chappel), 65
Facsimile of Account between Dudley Saltonstall and
Elisha Hinman. (From the original at the Lenox Library), 67
St. Pierre, Martinique. (From an old engraving), 70
John Paul Jones. (From an engraving by Longacre of the
portrait by C. W. Peale), 75
Burlington Bay on Lake Champlain. (From an old
engraving in the collection of Mr. W. C. Crane), 83
Sir Guy Carleton. (From an engraving by A. H. Ritchie), 86
Gen. Benedict Arnold. (Drawn from life at Philadelphia by
Du Simitier), 88
The Royal Savage. (After an old painting), 90
The Battle of Lake Champlain, 92
Plan of the Action of October 12, 1776, 93
Map of the Fight on Lake Champlain, 1776, 94
The Fight on Lake Champlain, October 13, 1776. (From a
contemporary English engraving), 97
A View on Lake Champlain, Showing the Fight of 1776.
(From Hinton’s “History of the United States”), 101
Broadside Describing the Engagement on Lake Champlain.
(From a copy at the Lenox Library), 106–109
The Phœnix and the Rose Engaging the Fireships on the
Hudson River. (From a lithograph of the painting by
Serres after a sketch by Sir James Wallace), 115
John Bazeley. (From an engraving by Ridley of a miniature
by Langdon), 120
John Paul Jones’s Commission, 136

Map of the British Isles. (Showing Captain Jones’s two
voyages and the route of the Reprisal), 139
An English Caricature of John Paul Jones. (Published in
London, October 22, 1779), 143
“Paul Jones the Pirate.” (From an old engraving in the
collection of Mr. W. C. Crane), 149
Map of the American Coast, 161
Signatures of John Manly and Hector McNeil, 181
Facsimile of a Letter from Thomas Thompson to Captain
McNeil. (From the original at the Lenox Library), 183–4
A Typical Nassau Fort—Fort Fincastle. (From a
photograph by Rau), 187
An English Frigate of Forty Guns. (From an engraving by
Verico), 191
“A Proclamation.” (From the copy at the Lenox Library), 198
“An Ordinance Ascertaining what Captures on Water
shall be Lawful.” (From the copy at the Lenox Library), 202
Alexander Murray. (From an engraving by Edwin of the
painting by Wood), 208
Joshua Barney. (From an engraving by Gross after a
miniature by Isabey), 210
Fight of the Hyder Ali with the General Monk, 1782. (From
a painting by Crépin at the Naval Academy, Annapolis), 213
A Relic of Two Revolutionary Captains—Bill of Lading
for John Barry Signed by Joshua Barney. (From the
original at the Lenox Library), 216
“The Howes Asleep in Philadelphia”—A Caricature Drawn
forth by the Doings of Revolutionary Privateers, 219
The British Prison Ship Jersey. (From an old wood-cut), 221
A Permit to Visit One of the Prison Ships. (From the
original at the Lenox Library), 223
Map of the Wale Bogt and its Vicinity, 225
A Relic of the Prison Ships: Entrance to the Vault of the
Martyrs. (From an old wood-cut), 226

Richard Dale. (From an engraving by Dodson after the
portrait by Wood), 231
Pierre Landais. (From a copy, at the Lenox Library, of a
miniature), 236
Leith Pier and Harbor. (From an old engraving), 239
John Paul Jones. (From an engraving by Guttenberg, after a
drawing by Notté, in the collection of Mr. W. C. Crane), 242
The Engagement between the Bonhomme Richard and
Serapis. (From an engraving by Hamilton of a drawing by
Collier), 246
Diagram of the Serapis-Bonhomme Richard Battle, 249
The Serapis and the Bonhomme Richard. (From an engraving
by Lerpinière after a drawing by Fitler), 252
Paul Jones Capturing the Serapis. (From an engraving of the
picture by Chappel), 258
Capt. Sir Richard Pearson. (From an engraving by Cook), 261
John Paul Jones. (After a rare engraving), 263
Signature of Richard Dale. (From a letter at the Lenox
Library), 266
A Letter from Pierre Landais. (From the original at the
Lenox Library), 268
John Paul Jones. (From a miniature recently found [1897] in
a cellar at the Naval Academy), 269
John Paul Jones (in Cocked Hat). (From a very rare
engraving at the Navy Department, Washington), 271
John Paul Jones. (From an engraving by Chapman in the
collection of Mr. W. C. Crane), 273
John Paul Jones’s Medal, 276
John Paul Jones and the Serapis Fight. (From an engraving
in the collection of Mr. W. C. Crane), 278
A Letter from John Paul Jones to Thomas Jefferson. (From
the original at the Lenox Library), 279
Signature of Hoysted Hacker. (From a letter at the Lenox
Library), 283

Sir George Collier’s Victory in Penobscot Bay, 1779.
(From a very rare engraving at the Lenox Library), 285
Map of the Attack on the Penobscot Fort. (From a
contemporary map at the Lenox Library), 288–9
Signature of Samuel Nicholson. (From a letter at the Lenox
Library), 290
James Nicholson. (After a miniature in the possession of
Miss Josephine L. Stevens), 296
An Old Naval Order. (From the original at the Lenox
Library), 301
A Mediterranean Corsair Anchoring. (From a picture
drawn and engraved by Baugean), 306
John Barry’s Commission as Commander of the United
States. (From the original at the Naval Academy,
Annapolis), 313
A French Vessel of 118 Guns, a Century Ago. (From an
engraving by Canali), 318
Diagram of the Insurgent-Constellation Battle, 321
A French Vessel of 120 Guns. (From an engraving by Orio), 322
Medal Awarded to Thomas Truxton, 325
Portrait of Truxton and President Adams’s Letter to him.
(From a lithograph at the Naval Academy, Annapolis), 326
Truxton’s Medal and the Congressional Resolution
Awarding it to him, 327
The Sally Attacked by a Sea-Serpent off the Shore of
Long Island. (From a French engraving), 331
A French Cutter of 16 Guns. (From an engraving by
Merlo), 332
Benjamin Stoddert. (From a painting at the Navy
Department, Washington), 334
“Captain Sterrett in the Enterprise, Paying Tribute to
Tripoli.” (From an old wood-cut), 337
A Schooner-of-War, Like the Enterprise. (From a wood-cut
in the “Kedge Anchor”), 339
Map of the Mediterranean Sea, 340

William Bainbridge. (From an engraving by Edwin), 341
Stephen Decatur. (From an engraving by Osborn of the
portrait by White), 347
Burning of the Frigate Philadelphia by Decatur. (From an
old wood-cut), 352
The Blowing up of the Frigate Philadelphia. (From an
engraving in Waldo’s “Decatur”), 355
A Piece of the Philadelphia’s Stern. (From the original
piece at the Naval Institute, Annapolis), 358
Edward Preble. (From an engraving by Kelly of the picture
in Faneuil Hall, Boston), 360
Decatur Avenging the Murder of his Brother. (From an
engraving in Waldo’s “Decatur”), 363
Reuben James Saving Decatur’s Life. (From an engraving of
the picture by Chappel), 365
John Trippe. (After a French engraving), 367
The Battle of Tripoli, August 3, 1804. (From the painting
by Corné, 1805, at the Naval Academy, Annapolis), 369
Map of the Harbor of Tripoli, 372
The Explosion of the Intrepid. (From an old engraving), 375
Preble’s Medal, 379
“The Press-Gang Impressing a Young Waterman on his
Marriage Day.” (From an English engraving, illustrating
an old song), 386
Another View of the “Young Waterman” and the Press-
Gang. (From an English engraving), 388
A Flogging Scene. (“The Point of Honor.” A sailor about to
be flogged is saved by a comrade’s confession.) (From a
drawing by George Cruikshank), 391
The United States Frigate Essex. (From a lithograph at the
Naval Academy, Annapolis), 393
Capt. Henry Whitby, R. N. (From an engraving by Page), 405
Capt. Salusbury Pryce Humphreys, R. N. (From an English
engraving), 411
Taking Deserters from the Chesapeake, 413

An Early American Floating Battery.

THE HISTORY OF OUR NAVY

CHAPTER I

ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN NAVY
THE CURIOUS CHAIN OF EVENTS THAT LED TO THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL
SEA POWER—THE GASPÉ CAPTURED BY MEN ARMED WITH PAVING-STONES
—TEA DESTROYED IN BOSTON—THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON AND THE
ATTACK OF THE MACHIAS HAYMAKERS ON THE MARGARETTA—BRITISH
VENGEANCE ON DEFENCELESS PORTLAND AND ITS EFFECT ON THE
CONTINENTAL CONGRESS—THE “COLONIAL NAVY” DISTINGUISHED FROM
THE TEMPORARY CRUISERS—THE FIRST OFFICERS AND THE FIRST SHIPS OF
THE AMERICAN NAVY—JOHN PAUL JONES AND THE FIRST NAVAL ENSIGN—
THE SIGNIFICANT “DON’T TREAD ON ME”—PUTTING THE FIRST AMERICAN
NAVAL SHIPS IN COMMISSION.

Of all the dates in American history not yet so commemorated, there is
none so well worthy of recognition as a national holiday as the 22d of
December; for it was on December 22, 1775, that the American navy came
into existence. And there is no part of the story of the American nation of
more thrilling interest than that including the events which compelled the
establishment of this branch of the public service, nor is there any part of
the nation’s story as a whole that so stirs the patriotic pride of the American
people as that which tells of the deeds of the heroes whose names have been
inscribed upon the American naval registers.
It is a grateful task to recount once more how it was that an American
navy was demanded for the preservation of American liberties, and what
has been accomplished by that navy since the day when Commodore Esek
Hopkins received his commission, and then stood by on the deck of his
flagship while John Paul Jones flung to the breeze the broad folds of the
flag that bore as a symbol the picture of a rattlesnake coiled to strike, with
the significant and appropriate motto,
“DON’T TREAD ON ME.”

Commodore Esek Hopkins.
From a French engraving of the portrait by Wilkinson.

The salt-water Lexington, that is to say, the first fight afloat of the
Revolutionary war, occurred on the night of June 17, 1772, in the waters of
Rhode Island, and the fact that it was in Rhode Island will be recalled later
on. The war of Great Britain against France for dominion in America,
“though crowned with success, had engendered a progeny of discontents in
her colonies.” “Her policy toward them from the beginning had been purely
commercial.” And that is to say that the English, even in their dealings with
their own colonies, were animated solely by greed. The stamp act; the

levying of taxes on intercolonial commerce; the imposition of duties on
glass, pasteboard, painters’ colors, and tea, “to be collected on the arrival of
the articles in the colonies”; worse yet, the “empowering of naval officers to
enforce the acts of trade and navigation,” grew out of “the spirit of trade
which always aims to get the best of the bargain,” regardless of right.

The First Naval Flags.

It was through this empowering of naval officers to enforce the acts of
trade and navigation that the first sea-fight of the Revolution occurred. A
vessel of war—presumably a ship—had been stationed in the waters of
Rhode Island, with a schooner of 102 tons burden, called the Gaspé, armed
with six three-pounders, to serve as a tender. The Gaspé was under the
command of Lieut. William Duddingstone. Duddingstone was particularly
offensive in his treatment of the coasting vessels, every one of which was,
in his view, a smuggler. He had a crew of twenty-seven men.
On June 17, 1772, a Providence packet, named the Hannah and
commanded by Captain Linzee, came in sight of these two war-vessels
while she was on her regular passage from New York to Providence. As the
Hannah ranged up near the war-vessels she was ordered to heave to in order
that her papers might be examined, but Captain Linzee being favored by a
smart southerly wind that was rapidly carrying him out of range of the man-
of-war guns, held fast on his course.
At this the schooner Gaspé was ordered to follow and bring back the
offending sloop, and with all sail drawing, she obeyed the order. For a
matter of twenty-five miles that was as eager and as even a race as any

sailorman would care to see, but when that length of course had been sailed
over, the racers found themselves close up at the Providence bar. The
Yankee knew his ground as well as he knew the deck of his sloop, but the
captain of the Gaspé was unfamiliar with it. A few minutes later the shoal-
draft Hannah was crossing the bar at a point where she could barely scrape
over, and the deeper-draft Gaspé, in trying to follow at full speed, was
grounded hard and fast.
To make matters still worse for the Gaspé, the tide had just begun to
run ebb; not for many hours could her crew hope to float her.
Leaving the stranded schooner to heel with the falling tide, Captain
Linzee drove on with the wind to Providence, where he landed at the wharf
and spread the story of his trouble with the coast guard. Had it happened in
the days before the French war, or before the persistent efforts of the British
ministry to levy unjust taxes on the colonies had roused such intense
opposition in New England, this affair would have been considered as a
good joke on a revenue cutter, and that would have been the end of it so far
as the people of Providence were concerned.
Now, however, the matter was taken in a most serious light. As the sun
went down, the town drummer appeared on the streets, and with the long
roll and tattoo by which public meetings were called he gathered the men of
the town under a horse-shed that stood near one of the larger stores
overlooking the water. While yet the people were coming to the rendezvous,
a man disguised as an Indian appeared on the roof and invited all “stout
hearts” to meet him on the wharf at nine o’clock, disguised as he was.

Destruction of the Schooner Gaspé, 1772.
From an engraving by Rogers of the painting by McNevin.

As one may readily believe, nearly every man of Providence came to
the pier at the appointed hour. From this crowd sixty-four men were
selected. They chose as their commander, so tradition asserts, Abraham
Whipple, who, later on, became one of the first-made captains of the
American navy, and then all embarked in eight long-boats gathered from
the different vessels lying at the wharves, and pulled away for the Gaspé.
That was a most remarkable expedition in the matter of armament, for,
although there were a few firearms in the boats, the crews depended for the
most part on a liberal supply of round paving-stones that they carried for
weapons of offense.
It was at two o’clock in the morning when this galley-fleet arrived in
sight of the stranded Gaspé. The tide had turned by this time, and the
schooner had begun to right herself somewhat. A sentinel, pacing to and fro
with some difficulty, saw the approaching boats and hailed them. A shower
of paving-stones was the most effective if not the only reply he received,

and he tumbled down below precipitately. The rattle and crash of the
paving-stones on the deck routed the crew from their berths, and, running
hastily on deck, the captain of the Gaspé fired a pistol point-blank at his
assailants.
At that a single musket was fired from the boats, by whom will never
be told, and the captain dropped with a bullet in his thigh. Then the boats
closed about the stranded vessel and their crews swarmed over the rails.
The sailors of the Gaspé strove to resist the onslaught, but they were
quickly knocked down and secured.
As soon as this was done the schooner was effectually fired, and her
captors, with their prisoners, pulled away; but they remained within sight
until the early dawn appeared, when the schooner blew up, and the boats
were rowed hastily home with the tide.

The State House at Newport, Showing the Gaspé Affair.
From an engraving in Hinton’s History of the United States.

The indignation of the British officials over this assault on a naval
vessel was so great that a reward of £1,000 was offered for the leader of the

expedition, with £500 more and a free pardon to any one of the offenders
who would turn informer. But, “notwithstanding a Commission of Inquiry,
under the great seal of England, sat with that object, from January to June,
during the year 1773,” not enough evidence was obtained to warrant the
arrest of a single man.
Although it was not an affair of the sea, strictly speaking, it is worth
recalling here that within six months after this Commission of Inquiry had
failed to learn the names of the men, disguised as Indians, who had burned
the Gaspé, another party of men in another colony disguised themselves as
Indians, and helped amazingly in making the history of the times. It was on
the night of Friday, the 17th of December, 1773, as the reader will
remember. The ship Dartmouth, laden with tea, was lying at her wharf in
Boston. She had been lying there since the 28th of the preceding month, and
during all those days the people of Boston had labored unceasingly to get
her away to sea without discharging her cargo. It is even recorded that “the
urgency of the business in hand overcame the sabbatarian scruples of the
people,” and that in Boston! Meetings too great for “the Cradle of Liberty”
(Faneuil Hall) were adjourned to the Old South Meeting-House. The people
were “determined not to act (in offense) until the last legal method of relief
should have been tried and found wanting.” But at last, on the night of this
17th day of December, as the great throng of more than seven thousand
people waited in and about “the church that was dimly lighted with
candles,” a messenger arrived from the British Governor to say that the last
legal resource had failed. The Governor had refused to allow the ship to go.
And “then, amid profound stillness, Samuel Adams arose and said, quietly
but distinctly, ‘this meeting can do nothing more to save the country.’”
A war-whoop was heard a moment later without the church, and fifty
men, disguised as Indians, just as Captain Whipple’s men were when they
fired the Gaspé—disguised as Indians because Captain Whipple’s men had
successfully eluded the British detectives—these fifty citizens of Boston ran
away to the wharf where the Dartmouth lay.
One John Rowe had asked during the meeting earlier in the evening,
“Who knows how tea will mingle with salt water?” He had now his
opportunity to learn, for when the Indians reached the ship they quickly
brought her cargo on deck, and smashing open the chests with hatchets,

tumbled the tea over the rail, while a vast host stood by in the moonlight
and silently watched the work.
There was a significance in the silence of the work that might have
been, but was not, heeded by those in authority, for it portrayed the feelings
and the character of the men engaged in it, and foreshadowed the grim
determination of the people during the conflict that was fast coming on.

The “Boston Tea-Party.”
From an old engraving.

Then followed, as the reader will remember very well, the Boston Port
Bill closing that port. Then followed the bill by which any magistrate,
soldier, or revenue officer, accused of murder in Massachusetts, was to be
taken to England for trial—a bill justly stigmatized as an act to encourage
the soldiery in shooting down peaceful citizens. Then followed other acts
equally or still more unjust and tyrannous that need not be mentioned here,
the indignation of the colonists growing deeper as their distress under the
oppression increased, until war was inevitable. And on the 19th of April,
1775, when the profane Pitcairn discharged his “elegant pistol” at the
minute-men of the veteran Capt. John Parker on the village green in
Lexington, war came.
Now, it was because of the stir caused by the story of this battle at
Lexington that the second sea-fight of the Revolution occurred.

The reader must keep steadily in mind that not only were churches
lighted by candles in those days, but mails were carried up and down the
country by stage coaches and on horseback and by the oft-times slower
water route—in sloops and schooners. The fight at Lexington occurred on
April 19th, but the news of it did not reach Machias, Maine, until Saturday,
the 9th of the following month. On that day word was brought by sea to
Machias, telling how the British troops had fired on the minute-men, whose
present offense was that they had refused to obey when Pitcairn had
shouted, “Disperse, ye villains! Damn you, why don’t you disperse?” How
some had been killed and others wounded by this first onslaught; how the
minute-men had at first retreated and then gathered anew for the attack;
how the British were first brought to a stand and then started in a retreat so
swift that when at last they were rescued by fresh troops from Boston they
fell to the ground with “their tongues hanging out of their mouths like those
of dogs after a chase”—when all this was related in Machias, Maine, it
stirred the men of the town to do a stroke against the oppressive ministry on
their own account.
There was at this time in the port of Machias an armed schooner called
the Margaretta, Captain Moore, in the service of the crown, with two
unarmed sloops in convoy which were loading with lumber, according to
the American account, for the British in Boston, but an English account
speaks of the schooner as “a mast ship,” i.e., a vessel loading with logs
suitable for the masts of a warship. As the reader will remember, the grants
of land from the crown in those days, always retained for the use of the
crown all trees suitable for masts of ships that might be found on the land.
On hearing of the fight at Lexington the bolder spirits of the town,
considering that affair as the beginning of war, determined to capture the
king’s schooner Margaretta. Their first plan turned on the fact that the day
after the news arrived was Sunday. The news was kept secret among those
who laid the plan, and Captain Moore came ashore to attend church on
Sundays as usual. Then these men started to capture him at the church, but
their haste and excitement alarmed Captain Moore, and he jumped through
the church window and fled to the beach, where he was protected by his
schooner’s guns.
On reaching his schooner, Captain Moore fired several shots over the
town to intimidate the people; but not liking the looks of things on shore

after the firing, he got up his anchor and dropped down-stream for a league,
where he came to anchor foolishly under a high bank. The townspeople
who had followed him, quickly took places on this bank, and a man named
Foster called on him to surrender, but Captain Moore got his anchor again
and ran out into the bay, apparently unmolested by those who had
summoned him to surrender.
It looked as if the proposed capture would not be made. But on Monday
morning (May 11, 1775) two of the young men of the town, Joseph
Wheaton and Dennis O’Brien, met on the wharf, when Wheaton proposed
taking possession of one of the lumber sloops, raising a crew of volunteers
and going after the Margaretta. Peter Calbreth and a man named Kraft
happened along and agreed to join in, and the four went on board the sloop
and took possession.
Three rousing cheers were given over the success of their effort, and
that brought a crowd to the wharf—among the rest, Jeremiah O’Brien, “an
athletic gallant man,” to whom, as to a village leader, Wheaton explained
the project.
“My boys, we can do it,” said Jeremiah with enthusiasm, and at that
every one in the throng skurried off for arms.
The equipment which they brought together for that cruise is worth
describing in detail. They had twenty guns, of which one is described as a
“wall-piece.” It was a musket too heavy to hold offhand when fired; it
needed a wall, so to speak, to support its weight when it was aimed. For all
these guns they had but sixty bullets and sixty charges of powder—three
loads for each weapon. In addition they carried thirteen pitchforks and
twelve axes (a formidable weapon in the hands of a Maine man). For food
they carried a few pieces of pork, a part of a bag of bread, and a barrel of
water.
Out of a throng of volunteers thirty-five of the most athletic were
selected to go, and, this done, they hoisted sail and boldly headed away
before a northwest breeze to capture the Margaretta.
It should be noted here that these sloops were single-masted vessels, as
was the one in the Providence affair. They were in form and rig very much
like the one-masted vessels employed at the time of this writing (1897) in

carrying brick from the yards on the Hudson River to New York City, but
they were not nearly as large as the brick-carriers, though they probably
stood as high out of water, if not higher. A “sloop of war” was a very
different vessel, as will appear further on.
Captain Moore saw the sloop coming from afar, and realized that the
crowd upon her deck meant trouble for him. So, being still anxious to avoid
a conflict (just why he was anxious does not appear), he up anchor and once
more ran away. But luck was against him—perhaps his frustrated state of
mind brought him ill-luck. At any rate, although the wind was in the
northwest and he was bound south, he got up his mainsail with the boom to
starboard, and soon found himself obliged to jibe it over to port. With a
fresh breeze that was a task needing care, and yet, when he came to swing
the boom across, he let it go on the run, and it brought up against the
backstays with such a shock that it was broken short off in the wake of the
rigging.

A British Armed Sloop
From a very rare engraving, showing the first lighthouse erected in the United States—on Little
Brewster Island, Boston Harbor.

Rendered desperate by this accident, Captain Moore now turned to a
merchant schooner that he saw at anchor not far away, and bringing to
alongside of her, he robbed her of her boom to replace his own and again
headed for the open sea, and then, to still further aid his flight, cut adrift
every one of his boats.
But it was all in vain, for the sloop was much the swifter vessel, and
Captain Moore was at last compelled to fight.
The Margaretta was armed with four six-pounders and twenty swivels
—short and thick guns firing a one-pound ball, and mounted on swivels
placed on the vessel’s rail. It was an armament that should have been more
than sufficient to repel the Machias men armed with pitchforks and axes.
Moreover, the crew of the Margaretta outnumbered that of the sloop. But
there was a difference in the character of the two crews—a difference for
which abundant cause will be shown further on—and the issue of the
contest was never for a moment in doubt after the haymakers had gone
afloat.
The first discharge of guns on the schooner killed one man on the
sloop. A man of the name of Knight on the sloop returned the fire, using the
wall-piece. He was probably from the backwoods and a moose hunter, for
he was bright enough and skilful enough to pick off the man at the
schooner’s helm. And that shot drove everybody off the schooner’s quarter-
deck, so she was left, as a sailor might say, to take charge of herself.
Then the schooner broached to, the sloop crashed into her, and the men
from Machias, with swinging axes and poised pitchforks, climbed over her
rail.
It is said for Captain Moore that at this point he fought gallantly,
throwing hand-grenades “with considerable effect,” but he was quickly shot
to death, and then his crew surrendered.
In all, twenty men were killed and wounded in this fight, showing that
it was a desperate conflict when once the two crews got within range of
each other, man to man, for twenty was more than one-fourth of all engaged
in it. The crew of the Margaretta numbered forty, all told.
On the Margaretta the captors found two wall-pieces, forty cutlasses,
forty boarding axes, two boxes of hand-grenades, forty muskets, and twenty

pistols, with an ample supply of powder and shot.
When one with a full knowledge of the naval tar’s contempt for “a
haymaker’s mate” recalls the story of this Machias fight, he cannot help
thinking that some of the crew of the Margaretta must have suffered as
much in mind as they did from their wounds after being impaled on the
two-pronged pikes—the pitchforks of these Yankee haymakers.
Not only was the fight between the Margaretta’s crew and the
haymakers interesting in itself; it was followed by consequences of the most
important nature in connection with the establishment of the American
navy.
The commander of the haymakers, elected in good American fashion
after they were afloat, was Jeremiah O’Brien. Having secured the
Margaretta and his prisoners, Captain O’Brien shifted the cannon and
swivels, with the ammunition and small arms, from the captured schooner
over to his fleeter sloop, and set forth in search of more prizes and glory.
Straightway the efforts of the British naval authorities to punish him for his
assault on the Margaretta gave him the opportunity to acquire both. Two
schooners, the Diligence and the Tapanagouche, were sent from Halifax to
bring the obstreperous Irish-Yankee in for trial. But Captain O’Brien was a
sailorman as well as a haymaker. By skilfully handling his sloop he
separated the cruisers, and then captured them one at a time by the bold
dash that had succeeded in the assault on the Margaretta. This done,
Captain O’Brien, with his prizes, sailed into Watertown, Massachusetts,
where the provincial legislature was sitting, and delivered up everything to
the colonial authorities.
Such brave deeds as these did not go unrewarded in those days. Captain
O’Brien received a commission from the colony, and, with the three vessels
well refitted, he was sent once more to sea to cruise for vessels bringing
supplies to the British troops.
As said, not only was this an interesting fight, but it was one with far-
reaching consequences. The deeds of Captain O’Brien, followed by others
of a like nature performed by men who were stirred by his example, so
exasperated Admiral Graves, the British commander-in-chief on the coast,
that he sent a squadron of four vessels under Captain Mowat to take
revenge in such a manner as would fill, as he supposed, the hearts of the

people of the whole coast with terror. Portland (then called Falmouth),
Maine, was the port selected for destruction.
The British account of what was done after Captain Mowat’s fleet
arrived before the town, shall be given for a reason that will appear further
on in this history. The “Annual Register” for 1776 (Dodsley’s, London), in
its “Retrospective view of American affairs in the year 1775,” says (page
34):
“About 9 o’clock in the morning, a canonade was begun, and continued
with little intermission through the day. About 3,000 shots besides bombs
and carcases, were thrown into the town, and the sailors landed to compleat
the destruction, but were repulsed with the loss of a few men. The principal
part of the town, (which lay next the water) consisting of about 130
dwelling houses, 278 stores and warehouses, with a large new church, a
new handsome courthouse, with the public library, were reduced to ashes;
about 100 of the worst houses being favored by the situation and distance,
escaped destruction, though not without damage.”
In Allen’s “Battles of the British Navy,” the “new edition revised and
enlarged” and published by George Bell & Sons, London, in 1893 (note that
it was published in 1893), we get a modern British view of this important
assault. On page 227 it says:
“Lieutenant Mowat’s instructions were tempered with moderation. He
was directed to confine his operations to certain enumerated towns which
had rendered themselves conspicuous by open acts of hostility.”
The town was destroyed on the 16th day of October, and in Maine.
Under instructions that, to an Englishman’s mind, tempered with
moderation, “a thousand unoffending, men women and children were thus
turned out of doors” just as the fierce Maine winter was coming down upon
them.
It should be told here that among the children who were thus obliged to
seek shelter in brush and bark huts was a lad of fourteen years, named
Edward Preble, of whom something will be told further on.
Meantime the Congress of the thirteen United Colonies had been in
session at Philadelphia, resolving itself into a committee of the whole, from
day to day, to consider “the state of trade in the colonies.” Patriots by the

thousand had answered the cries of distress at Lexington by gathering with
their muskets about Boston. The battle of Bunker Hill, the most glorious
defeat recorded in the annals of American warfare, had been fought and
lost, because the supplies of gunpowder, brought by the colonists in the old-
fashioned cowhorns, had failed them. Of missiles there was apparently no
lack—they would have used pebbles from the beach had no others been
available and powder abundant. But the want of gunpowder became
chronic, and in considering the state of trade in the colonies the Congress
found that of all branches of that trade the one needing their most careful
attention was the trade in gunpowder. It was a trade that did not thrive under
the circumstances; but there was one source of supply that did not escape
the attention of such able-minded as well as able-bodied citizens as Capt.
Jeremiah O’Brien and his ilk afloat. That source was in the supply ships that
provided for the British forces, and in the smaller cruisers that waited on the
great ships of the British fleet. The sailormen of the coast pointed to the
supplies afloat, and the legislators adopted the views of the sailormen.
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut provided small cruisers on
their own account and sent them out seeking the enemy’s supply ships,
which, because the rebellious colonies had theretofore no sort of a navy,
came to Boston and other ports in the king’s possession, unarmed and
without convoy. The far-sighted Washington, who had been placed in
command of the heterogeneous forces about Boston, took hold of this
matter and brought it to the attention of the Congress. In the mind of
Washington it was an expedient well worth trying, but apparently he
regarded it only as a temporary expedient. For during the summer and early
fall of 1775, when the need of gunpowder became and remained most
urgent, the colonies were fighting only for their rights as British subjects, as
the reader remembers, and not for national independence. A few long-
headed leaders undoubtedly saw the drift of current events, but with every
address to the throne there was sent a protestation of loyalty.
The earliest reference to this temporary expedient for getting
gunpowder which is found in the printed reports of the doings of the
Congress is in the minutes for Thursday, October 5, 1775. It was then
resolved to inform General Washington that the Congress had “received
certain intelligence of the sailing of two north country built brigs, of no
force, from England on the 11th of August last, loaded with arms, powder
and other stores for Quebec without convoy, which it being of importance

to intercept,” Washington was requested to “apply to the Council of
Massachusetts-Bay for the two armed vessels in their service,” and send
them “at the expense of the continent” after the brigs. Moreover, he was
informed that “the Rhode Island and Connecticut vessels of force will be
sent directly to their assistance.” Further still, it was resolved that “the
general be directed to employ the said vessels and others, if he judge
necessary.” That was a very important set of resolutions in connection with
the history of the navy. And the same may be said of the resolutions of
Friday, October 13th, when it was provided that “a swift vessel to carry ten
carriage guns and a proportionable number of swivels, with eighty men, be
fitted out with all possible despatch for a cruise of three months,” and,
further, “that another vessel be fitted out for the same purposes.” Deane,
Langdon, and Gadsden were chosen as a committee of the Congress to look
after the fitting out of the vessels. Further than that, on Monday, October
30, 1775, it was resolved that the second vessel previously ordered should
“carry fourteen guns and a proportionate number of swivels and men,”
while two other ships, “one to carry not exceeding twenty guns and the
other not exceeding thirty-six guns,” were to be chartered for the same
purpose—to cruise “eastward” to intercept the British store-ships.

A Brig of War Lowering a Boat.
From a picture drawn and engraved by Baugean.

How under the resolutions of October 5th Captain Manly of the
schooner Lee was sent “eastward”; how he captured a large brigantine

loaded with munitions of war; how, in consequence of this capture, “a long,
lumbering train of wagons, laden with ordnance and military stores, and
decorated with flags, came wheeling into camp”—Washington’s camp—the
next day after a host of Connecticut troops had deserted the cause, and “it
was feared their example would be contagious”; how “such universal joy
ran through the whole camp as if each one grasped victory in his own
hands,”—all are parts of a story that may not be wholly omitted here; but
the resolutions of the Congress did not provide, properly speaking, for an
American navy. They only provided temporary means for obtaining
supplies. The Congress was not yet ready to take the important step of
establishing a navy as a branch of the public service.
But the thought of a colonial navy was abroad—it was even then
officially before the Congress, although it had not been acted upon.
Officially, the subject of establishing a colonial navy came from Rhode
Island, where Capt. Abraham Whipple and his paving-stones had conquered
the schooner Gaspé. On August 26, 1775, the two houses of the Rhode
Island legislature concurred in ordering their representatives in the
Congress to propose the establishment of a navy “at the expense of the
continent.” So cautious were the members of the Congress in handling the
matter that, when, on October 3d, one of the Rhode Island delegates—
presumably Samuel Ward, who was their leader—called the attention of the
Congress to the proposal of his legislature, they did not even mention the
matter definitely in the minutes of the day. The minutes read: “One of the
delegates for Rhode Island laid before the Congress a part of the
instructions given them,” etc. “The proposal met great opposition,” and
even the briefest consideration of the matter had to go over to a later day.
“In the Congress at Philadelphia, so long as there remained the dimmest
hope of favor to its petition, the lukewarm patriots had the advantage.”
But a time was coming when they were to change their feelings in this
matter radically and in a day. They had ordered the forces afloat and ashore
“carefully to refrain from acts of violence which could be construed as open
rebellion,” but before the end of the year they had taken such a long step
toward the Declaration of Independence that to turn back was impossible.
It was on October 31st that the change of sentiment was wrought. One
cannot help wishing that what a newspaper man in these days would call “a
crackerjack reporter” might have been present to describe the stir in the

Congress when, on that day, one messenger arrived to announce that the
British king had succeeded in hiring 20,000 of “the finest troops in
Europe”—Germans—to fight against the colonists, while a second
messenger followed with the story of the desperate plight of the people of
Falmouth, who had been driven from their homes to face a Maine winter by
the assault of the infamous Mowat. But if we lack the picture we have the
record of what was done in consequence of the news then received.
Though stirred as never before since they had come together, the
members of the Congress moved with judicial moderation, and it was not
until Saturday, November 25th, that they resolved to make an aggressive
fight at sea. On this day they adopted a preamble that eloquently told how
“orders have been issued ... under colour of which said orders the
commanders of his majesty’s said ships have already burned and destroyed
the flourishing and populous town of Falmouth, and have fired upon and
much injured several other towns within the United Colonies, and dispersed
at a late season of the year, hundreds of women and children, with a savage
hope that those may perish under the approaching rigours of the season who
may chance to escape destruction from fire and sword.” And then they
resolved that all armed British vessels, and all “transport vessels in the same
service,” “to whomsoever belonging,” with their cargoes, that might fall
into the hands of the colonists, “shall be confiscated.” Further than that,
commissions not only for the captains of the colonial cruisers, but for the
commanders of privateers as well, were ordered to be issued under proper
regulations. The colonies were recommended to “erect courts of justice” to
dispose of the prizes to be so captured, and a scheme for distributing prize
money to the crews of both cruisers and privateers was approved.

The Admiralty Seal.

Three days later—on November 28, 1775—the minutes contain the
first adopted “Rules for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies,”
and that was the first occasion on which the term navy of the United
Colonies appears in the minutes of the proceedings.
Very curious and well worth the study of any one interested in history
are those first rules adopted for the American navy—a navy not yet actually
in existence. But for the present purpose it is necessary to note only the
thoughtfulness of the Congress for the comfort of the members of the crews
—especially the comfort of the men before the mast. A remarkably large
space in the printed report of these regulations relates to the feeding of the
men, and if to this space be added that devoted to the regulations for the
care of the sick and wounded, together with what was ordered for the
preservation of the property rights of the sailors, then more than one-half of
all that was decided upon was in the interest of the men in the forecastle.
The bearing of this policy on the future of the American navy will appear
further on, but it may be said here that it was not for nothing that grave
legislators were concerned to provide that “a proportion of canvas for
pudding-bags, after the rate of one ell for every sixteen men,” should be
served out at proper intervals.
Thereafter the making of a navy went on more rapidly. Within a week
word came that Lord Dunmore, with a fleet in the Chesapeake Bay, was
aiding the Tories there to engage in trade with the West Indies, contrary to
the colonial regulations, and, worse yet, was stirring up a race war. In
consequence of this the Congress resolved, on December 5th, that all the

vessels engaged in the trade established by Dunmore, with their cargoes,
should be seized when possible and held “until the further order of this
Congress.” And that is a matter of importance, because it was the first
warrant of the Congress permitting the capture of merchant ships of the
enemy when engaged in another traffic than the carrying of supplies to the
enemy’s military or naval stations.
Next (on December 11th) the Congress ordered that “a committee be
appointed to devise ways and means for furnishing these colonies with a
naval armament.” The alacrity with which that committee acted was
something phenomenal, for in two days they brought in their report, “which
being read and debated,” was adopted. They had determined to build “five
ships of 32 guns, five of 28 guns, three of 24 guns, making in the whole
thirteen.” These were to be constructed, one in New Hampshire, two in
Massachusetts, one in Connecticut, two in Rhode Island, two in New York,
four in Pennsylvania, and one in Maryland. They were expected to go afloat
“by the last of March next,” and the cost was not to be “more than 66,666⅔
dollars each, on an average, allowing two complete suits of sails for each
ship.” So far as the committee could see, there would be but one difficulty
in the way of sending all these ships to sea well found for the service, and
that was in the lack of canvas and gunpowder. They would need 7,500
pieces of canvas for the sails and 100 tons of powder for the magazines, and
there was not any of either in the market.
In the meantime the marine committee appointed under the resolution
of October 13th to fit out two vessels to “cruise eastward” after the king’s
transports, had been increased in number, and in December consisted of
Silas Deane, Christopher Gadsden, John Langdon, Stephen Hopkins, Joseph
Hewes, and Richard Henry Lee. John Adams, who was an enthusiastic
supporter of the project to create a navy from the moment it was discussed,
had been at first a member of this committee, but because of other duties he
left it, and Gadsden took the place. The names of these men are well worth
remembering, for they were the originators of the American navy. While the
Congress was preparing to build the navy these men had labored faithfully,
and with success, to provide one ready made out of the ships that could be
purchased along the coast.

Christopher Gadsden. John Langdon. Richard Henry Lee.
Stephen Hopkins. Joseph Hewes. Silas
Dean.
The Founders of the American Navy.

Vessel of War Saluting, with the Yards Manned.
From an old French engraving.

The Congress had, on November 2d, placed $100,000 at their disposal.
With this they went about buying ships and supplies for them. A London
packet called the Black Prince came into port under command of that
Captain John Barry who, later on, was a captain in the American navy. She
was of good scantling, and was considered a vessel worthy of becoming the
flagship of the new fleet. The committee purchased her, and, after renaming
her the Alfred, after Alfred the Great, they mounted twenty nine-pounders
on deck, with four (it is said) smaller guns—presumably four-pounders—on
the forecastle and poop. Another merchant ship, called the Sally, was
purchased and renamed Columbus, for the great explorer, after which she
received eighteen or twenty (authorities vary) nine-pounders. She is said to
have been crank (top-heavy) and of small value. Two brigs were purchased
and renamed the Andrea Doria, for the famous Genoese sailor, and the
Cabot, for the early explorer of North America. These are set down as
carrying fourteen four-pounders each. A third brig was purchased in
Providence and named for that town, because, according to John Adams,

that town was “the residence of Governor Hopkins and his brother Esek,
whom we appointed the first Captain.” She carried twelve guns—sixes or
fours. In addition to these, the committee obtained a sloop of ten guns,
called the Hornet, and an eight-gun schooner named the Wasp. These were
purchased and equipped in Baltimore, and then brought around to
Philadelphia. The Fly, an eight-gun schooner, completed the list.
While the committee were gathering this fleet at Philadelphia, the
Congress showed its appreciation of the work in hand by voting that the
crews should be engaged to serve until January 1, 1777—practically for one
year. They further voted $500,000 of the continental currency to the use of
the naval committee.
Then, on Tuesday, December 19th, the Congress still further showed
their appreciation of the situation of affairs by resolving “that the
Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania be requested to supply the armed
vessels, which are nearly ready to sail, with four tons of gunpowder at the
continental expense”; and, further, “that the said committee be requested to
procure and lend the said vessels as many stands of small arms as they can
spare, not exceeding 400.”

Facsimile of a Letter from Abraham Whipple to
General Lincoln during the Siege of Charleston.
From the original at the Lenox Library.

The Pennsylvania people had already agreed to furnish these
necessaries; the resolutions of the Congress were only in the nature of
vouchers, and, twenty-four hours later, the first American fleet was found
and fitted for service. Only the crews for the ships were needed, and these
the committee had provided ready for the occasion, so all that was then
required to man the ships was for the Congress to confirm the appointment
of the officers. And this was done on the memorable date, Friday, December
22, 1775. The resolutions of the Congress shall be given in full, because it

was upon this legal warrant that the American navy was founded. They
were as follows:
“The committee appointed to fit out armed vessels, laid before congress
a list of the officers by them appointed agreeable to the powers to them
given by Congress, viz:
Esek Hopkins, esq. comander in chief of the fleet—
Dudley Saltonstall, Captain of the Alfred.
Abraham Whipple, Captain of the Columbus.
Nicholas Biddle, Captain of the Andrea Doria.
John Burrow Hopkins, Captain of the Cabot.
First lieutenants, John Paul Jones, Rhodes Arnold, —— Stansbury,
Hoysted Hacker, Jonathan Pitcher.
Second Lieutenants, Benjamin Seabury, Joseph Olney, Elisha Warner,
Thomas Weaver, —— McDougall.
Third Lieutenants, John Fanning, Ezekiel Burroughs, Daniel Vaughn.
Resolved, That the Pay of the Comander in-chief of the fleet be 125
dollars per calender month.
Resolved, That commissions be granted to the above officers agreeable
to their rank in the above appointment.
Resolved, That the committee for fitting out armed vessels, issue
warrants to all officers employed in the fleet under the rank of third
lieutenants.
Resolved, That the said committee be directed (as a secret committee)
to give such instructions to the commander of the fleet, touching the
operations of the ships under his command, as shall appear to the said
committee most conducive to the defence of the United Colonies, and to the
distress of the enemy’s naval forces and vessels bringing supplys to their
fleets and armies, and lay such instructions before the Congress when called
for.”
The thirteen United Colonies had at last a naval fleet, armed, equipped,
and manned, and legally authorized to sail away on the secret expedition the

committee had planned. But before Commodore Hopkins might up anchor
and spread his canvas to the breeze there was one ceremony to be
performed which, though not mentioned in any colonial law, was (and it
still is) considered of the utmost importance. He must “put his ships in
commission”—must “pipe all hands on deck,” and then “hoist in their
appropriate places the national colors and the pennant of the commanding
officer,” after which he must address the crew and “read to them the order
by virtue of which he assumes command.”
That is a most impressive ceremony, and it was now to be performed
for the first time in the American naval fleet.
Important—even thrilling as was the occasion, there is no known
record by which the date on which this ceremony was performed may be
definitely located. But it is unquestioned that the naval committee of the
Congress had, on this December 22d, secured the crews as well as the ships
for a fleet, and that the crews were then on board awaiting the coming of
properly authorized officers. There is, therefore, no reason to doubt that as
soon as the Congress had passed the resolutions above quoted, and the
commissions therein mentioned had been signed, the commodore and his
officers immediately went on board to take formal possession.

Captain Nicholas Biddle.
From an engraving by Edwin.

But whatever the date, it is recorded that it was on a beautiful winter
day when the commodore and his officers made their way to the foot of
Walnut Street, Philadelphia, where a ship’s long-boat awaited them. A great
throng of patriots gathered along shore on the arrival of the officers, and the
shipping along the whole river front was not only decorated with bunting,
but decks and rails and rigging were occupied by enthusiastic spectators.
Pushing off and rowing away through the floating ice, Commodore
Hopkins reached the ladder at the side of the Alfred, and, followed by all his
officers, mounted to the deck. The shrill whistle of the boatswain called the
crew well aft in the waist of the ship. The officers gathered in a group on

the quarterdeck. A quartermaster made fast to the mizzen signal halliards a
great yellow silk flag bearing the picture of a pine tree with a coiled
rattlesnake at its roots, and the impressive motto “Don’t Tread on Me.” This
accomplished, he turned toward the master of the ship, Capt. Dudley
Saltonstall, and saluted.
And then, at a gesture from the captain, the executive officer of the
ship, the immortal John Paul Jones, eagerly grasped the flag halliards, and
while officers and seamen uncovered their heads, and the spectators cheered
and cannon roared, he spread to the breeze the first American naval ensign.
The grand union flag of the colonies, a flag of thirteen stripes, alternate
red and white, with the British jack in the field, and the pennant of the
commander-in-chief, were then set, and the resolutions of the Congress
read. The first American naval fleet was in commission.

A Frigate Chasing a Small Boat.
From an old French engraving.

CHAPTER II

FIRST CRUISE OF THE YANKEE
SQUADRON
A FAIRLY SUCCESSFUL RAID ON NEW PROVIDENCE, BUT THEY LET A BRITISH
SLOOP-OF-WAR ESCAPE—CHARACTER OF THE FIRST NAVAL COMMANDER-
IN-CHIEF AND OF THE MATERIAL WITH WHICH HE HAD TO WORK—ESEK
HOPKINS, A LANDSMAN, SET TO DO A SAILOR’S WORK—CREWS UNTRAINED
AND DEVOID OF “ESPRIT DE CORPS”—GOOD COURAGE, BUT A WOEFUL
LACK OF OTHER NEEDED QUALITIES—HOPKINS DISMISSED FOR
DISOBEDIENCE OF ORDERS.

The career of Commodore Esek Hopkins as commander-in-chief of the
American navy lasted for a year and ten days. If it was not a glorious career
it was at least an instructive one, and the candid student is likely to
conclude that, under the circumstances, it was creditable to his reputation.
He was badly handicapped from the beginning in a variety of ways, but in
spite of this he accomplished something.
As already noted, Commodore Hopkins received his appointment
chiefly through the influence of John Adams, and because he was the
brother of the capable Governor of Rhode Island. The student of American
history should keep in mind that the colonists were still monarchists in
1775, and that they followed the monarchial system of appointing favorites
to office. That is to say, the man who had the most influence, who had what
politicians call a “pull,” got the appointment, regardless, usually, of his
fitness for the place. Commodore Hopkins had been a brigadier-general in
the Rhode Island militia by appointment of his brother. He had served in
various capacities at sea, but it is likely that training had made him a soldier
rather than a sailor, and no greater mistake can be made by executive
authority than to appoint a soldier to do a sailorman’s work.

Further than this, the vessels under the command of Hopkins were all
built for carrying cargoes and not for fighting—they were not as swift or as
handy as fighting ships of the same size. Worse yet, they were manned by
crews brought together for the first time—men who were not only
unacquainted with each other, and therefore devoid of esprit de corps, but
who were unaccustomed, for the most part, to the discipline necessary on a
man-of-war and untrained in the use of great guns. When compared with
the crews of the British warships they were more inferior in these two
respects than were the raw militia around Boston when compared with the
British regulars. The raw militia could at least shoot well.

A Letter from Esek Hopkins.
From the original at the Lenox Library.

With these facts in mind it is worth while comparing the American
ships with the British naval forces on the coast. As said, Commodore
Hopkins had eight vessels, of which two only were ships, and the others
were brigs or smaller, and all were lubberly merchantmen. All told, this

squadron mounted just 114 guns, of which the largest was a cannon that
could throw a round cast-iron ball weighing nine pounds. Even of these
there were less than fifty. And the powder to load them and the muskets
with which the seamen had been armed were all borrowed from the
commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Yet this puny squadron, “poor and contemptible, being for the greater
part no better than whale boats,” as a British authority truly says, was to go
to sea to make war—against what force does the reader suppose? A navy of
112 ships, carrying 3,714 guns, of which force no less than seventy-eight
ships, carrying 2,078 guns, were either already on the American coast or
under orders to go there.

A Corvette.
From an old French engraving.

Nor does a comparison of the number of guns—114 against 2,078—
give an idea of the utter inefficiency of the American sea power; for, while
the best of the American guns was but a nine-pounder, at least a fourth of
the guns on the British ships—at least 500 of them—were eighteen-
pounders or heavier. For every nine-pounder in the American ships there
were at least ten of double that size in the British, not to mention the 1,500

and more guns in the fleet that included six-pounders, nine-pounders, and
twelve-pounders. “Poor and contemptible” were just the words for
describing the comparative merits of the American warships. And in the
matter of experience and training the American crews were but little better
than their ships and guns. As will appear further on, there were to be fights
between British ships manned by experienced, thoroughly disciplined crews
of full numbers against Yankee ships that were manned for the greater part
by seasick landsmen, and short-handed at that.
The secret orders that had been given to Commodore Hopkins
commanded him to go in search of Lord Dunmore, who had been making
so much trouble along the shores of Chesapeake Bay as to cause
Washington to write that “if this man is not crushed before spring he will
become the most formidable enemy America has.” The ships were to gather
at Cape Henlopen, and sail thence for the Chesapeake. But the Delaware
River was full of ice, and it was not until February 17, 1776, that the
squadron finally passed out to sea. Then, on the night of the 19th, while
running along with a fresh breeze, the Hornet and the Fly became separated
from the others, and did not again join the squadron.
It appears from the meagre record that Hopkins did not enter the
Chesapeake at all. Instead of that he sailed away to the Bahama Islands,
because he had learned that a large quantity of military supplies were stored
at New Providence, with only a few men to guard them. He was determined
to capture the supplies.
On reaching Abaco, Hopkins divided his forces by sending 300 men
under Capt. Samuel Nichols, in ten small sloops found at Abaco, to capture
New Providence. Hopkins supposed the force would surprise the garrison,
but the commander was found ready to repel an attack, and the Providence
and the Wasp had to be sent over to assist the men in landing.
It was at this point that a branch of the American naval personnel, of
which too little notice has been taken by historians, first made a record for
gallantry. Captain Nichols was the first captain of marines in the American
naval service, the organization of the marine corps having been ordered by
the Congress on November 10, 1775.
Under cover of the guns of the Providence and the Wasp, Captain
Nichols and his marines landed on the beach, and then “behaved with a

spirit and steadiness that have distinguished the corps from that hour down
to the present moment.” They carried the forts by assault. “A hundred
cannon and a large quantity of stores fell into the hands of the Americans,”
but because the Governor had been apprised of the coming of the
Americans, he succeeded in sending away in a small coaster 150 barrels of
powder.
It is worth noting that Commodore Hopkins not only loaded his vessels
with these stores, but that the stores made a heavy cargo for them, and they
were deep in the water when they turned toward home. It should be further
noted that the Governor of the island “and several of the more prominent
inhabitants” were carried away for use as hostages to compel the British
authorities to modify the harsh treatment American prisoners were
receiving.

Commodore Esek Hopkins.
From a very rare English engraving.

New Providence was taken in the middle of March, 1776. Elated by the
success of his expedition, Commodore Hopkins set sail for the north on the
17th of that month. How much more elated he and his crews would have
felt could they have known that at four o’clock on that morning the British
were hurriedly, and in great confusion, leaving Boston through fear of an
assault by the troops of Washington, may be easily imagined.
Two weeks later the American fleet had arrived off the east end of Long
Island, where, on April 4th, the tender Hawke, of six guns, and the bomb-
brig Bolton, of twelve guns, were captured. And then followed a conflict
that well-nigh ruined the reputation of the first American fleet commander.
It began soon after midnight on the morning of April 6th.
With a gentle breeze, the fleet, well scattered out—too well, in fact—
was washing along over the smooth sea between Block Island and the
Rhode Island shore. Only those who have floated and dreamed in the soft
light of a warm night on these waters can fully appreciate the influences of
sea and air over a sailor on such an occasion, but it was, last of all, a night
for thoughts of bloodshed. Suddenly a large strange ship appeared in the
midst of the fleet. From the way the narrative reads one is forced to the
conclusion that the lookouts were all at least half asleep. The stranger was
heading for the flagship Alfred, but before she could close in, the crew of
the little brig Cabot, Capt. John Burrows Hopkins, woke up, and, ranging
alongside, they hailed her.
For a reply the stranger fired a broadside, and so began the first naval
battle of the first American squadron.
The brave captain of the Cabot returned the fire, in spite of the great
superiority of the stranger, and still bravely stood to his duty, even after a
second broadside from the stranger had partly disabled his brig, killed a
number of his crew, and wounded himself.
The Alfred, the flagship, soon came ranging up beside the stranger and
opened fire, whereat the stranger turned his attention to her; and then came
the Providence, Captain Hazard, who secured a position on the lee quarter
(they were all close hauled) of the enemy, where she opened an effective
fire.

By this time the Cabot was drifting out of range, but the Andrea Doria
came up to take her place. For an hour thereafter the stranger maintained
the unequal contest, while the fleet drifted along over the smooth sea. At
one time a shot from the stranger cut away the tiller ropes of the Yankee
flagship, leaving her to broach to where she could not use her own guns. At
that the stranger raked her fore and aft with a number of broadsides. But
when repairs had been made the Alfred closed in once more, and then, at
about two o’clock in the morning, the stranger found it too hot, and, putting
up his helm, he squared away for Newport and safety.
Commodore Hopkins pursued the stranger until after daylight. The
course lay along the Rhode Island coast, and the people of the region,
awakened by the roar of the guns, came hurrying to the cliffs to look away
over the smooth water, where one ship, badly cut up aloft, was still able to
keep ahead of the fleet that followed, and fired at frequent intervals upon
the pursued.
But the ships of the American fleet were cargo-carriers deeply loaded
with the spoils of New Providence, and the stranger was a man-o’-war well
formed and fitted for the sea. So the chase ended when it was found that the
stranger steadily gained, and the distance from Newport was growing so
short as to warrant the belief that the cannonading would call out the British
fleet then lying there. So the Yankee fleet “hauled its wind,” captured a
small tender that had been in company with the stranger, and then made
port at New London.

An English “Seventy-Four” and a Frigate Coming
to Anchor.
From an old engraving.

When there Commodore Hopkins learned that the stranger he had
encountered was the British sloop-of-war Glasgow, Capt. Tyringham Howe,
a full-rigged ship (three masts), carrying twenty guns, and a crew of 150, all
told. She had lost one man killed and three wounded, while the American
loss had been in all twenty-four killed and wounded, of whom the little brig
Cabot lost four killed and seven wounded.
Nothing more is needed to show the superiority of the British naval
crews over the American, at this time, than the above statement of
casualties. How that superiority was overcome at the last will appear later
on; but if all British warships in the contests that followed this one had been
handled as Captain Howe handled the Glasgow the story of the American
navy would not have appealed to patriotic American pride as it now does.
As for the effect of this fight upon the American people it should be
said they were at first elated because it was told that the American fleet had
driven off an enemy of superior strength. But when the real facts became
known their elation was turned to anger that was really as little founded in
reason as their joy had been. Commodore Hopkins and his men had shown
unquestioned bravery. Considering their lack of knowledge and experience,
they had done well enough. They had captured and brought into port

military supplies that were badly needed and could be obtained only by
capture from the enemy. Unfortunately, the Americans overlooked this, and
thought only of the escape of the valiant Glasgow.
The career of the first American squadron, as a squadron, practically
came to an end when it arrived at New London, although it did afterwards
sail thence as a squadron around to Narragansett Bay after the British left
Newport. What remains to be told of the career of Commodore Hopkins
will occupy brief space. In the month of June the Congress investigated his
case. His good friend John Adams defended him successfully. It was
decided that he had exceeded his orders in going east of Long Island, for he
had been directed to “annoy the enemy’s ships upon the coast of the
Southern States,” but he was merely relieved of his command temporarily.
On October 16th his case was considered once more, and a vote of censure
was carried. On October 19th he was directed to take “command of the fleet
formerly put under his care,” but he was very dilatory in getting ready for
sea, and so he was once more summoned before Congress. This summons
he refused to obey, and on January 2, 1777, he was dismissed from the
service.
According to Lieut. F. S. Bassett, U. S. N., Hopkins, after the war of the
Revolution, “resided near Providence, R. I., and was several times a
member of the General Assembly for that State, and died there on February
26, 1802, aged eighty-four years. He was, when made commander-in-chief,
fifty-seven years old, and, Bancroft says, old and incompetent. His portraits
show him to be a man of vigor, and he was influential in the political affairs
of his own State. His bravery was never called into question, but he was
doubtless not a good seaman, and was incompetent to command the navy.”
His title of commander-in-chief was intended to rank him with
Washington, the commander-in-chief of the army. The title was never again
conferred on an American naval man.

CHAPTER III

ALONG SHORE IN 1776
BRILLIANT DEEDS BY THE FIRST HEROES OF THE AMERICAN NAVY—WHY
NICHOLAS BIDDLE ENTERED PORT WITH BUT FIVE OF THE ORIGINAL CREW
OF THE ANDREA DORIA—RICHARD DALE ON THE SLEEK LEXINGTON—THE
RACEHORSE CAPTURED IN AN EVEN FIGHT—CAPTAIN LAMBERT WICKES IN
THE REPRISAL BEATS OFF A LARGER VESSEL—JOHN PAUL JONES IN HIS
EARLIER COMMANDS—A SMART RACE WITH THE FRIGATE SOLEBAY—
SIXTEEN PRIZES IN FORTY-SEVEN DAYS IN CAPE BRETON REGION—POKING
FUN AT THE FRIGATE MILFORD—THE VALUABLE MELLISH—AN ABLE
FIGHTER WHO LACKED POLITICAL INFLUENCE.

A more cheerful story of the feats of Yankee sailormen is found on
turning to the record made by individual vessels during the period when
Commodore Hopkins was at the head of the navy list. For instance, there
was the brig Lexington (of significant name), under the command of Capt.
John Barry, who had brought the Alfred, when she was the merchant ship
Black Prince, into Philadelphia and sold her to the Congress. While
Commodore Hopkins was in New London explaining how the British ship
Glasgow had escaped, Captain Barry was cruising off the Virginia capes;
and on April 17, 1776, fell in with a tender called the Edward, armed with
six or eight guns and carrying a crew of thirty-five men under command of
Lieutenant Boucher. The lack of skill of the Americans at this time and the
bravery of the English are both conclusively shown by the fact that the
Edward held out for an hour, although the Lexington carried sixteen guns
and twice as many men as the tender.
May 10, 1776, should be a memorable one in the history of the navy,
for on that day John Paul Jones first received an independent command. He
was placed in charge of the Providence and sent to carry troops to New

York. What he subsequently accomplished with his little twelve-gun brig
will be told further on.
On May 16th the Andrea Doria, Capt. Nicholas Biddle, was ordered to
sea. For four months she cruised between the capes of the Delaware and the
coast of Maine, and during that time she captured ten prizes, all but one of
which reached port safely. Two of these transports had 400 British troops on
board. The British frigate Cerebus recaptured one of these transports, and
the prisoners managed to retake the other, but they were again captured and
taken in. When Captain Biddle at last brought his little brig into port he had
but five of his original crew on board. The others had all been sent away in
prizes and their places supplied by volunteers from the vessels captured.

John Barry
From an engraving of the portrait by Chappel.

As will appear further on, Nicholas Biddle was one of the most heroic
men known to the American naval register. He was one who knew his duty,
and no odds of force against him deterred him in doing it.
The next of the squadron to get to sea was the brig Cabot, of fourteen
guns. She sailed under Capt. Elisha Hinman the latter part of May, and was
gone until October 5th. She sent in seven prizes during this time.
Even the crank old Columbus made a successful cruise. Under the
command of Capt. Abraham Whipple, whose paving-stones had captured
the Gaspé, she took four prizes while at sea between May and August.
Meantime the schooner Wasp, under Capt. Charles Alexander, took the
British bark Betsey on May 9th, while in October, under Lieutenant
Baldwin, she captured three more prizes.

Facsimile of Account between Dudley Saltonstall and Elisha Hinman.
From the original at the Lenox Library.

A notable event of the year was the adventure of the Lexington under
Capt. William Hallock. She was returning from the West Indies loaded with
powder and other military stores, when she was captured by the British

frigate Pearl. There was such a high sea running at the time that the captain
of the Pearl decided, after taking four or five men out of the Lexington, not
to transfer the rest of her crew to his own ship. So he placed her in charge of
a prize crew, with orders to follow the Pearl.
As night came on, the gale increased and the sea became more
boisterous. The prize officers, thinking no danger was to be apprehended
from the prisoners under such circumstances, slacked up in their vigilance,
and eventually both the prize captain and the officer of the deck went below
for a comforting toddy. At that the watchful Yankees knocked the British
sailor from the tiller and the guards to the deck, secured the companionway
against the exit of the officers, and, putting up the helm, headed away for
Baltimore, where they arrived safely.
A leading spirit in this recapture was Master’s Mate Richard Dale, who
afterwards, as the executive officer of the Bonhomme Richard, under John
Paul Jones, won lasting honor.
Another stirring event of this year was the fight between the Yankee
brig Andrea Doria and the British brig Racehorse. It was the more stirring
for the reason that the Racehorse had been sent out expressly to capture the
Yankee, and it was a fair and even match, ship for ship.
The Andrea Doria was under command of Capt. Isaiah Robinson.
Captain Robinson, in the sloop Sachem, had, on July 6th, two days after the
colonies had declared their independence of Great Britain, captured a
British vessel of six guns and brought her into port. For his success in this
he was transferred to the brig Andrea Doria, and sent to the Dutch port of
St. Eustatius to get arms and ammunition for the American army. It is worth
mentioning, perhaps, that he received a salute from the governor of the port
(the first salute the flag ever received from a foreign power), although the
governor was afterward removed from office at the request of the British,
for firing it. Having taken in his cargo, Captain Robinson steered for home,
but off the western end of Porto Rico fell in with the Racehorse, and during
the next two hours the sun-lit tropical seas were the scene of what was
probably the first even sea contest of the Revolution. It ended in the
surrender of the Racehorse after her captain, Lieutenant Jones, had been
mortally wounded. The Andrea Doria lost four killed and eight wounded.
The loss on the Racehorse was “considerably greater.”

Captain Robinson brought both vessels safely into the Delaware, but
there the career of the little Andrea Doria came to an end, for, before she
could get to sea again, she had to be burned to prevent her falling into the
hands of the enemy, who captured Philadelphia about that time.

St. Pierre, Martinique.
From an old engraving.

Another West India fight was still more to the glory of the young
American navy, even though the enemy was not captured. The American
brig Reprisal sailed for Martinique early in the summer of 1776, and on the
way captured and sent home a number of prizes. But when just outside of
the port to which she was bound she fell in with the British sloop-of-war
Shark, of sixteen guns. Not only was the Shark the larger vessel; the
Reprisal, because of the number of prizes sent home, was short-handed.
Nevertheless, when the Shark ranged up alongside of the Yankee and
opened fire the Yankee fought back. The firing of the great guns brought the
people of the port by hundreds to the heights overlooking the sea. And it
was a spectacle well worth their coming, too, for the vigor of the Yankee
defence compelled the Shark to haul off for repairs.
The Reprisal, during this cruise, was commanded by Capt. Lambert
Wickes. As will appear further on, it was he who first flaunted the American
flag in British waters and took British ships within sight of the British
coasts.

The Shark afterward came into port and demanded of the authorities
that the Reprisal be surrendered as a pirate. Of course the authorities (they
were Frenchmen) refused.
How valuable all the prizes that have been mentioned were to the
struggling colonists cannot be told here, but the reader will remember that
at this time the American forces were wholly dependent on foreign sources
for both powder and great guns. The Congress had, indeed, taken steps to
manufacture muskets of “three-quarters of an inch bore, and of good
substance at the breech, the barrel to be three feet eight inches long, the
bayonet to be 18 inches in the blade.” But there was no factory for making
these weapons, and the individual gunsmiths employed could do very little
toward supplying an army. There was, in short, no sort of military supplies
that was not lacking among the American forces and no sort that these
captures of the Yankee naval vessels did not to a greater or less extent
supply.
And what was of equal importance to the American success was the
injury done to the enemy. During the year 1776 the Yankees captured 342
vessels, all told, “of which forty-two were recaptured, eighteen released,
and five burned.”
But the story of the fortunes of the navy during the first year of its
existence is not yet completed. The early adventures of John Paul Jones are
yet to be told.
It is to the credit of Commodore Hopkins that at the end of the cruise of
his fleet he appreciated and admired the first lieutenant of the service. As
already told, he ordered Lieutenant Jones to the command of the twelve-gun
brig Providence on May 10, 1776. Having no blank commissions,
Commodore Hopkins wrote the new commission on the back of the old one
that Jones had received as a lieutenant from the Congress.
For a time the Providence was used for carrying troops and convoying
merchantmen along shore, and so successful was her new captain in eluding
the vigilant cruisers of the enemy that he attracted the notice of Congress,
and was promoted to the rank of captain, of which act he received notice on
August 8, 1776.

With the notice that he had been promoted came orders to cruise for
prizes “between Boston and the Delaware.” Captain Jones was now
fighting, not for the commercial privileges of oppressed colonists, but for a
new nation struggling for recognition. There is no doubt that since July 4,
1776, he had performed his duty with a better heart than before that date,
because there was greater honor in helping to establish a nation than in
seeking justice for a colony, and with men of his class honor is all of life. In
his eager search for the enemy after his promotion, Captain Jones stretched
the territory that had been assigned to him so that he reached the
neighborhood of the Bermudas.
Here on September 1, 1776, the lookout discovered a fleet of five ships
well to windward. Jones believed that they were merchantmen, and began
beating up to the largest of the fleet, but on getting closer she was found to
be a frigate—the Solebay, of twenty-eight guns. At that Jones put his brig
on the other tack, and for nearly four hours kept beyond range, though the
frigate steadily gained upon him, and was at the last within less than a
hundred yards, and a little on the brig’s lee quarter. The frigate had
meantime been firing at intervals with her bow guns, though without effect.
But now the time had come when she could yaw around, and with a
single broadside cut the little brig to pieces. Any man would have been
justified in surrendering at once to save life, and only a man of
extraordinary bravery and resources would have thought of doing
otherwise. But Jones was the man for the occasion.
Fortunately, the weather was precisely to his liking—the sea was level,
and yet there was a fresh breeze to fill the sails rap-full.
Easing his vessel away from the wind a little to give her more headway
and bring her more directly under the bows of the frigate, where she would
be in less danger of a broadside, Captain Jones, in a low voice, passed the
word to stand by to square away before the wind and set studdingsails high
and low on both sides. Very quickly, but without attracting attention, the
crew led out the weather-braces and the spanker-brails, and placed the coils
of the lee-braces ready for veering away. The studdingsails in stops were
brought to the rails, and halliards and sheets made fast. This done, a man
with a lighted match was placed at each of the cannon on the lee side, while
a quartermaster bent the grand union flag to the signal halliards.

John Paul Jones.
From an engraving by Longacre of the portrait by C. W. Peale.

The critical moment of the day was come, and with thrilling nerves the
crew leaped to obey the orders that followed in swift succession. The helm
was put hard up, and as the spanker was brailed in to the mast, the
quartermaster hoisted the colonies’ flag to the truck. The little brig turned
like a yacht square down across the frigate’s bows, and the men at the guns
fired what was at once a salute to their flag and a raking blast to the frigate.

And then, out of the white cloud of smoke rolling away over her rails, rose
the filmy studding-sails to catch the helpful gale.
So sure had the crew of the Solebay been of their prize that the sudden
dash and attack from the brig threw them into a confusion from which they
did not recover until the Providence was beyond the reach of the grapeshot
with which most of their guns were loaded. Moreover, the Providence now
had the heels of it, and drew steadily away. The Solebay fired over 100
round shot, all told, but not one took effect.
Captain Jones now headed his brig off to the coast of Nova Scotia,
where he hove to, one day, to give his men a change in diet by catching
codfish. While engaged in this very pleasant occupation the British frigate
Milford came down on him, and the Providence again had to run. But Jones
soon found that he could easily outsail the Milford, so to play with the
enemy he shortened sail and allowed her to gain. Like a fat hound on the
trail, she began to bark—to fire when a long way off, and with no more
damage to the Providence than a dog’s bark would have been.
“He excited my contempt so much by his continual firing at more than
twice the proper distance that when he rounded to to give a broadside, I
ordered my marine officer to return the salute with only a single musket,”
said Captain Jones in his report of the affair to the marine committee of the
Congress.
The next day Captain Jones sailed into Canso Harbor. It should be kept
in mind at this point that the Congress had, on March 23, 1776, resolved
“that the inhabitants of these colonies be permitted to fit out armed vessels
to cruise on the enemies of these United Colonies”—the restriction that
made prizes of the enemy’s men-of-war and transports only was entirely
removed. The Congress had been driven to this step, of course, by the many
outrages committed on the colonial coast by the British cruisers. Acting
under this authority, and remembering these outrages, Captain Jones found
in Canso three English schooners. He burned one, sunk another, and loaded
a third with the cargoes of the other two.
Next day he took small boats well armed and his flagship, and went
after nine dismantled British vessels—ships, brigs, and schooners—lying at
Madame Island, on the east side of the Bay of Canso. Finding the crews of
these vessels on shore, Captain Jones promised to leave them enough of

their fleet to take them home if they would help him fit the rest for sea.
They agreed to this, and on September 26, 1776, Captain Jones got away
with three large and deeply laden prizes. The ship Adventure he burned in
the harbor.
After a cruise of forty-seven days, all told, he was again in Newport
Harbor, having meantime captured sixteen prizes, besides destroying “many
small vessels” and giving the people of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton a
taste of the fear that had been felt on the Yankee coast. But he did not
destroy the homes of those people as the homes of Portland, Maine, had
been destroyed.
Meantime Captain Jones had learned, while on the Cape Breton coast,
that a hundred American prisoners were kept at work as convicts in the coal
mines there, and on reaching his home port he proposed an expedition to
liberate the prisoners and capture the coal fleet which was appointed to sail
from Cape Breton to New York (then in the hands of the British).
Commodore Hopkins, who was still at the head of the navy, approved the
plan, and put Captain Jones in command of the flagship Alfred, and ordered
the Providence, Capt. Hoysted Hacker, to go with him.
On November 2, 1776, these two vessels got under way, and on the
night of the 3d passed safely through the British squadron off Block Island.
The cruise was without incident until off the east coast of Cape Breton,
where, on November 13th, they fell in with, and after a brisk action
captured, two British vessels, of which one was the brig Mellish, of ten
guns and carrying 150 men. On boarding her she was found to be loaded
down with supplies for Sir Guy Carleton, who had, during the summer and
early fall, been moving heaven and earth to build a fleet on Lake Champlain
to sweep away the little American squadron there and so open the trail that
led to Albany, the head of navigation on the Hudson. Sir Guy had already
been driven back by the surpassing bravery and ability of Benedict Arnold,
as will be told further on, and because of this defeat (it was practically a
defeat) he was still more in need of the supplies than he would have been if
successful in his plans.
Among other goods of the greatest value, the cargo of the Mellish
included 10,000 complete uniforms.

On the same day a large fishing vessel was captured, from which
sufficient provisions were taken to replenish the American stores, that were
already growing scanty.
The next day, during a violent northwest gale, the Providence was
separated from the flagship, and she sailed away for Newport; but Captain
Jones held fast to his original purpose.
Entering Canso once more, he burned an English transport and a
warehouse filled with oil and whalers’ supplies. Continuing his voyage
along the coast, he fell in with the coal fleet. It was under the protection of a
British frigate, but the air was “dull,” as the people of that coast say—it was
a foggy day, and Captain Jones captured three of the largest of the fleet.
Two days later he fell in with a British privateer from Liverpool, out for
a cruise after merchant ships belonging to the Americans. His hope of prize
money was soon dispelled by the guns of Captain Jones, and his ship was
added to the Yankee fleet. As she was pretty well armed, she was manned
with Yankees under Lieutenant Saunders.
Finding now that the harbors adjacent to the coal mines were blocked
with ice; finding, moreover, that, with the addition of 150 prisoners to the
number of men on board, he was short of both food and water, Captain
Jones felt obliged to steer for home instead of trying to rescue the
Americans in the coal mines.
The little fleet kept well together until off the Georges Bank, when, late
in the afternoon, the British frigate Milford, that had chased the Providence
in the last voyage, was discovered. Knowing the speed of the Milford,
Captain Jones at once laid his plan for escape. His own ship, the Alfred,
could outsail the frigate, but the prizes could not. The frigate was sure to
overtake them, though not until after dark. So the captain of each of the
prizes was instructed to hold fast on the course on which they were then
sailing all night, regardless of any signals they might see from the flagship,
and then, when day should come, to make the best course possible to port.
When this order was fully understood Captain Jones waited calmly for
the early nightfall of the season. The Milford was steadily gaining, but the
Alfred, with shortened sail, remained with the prizes as if to protect them.
But when night was fully come the Alfred, with signals aloft for her prizes

to follow, went off on the other tack, and the Milford promptly followed,
while the prizes, except the privateer under Lieutenant Saunders, kept on as
before.
So, when daylight came, all of the prizes but the privateer were out of
sight. The privateer was, therefore, retaken. During the afternoon a
snowstorm came up. The Milford was still in chase of the Alfred, but the
Yankee, “amid clouds and darkness and foaming surges, made her escape.”
The Alfred arrived safely in Boston on December 15, 1776, but she had
water and provisions for only two days left. When there her crew had the
satisfaction of learning that all the other prizes had arrived in safety.
The importance of the Mellish as a prize was far greater, of course, than
her mere money value, because of the uniforms she carried. These were at
once forwarded to Washington’s men at Trenton. So great, indeed, had been
the value of this transport, that Captain Jones had determined to sink her if
at any time he deemed her in great danger of recapture by the enemy,
because her loss would “distress the enemy more than can be easily
imagined.” The service which John Paul Jones had rendered the colonies
during the fall of 1776 was greater than that of any other man who had been
afloat.
Nevertheless, on reaching port, instead of finding rewards and
promotions awaiting him, “he was mortified by degradation and injustice.”
Commodore Hopkins, though about to be dismissed from the service, was
still commander-in-chief of the navy. Jealous of the growing fame of John
Paul Jones, he placed Captain Hinman in command of the Alfred and
ordered Jones back to the little brig Providence. Nor was that the worst of
the trouble that Captain Jones had to face. The politicians in Congress had
kept the distribution of rank in their own hands—they had, in fact, declared
on April 17, 1776, that rank should not be regulated by the date of original
appointments, but at the discretion of the Congress. So it was that the men
in the navy who had influence in Congress could get promotion regardless
of the quality of their services, while men without influence had to suffer.
While John Paul Jones was on the high seas gathering supplies for the
American army the Congress made out a new list of naval captains, and
Jones, who had been the first of the lieutenants after a list of five captains,
found himself the eighteenth in the new list of captains, although none of

those ahead of him had rendered more distinguished services than he or
showed greater ability as a commander, and but three or four at most had
done as well. And John Paul Jones always wrote the word rank with a
capital R.

CHAPTER IV

HE SAW “THE COUNTENANCE OF THE
ENEMY”
THE STORY OF ARNOLD’S EXTRAORDINARY FIGHT AGAINST OVERWHELMING
ODDS ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN—A THOUSAND SAILORS, OF WHOM SEVEN-
TENTHS WERE PICKED MEN, ARMED WITH THE HEAVIEST GUNS, WERE
PITTED UNDER A COURAGEOUS LEADER AGAINST 700 YANKEES, CHIEFLY
HAYMAKERS, POORLY ARMED AND WITH INSUFFICIENT AMMUNITION—
SAVAGES WITH SCALPING KNIVES AIDED THE BRITISH—A DESPERATE
STRUGGLE AT THE END—THE BEST ALL-AROUND FIGHTER UNDER
WASHINGTON.

If the naval Lexington—the first battle of the Revolution afloat—was
fought on the bar at Providence, Rhode Island, the naval Bunker Hill, a
battle wherein glory and renown were gained in defeat, was fought on Lake
Champlain. Not only was the moral effect of this battle quite as great in the
courage it gave the Americans, and the pause for thought it gave the enemy;
it served to head off a victorious invading British army bound for Albany
and the subjugation of northern New York.

Burlington Bay on Lake Champlain.
From an old engraving in the collection of Mr. W. C. Crane.

The American troops had invaded Canada, some under Benedict Arnold
going through the Maine woods, and some under Montgomery going by
way of Lake Champlain. The two bodies had united under the walls of
Quebec, and there Montgomery had died and Arnold had bled in vain. The
terrors of the fierce Canadian winter and the distress of disease had aided
the British forces in driving the Americans back, until at last, in the fall of
1776, Sir Guy Carleton, at the head of the British, was lodged at St. John’s,
at the north end of Lake Champlain, while Crown Point was the advance
post of the Americans.
It will be remembered that at this time the waves of this beautiful lake
lapped the unbroken wilderness, no matter what the direction of the wind
might be. St. John’s, Crown Point, and Ticonderoga were but military posts,
and there was not even a woodsy road for wagons on either side of the lake
north of Crown Point.
Sir Guy Carleton was confident in the belief that the revolted colonies
would soon be subjugated, and he was full of ambition to have a part of the

glory that would cover the British officers in their hour of triumph. His plan
was to pass Lakes Champlain and George with the ample forces at his
command, and then slash his way through the wilderness to Albany. Once
there, the king’s ships could come to meet him, the American territory
would be cut in two at the Hudson, and then the end would come.
There was, indeed, when he arrived at the north end of Lake
Champlain, but one reason why he did not press on in this victorious career.
He could not pass over the lake for want of boats. The Americans, in their
retreat, had carried off or destroyed every boat on the lake.

Sir Guy Carleton.
From an engraving by A. H. Ritchie.

But Sir Guy Carleton was a man of energy as well as ambition. At his
request three ships were sent over from England in such shape that they
might be taken to pieces on reaching the outlet of Lake Champlain. This
done, the parts were transported over the wilderness road to St. John’s, and

there set up and launched in the lake. Meantime a British naval officer had
been busy in superintending the building of a fleet of smaller vessels at St.
John’s—a fleet on which not only the sailors from the king’s ships at
Montreal worked, but the soldiers of the army; and even the farmers from
the Canadian settlements were forced to turn to. Carleton himself was ever
present to force on the work.
Fortunately, the task he had set was a long as well as a hard one. With
all the men and means at his command, he could not get ready to sail until
well on into the month of October. But when he was ready his was a fleet fit
to terrify as well as astonish the farmers that, for the most part, composed
the American forces, then under command of General Gates, at Ticonderoga
and Crown Point. The Inflexible, that carried the flag of the fleet, was a ship
of 300 tons, and carried eighteen twelve-pounders. There was one schooner
called the Maria, with fourteen guns, and another, the Carleton, of twelve
guns. There was a huge scow very appropriately call the Thunderer, for she
was armed with six twenty-four-pounders and twelve six-pounders, besides
several brass howitzers. There was a gondola of seven guns. There were
twenty gunboats with one carriage gun each, the guns varying in size from
nine to twenty-four-pounders. In all, the British flotilla included twenty-five
vessels, that were armed with eighty-nine first-class guns of that day, and
abundantly supplied with ammunition.

General Arnold.
Drawn from Life at Philadelphia by Du Simitier.

To Benedict Arnold was given the task of preparing a flotilla to stop the
invasion of Sir Guy Carleton. Benedict Arnold was an army officer and in
command, under Gates, of militia who were, as said, for the most part
farmers. But Arnold was a man of infinite resource, energy, and courage.

Some shipwrights and sailmakers were brought from the American coast,
and with such materials as were at hand he set to work to build a navy for
the defence of the lake. He had, fortunately, seen service at sea, and the task
was not wholly beyond his experience.
When the month of October arrived Arnold was afloat with a fleet of
fifteen vessels—the twelve-gun schooner Royal Savage, the ten-gun sloop
Enterprise, the eight-gun schooner Revenge, the eight-gun galley Trumbull,
the eight-gun galley Congress, the eight-gun galley Washington, the six-gun
galley Lee, the five-gun gondola Spitfire, the five-gun gondola Connecticut,
the three-gun gondola New Haven, the three-gun gondola Providence, the
three-gun gondola Philadelphia, the three-gun gondola Jersey, the three-
gun gondola New York, and the three-gun gondola Boston.
Two or three of the names of the vessels built for the impending strife
may be worth noting. The British named one of their medium-sized vessels
the Loyal Convert. Arnold named the largest of his the Royal Savage.
Carleton named another for himself, but Arnold, less vain, went to the
leaders of the American army and to the towns of the nation for the names
of his ships.

The Royal Savage.
On the whole, the American fleet mounted eighty-eight guns to the
eighty-nine of the British fleet, but they were inferior in weight of metal
thrown, the largest being eighteen-pounders to the British twenty-four-
pounders, while they needed 811 men for a full complement, but had only
700. And these were, from a man-o’-warman’s point of view, “a miserable
set; indeed, the men on board the fleet in general are not equal to half their
number of good men.” It was not that they lacked good will or bravery; it
was that they were landsmen and untrained in the work before them.
On the other hand, Sir Guy Carleton’s fleet was manned by a thousand
men, among whom were “eight officers, nineteen petty officers and 670
picked seamen” from the British warships in the St. Lawrence, besides the
soldiers of the expedition. The quotation is from Schomberg’s “History of
the British Navy.” In addition to the regular crews, the British fleet was
supported by a host of Iroquois Indians.
Just south of the present site of Plattsburg lies Valcour Island. The bay
on the west side of which Plattsburg stands is enclosed by a long cape

called Cumberland Head.
At daybreak on the morning of Wednesday, October 11, 1776, Benedict
Arnold’s little fleet lay at anchor in a line across the north end of the strait
between Valcour Island and the mainland. It was a clear, cold morning. A
strong northerly wind was sweeping through this narrow valley between the
Green Mountains and the ever-beautiful Adirondacks. It was just the kind of
a day that Sir Guy Carleton wanted for his passage over the lake, and, soon
after sunrise, his fleet came snoring along under full sail past Cumberland
Head.

THE BATTLE OF LAKE
CHAMPLAIN.

Because Arnold’s little fleet lay well behind the forest on Valcour
Island, Sir Guy and his fleet drove past without discovering that any one
was there; but when they had opened out the view from the south between
Valcour Island and the mainland, they saw that they were exposing their
rear to the Americans. At this it was down helm and haul their tacks and get
out oars on the smaller vessels, but the wind was so strong that it was not
until after ten o’clock that the head of the fleet, which included the
schooner Carleton and the gunboats, arrived within the channel where the
American fleet lay.

The Action of October 11,
1776.
A. Plan of action. B. Congress galley
and five gondolas.

In the meantime Arnold had taken the gondola Congress as his flagship
—no doubt because she was furnished with oars, and, as a double-ender,
could be easily handled—and with two other gondolas and the schooner
Royal Savage, went down wind to meet the enemy. He reached them at
eleven o’clock, and the battle opened with a broadside from the British
schooner Carleton.

Fight on Lake Champlain, 1776:
A. American fleet. B. Gunboats. C. Schooner
Carleton. D. Ship Inflexible. E. Anchorage of
British fleet during the night. F. Radeau
Thunderer. G. Gondola Loyal Convert.
H. Schooner Maria, with Carleton on board.

In a brief time the whole of the British fleet of gunboats and gondolas
got into line, and Arnold was obliged to beat back to the support of the
remainder of his vessels. In making this retreat the schooner Royal Savage
was disabled by the shot of the enemy, and before repairs could be made
she grounded hard and fast on Valcour Island. There she was fired, and then
abandoned by her crew, who escaped to the woods on the island, where
some of them met a worse fate than death in the fleet, for Sir Guy Carleton
had sent his Indians into the woods on both sides of the narrow water where
the action was held, and these, of course, tortured as well as killed such
prisoners as happened to fall into their hands.
Giving little, if any, heed to the abandoned American schooner, the
British squadron pressed into the narrow sound. The Inflexible, because she
was a square-rigged vessel, could not be handled there, nor could the

formidable scow, but the swarms of gondolas and gunboats were as easily
managed as the American vessels.
By the time Arnold, with the Congress, had formed his line the British
were “within musket shot”—they were but forty or fifty yards away, and
were veering to and fro to bring, now this broadside and now that to bear on
the American squadron, while the Americans, meeting turn with turn and
manœuvre with manœuvre, fought back without yielding a boat’s length.
The cannon, huge for the day and place, belched flame and smoke. The
round shot bounded along the water to bury themselves in the soft-wood
hulls of the ships or cut away the oars with which the hulls were managed,
or flew wild to sink at last harmless. The grapeshot drove through the air in
death-dealing squalls. The roar of the conflict filled the valley and was
echoed back from the mountains. The smoke clouds drifted into the
evergreen forests on both shores of the little sound. The breath of hell
mingled with the fragrant odors of balsams and spruce and hemlock. The
forest spit flames and lead back at the Americans. Cry answered to cry and
the yell of defiance to the war-whoop of the savage. Arnold himself, on the
deck of the Congress, led in the thickest of the fight, cheering to the men as
they worked at the guns, and at frequent intervals stooping over a gun to
aim and fire it with his own hands.
The region around the scene of that battle is in these days the health
resort of thousands in the summer season. We who see it now can hardly
realize that it was the chosen haunt of Death on that bleak October day of
1776.
There is a paragraph in a report by Lieutenant Hadden, of the British
forces, that relates to one branch of the British forces, and is worth quoting.
He says:
“These savages under Major Carleton moved with the fleet in their
canoes which were very regularly ranged. On the day of the battle, the
rebels having no land force, the savages took post on the mainland and on
Valcour Island. Thus being upon both flanks they were able to annoy them
in the working of their guns. This had the effect of now and then obliging
the rebels to turn a gun that way, which danger the savages avoided by
getting behind trees.”

The Fight on Lake Champlain, October 13, 1776.
1. (On right) Ship Inflexible. 2. Schooner Carleton. 3. Schooner Maria. 4. Congress galley run
ashore, with other vessels blowing up. 5. Washington galley striking. 6. Gunboat coming up.
From an English engraving published December 22, 1776.

And as for the result of the day’s work, the quaint words of Arnold
himself shall tell it:
“At half past 12 the engagement became general and very warm. Some
of the enemy’s ships and all their gondolas beat and rowed up within
musket shot of us. They continued a very hot fire with round and grapeshot
until 5 o’clock when they thought proper to retire to about six or seven
hundred yards distance, and continued the fire till dark.”
The fleet of the enemy, though manned by picked men—by men known
not only for their bravery, but for their skill in handling the guns—was
obliged to draw off to get beyond the range of the smaller guns on the
American fleet.
The Congress, Arnold’s flagship, was hulled by the British round shot
no less than twelve times during the afternoon, and seven of these
projectiles passed through her at the water-line. But the crew, farmers

though they were, plugged her up and fought on as before. General
Waterbury, who was on the Washington, fought her until he was the only
officer left on deck—her captain, lieutenant, and master having all been
killed. The Washington, like the Congress, was full of holes when the fight
ended. The Philadelphia, Captain Grant, sank within an hour after firing
ceased.
On the whole, the American loss for the day was reported at “about
sixty,” while that of the British was less than forty. Two of the British
gunboats were sunk and one was blown up.
The Americans had checked the enemy in his advance along the lake,
and had damaged him materially, but they had suffered more than he had,
and, what was worse, had used up nearly all their ammunition. “Being
sensible that with his inferior and crippled force all resistance would be
unavailing” on the morrow if they remained where they were, Arnold
determined to slip away to the shelter of the American post either at Crown
Point or at Ticonderoga.
The night came on dark and stormy and with a northerly gale driving
over the lake. So the fleet up anchor, and “one following a [shaded] light on
the stern of the other,” they slipped through the enemy’s line that lay across
the south end of the channel, with Arnold on the Congress bringing up the
rear, because that was the post of danger, and at daylight on the morning of
Thursday, October 12th, they were ten miles away and under the lee of
Schuyler Island.

A View on Lake Champlain Showing the Fight of 1776.
From Hinton’s History of the United States.

At this point the fleet came to anchor and began to make such repairs as
were possible. Two gondolas were sunk because they were past remedy, and
when the patching of the rest had been carried far enough to enable them to
float without too much pumping, the fleet started on. Meantime, however,
the wind shifted to the south, and the progress, depending on the oars, was
necessarily slow.
But, although the wind retarded the American fleet, it had retarded the
British as much, if not more. The British had discovered that the Americans
were gone as soon as daylight came on Thursday morning, but so slow was
the progress of the square-rigged Inflexible against the head-wind that it
was not until Friday that the British were able to overtake the Americans.

The Americans were at this time just south of the narrow water at Split
Rock. Arnold, with the Congress and the Washington and four smaller
(three-gun) boats, was guarding the rear, and until noon there was an
anxious race to escape to the shelter of Crown Point—anxious because the
choice of the British fleet—the uninjured Inflexible, with the schooners
Carleton and Maria—were in the van of the chase, and Arnold’s rowboats
were together no match for the least of these.
But at noon, while yet some leagues from Crown Point, the tired crews
of the flying boats had to drop their sweeps and take to the guns, for the
British ships were upon them. The wind had shifted to the north once more,
and the British vessels, of course, got it first.
No more desperate conflict is recorded in naval annals than that of
Arnold that day.
At the first broadside of the enemy the shattered Washington was so
injured that surrender was unavoidable. Nevertheless Arnold ranged up
within musket-shot of the big Inflexible and continued to fight while the
farmer crews of the four gondolas stood to their guns and faced the storm of
shot and grape from the twelve-gun and fourteen-gun schooners—faced the
storm unflinchingly until one-third of Arnold’s crew had been killed, his
boat reduced to a wreck, and resistance could no longer damage the enemy.
But, though beaten, the indomitable Americans were not conquered.
They would never give up the ships. By Arnold’s order the small galleys
were run ashore in a creek near by and there fired, Arnold, in the Congress,
covering their retreat until their crews were safe on shore, when he ran the
Congress ashore also, and then stood guard while his crew fired her,
“remaining on board of her until she was in flames, lest the enemy should
get possession and strike his flag, which was kept flying to the last.”
When the Congress was so well on fire that she could not be saved,
Arnold himself leaped overboard, waded ashore, formed his men in an
orderly line, and marched away over a woodsy trail. He escaped the savages
that were sent ashore seeking scalps, and safely reached Crown Point.
The best all-around fighter under George Washington was Benedict
Arnold. As a leader in actual combat he was simply unequalled. Words

cannot now be found to adequately express the pity of it when it is
remembered that injustice and disappointment at the last drove him mad.
Although this fight on Lake Champlain was ordered on the American
side by an army officer, and the crews were chiefly landsmen, it was
unquestionably an exhibit of the early sea power of the United States, for
the ships were built at the national expense and the crews were in the
national service.

A Description of the Engagement on Lake
Champlain.

Copy of a LETTER from General Sir GUY
CARLETON to Lord GEORGE GERMAIN,
Principal Secretary of State for the American
Department.

On board the Maria off Crown-Point,
October 14, 1776.
My Lord,
The rebel fleet upon Lake Champlain has been
entirely defeated in two actions; the first on the 11th
instant, between the island of Valcour and the main; and
the second on the 13th, within a few leagues of Crown-
Point.
We have taken Mr. Waterburg, the second in
command, one of their brigadier-generals, with two of
their vessels, and ten others have been burnt and
destroyed; only three of fifteen sail, a list of which I
transmit, having escaped. For further particulars I refer
your Lordship to Lieutenant Dacres, who will be the
bearer of this letter, and had a share in both actions,
particularly the first, where his gallant behaviour in the
Carleton schooner, which he commanded, distinguished
him so much as to merit great commendation: and I beg
to recommend him to your Lordship’s notice and
favour: at the same time I cannot omit taking notice to
your Lordship of the good service done, in the first
action, by the spirited conduit of a number of officers
and men of the corps of artillery, who served the gun-
boats, which, together with the Carleton, sustained for
many hours the whole fire of the enemy’s fleet, the rest
of our vessels not being able to work up near enough to
join effectually in the engagement.
The rebels, upon the news reaching them of the
defeat of their naval force, set fire to all the buildings

and houses in and near Crown-Point, and retired to
Ticonderoga.
The season is so far advanced, that I cannot yet
pretend to inform your Lordship whether any thing
farther can be done this year.
I am, &c.
GUY CARLETON.
List of the Rebel Vessels on Lake Champlain, before
their Defeat.

Schooners Royal Savage, 8 six-pounders and 4
four-pounders—Went on shore, was set fire to, and
blown up.
Revenge, 4 six-pounders and 4 four-pounders—
Escaped.

A sloop, 10 four-pounders——Escaped.

Row-Gallies Congress, 2 eighteen-pounders in
the bow, 2 twelve and 2 two-pounders in stern, and 6
six-pounders in the sides—Blew up.
Washington, same force——Taken.
Trumble, ditto——Escaped.

The Lee, a cutter, 1 nine-pounder in the bow, 1
twelve-pounder in the stern, and 4 six-pounders in
sides——Run into a bay, and not known whether
destroyed.

Gondolas Boston, 1 eighteen-pounder in the
bow, 2 twelve-pounders in sides——Sunk.
Jersey, ditto——Taken.

One, name unknown, same force——Run on
shore.
Five ditto, ditto——Blown up.

Other Vessels not in the Action.

A schooner, 8 four-pounders—Sent from their
fleet for provisions.
A galley, said to be of greater force than those
mentioned above——Fitting out at Ticonderoga.

G. C.

[Over]
COPY of a LETTER from Captain DOUGLAS, of
the Isis, to Mr. STEPHENS, Secretary to the
Admiralty.

Quebec, 21st October, 1776.
Having for the space of six weeks attended the
naval equipment for the important expedition on Lake
Champlain, I on the 4th instant saw, with unspeakable
joy, the re-constructed ship, now called the Inflexible,
and commanded by Lieutenant Schank, her rebuilder,
sail from St. John’s, twenty-eight days after her keel
was laid, towards the place of rendezvous; taking in her
18 twelve-pounders beyond the shoal which is on this
side the Isle aux Noix, in her way up.
The prodigies of labour which have been effected
since the rebels were driven out of Canada, in creating,
re-creating, and equipping a fleet of above thirty
fighting vessels of different sorts and sizes, and all
carrying cannon, since the beginning of July, together
with the transporting over land, and afterwards
dragging up the two rapids of St. Terese and St. John’s,
thirty long-boats, the flat bottomed boats, a gondola
weighing about thirty tons, and above four hundred
batteaus, almost exceed belief. His Excellency the
Commander in Chief of the army, and all the other
generals, are of the opinion, that the sailors of his
Majesty’s ships and transports have (far beyond the
usual limits of their duty) exerted themselves to the
utmost on this great and toilsome occasion; nor has a
man of that profession uttered a single word expressive
of discontent, amidst all the hardships they have
undergone, so truly patriotic are the motives by which
they are actuated.—To crown the whole, above two
hundred prime seamen of the transports, impelled by a
due sense of their country’s wrongs, did most
generously engage themselves to serve in our armed
vessels during the expedition, and embarked
accordingly. Such having then been our unremitting
toils, I am happy beyond expression in hereby
acquainting my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty,

that the destruction of almost the whole of the rebel
fleet, in two several battles on the eleventh and
thirteenth instant, is our reward. I have recived a letter
from Captain Pringle, of the Lord Howe armed ship,
who commands the officers and seamen on the Lake,
and who bestows the highest encomiums on their
behaviour in both engagements. The rebels did by no
means believe it possible for us to get upon Lake
Champlain this year; were much surprized at the first
fight of the van of our force; but ran into immediate and
utter confusion the moment a three-masted ship made
her appearance, being a phenomenon, they never so
much as dreamt of. Thus have his Majesty’s faithful
subjects here, (contrary to a crude but prevailing idea)
by straining every nerve in their country’s cause, out-
done them in working as much as in fighting. The ship
Inflexible, with the Maria and Carleton schooners, all
reconstructions, did the whole of the second day’s
business, the flat-bottomed radeau called the Thunderer,
and the gondola called the Loyal Convert, with the gun-
boats, not having been able to keep up with them. The
said gondola was taken from the rebels the day the
siege of Quebec was raised.—The loss we have
sustained, considering the great superiority of the
insurgents, is very small, consisting of between thirty
and forty men killed and wounded, seamen, soldiers,
artillery-men, and all; eight whereof were killed
outright, and six wounded, on board of the Carleton.—
As to farther particulars, I must refer you to Lieutenant
Dacres, who, in justice due to his merit, for the part he
bore in destroying the rebel fleet, I am happy in sending
upon this occasion to their Lordships in the Stag
transport, as also in thereby complying with the
General’s desire, who, for the same reason, is pleased to
honour him with the conveyance of his dispatches.
Printed for R. SAYER and J. BENNETT, Map, Chart, aj
Facsimile of a copy of the original broadside at the Lenox Library.

A List of his Majesty’s Naval Force on Lake
Champlain.

Ship Inflexible, Lieutenant Schank, 18 twelve-
pounders.
Schooner Maria, Lieutenant Starke, 14 six-
pounders.
Schooner Carleton, Lieutenant Dacres, 12 six-
pounders.
Radeau Thunderer, Lieutenant Scott; 6 twenty-
four, 6 twelve-pounders; 2 howitzers.
Gondola Loyal Convert, Lieutenant Longcroft,
7 nine-pounders.
Twenty gun-boats, each a brass field-piece,
some twenty-fours to nines, some with howitzers.
Four long-boats, with each a carriage-gun,
serving as armed tenders.
Twenty-four long-boats with provisions.

A List of the Seamen detached from his Majesty’s Ships
and Vessels in the River St. Lawrence, to serve on Lake
Champlain.
Seamen.
Isis 100
Blonde 70
Triton 60
Garland 30
Canceaux 40
Magdalen 18
Brunswick 18
Gaspee 18
Treasury arm’d
Briggs 90
Fell 30
Lately Charlotte } Province armed
wreck’d 9 Vessels
Voluntiers from no
ship 9

Do. from the
Transports 214
Total 670

Exclusive of 8 officers, and 19 petty officers.
COPY of a LETTER from Captain THOMAS
PRINGLE.
On board the Maria, off Crown-Point,
the 15th of October, 1776.
It is with the greatest pleasure that I embrace this
opportunity of congratulating their Lordships upon the
victory compleated the 13th of this month, by his
Majesty’s fleet under my command, upon Lake
Champlain.
Upon the 11th I came up with the rebel fleet
commanded by Benedict Arnold: they were at anchor
under the island of Valicour, and formed a strong line
extending from the island to the West side of the
continent. The wind was so unfavourable, that for a
considerable time nothing could be brought into action
with them but the gun-boats; the Carleton schooner,
commanded by Mr. Dacres, (who brings their Lordships
this,) by much perseverance at last got to their
assistance; but as none of the other vessels of the fleet
could then get up, I did not think it by any means
adviseable to continue so partial and unequal a combat;
consequently, with the approbation of his Excellency
General Carleton, who did
Print Seller, No. 53, Fleet-Street. Price One Shilling.

me the honor of being on board the Maria, I called off
the Carleton and gun-boats, and brought the whole fleet
to anchor in a line as near as possible to the rebels, that
their retreat might be cut off; which purpose was,
however, frustrated by the extreme obscurity of the

night; and in the morning the rebels had got a
considerable distance from us up the Lake.
Upon the 13th I again saw eleven sail of their fleet
making off to Crown-Point, who, after a chace of seven
hours, I came up with in the Maria, having the Carleton
and Inflexible a small distance a-stern; the rest of the
fleet almost out of sight. The action began at twelve
o’clock, and lasted two hours; at which time Arnold, in
the Congress galley, and five gondolas, ran on shore,
and were directly abandoned and blown up by the
enemy; a circumstance they were greatly favoured in,
by the wind being off shore, and the narrowness of the
Lake. The Washington galley struck during the action,
and the rest made their escape to Ticonderoga.
The killed and wounded in his Majesty’s fleet,
including the artillery in the gun-boats, do not amount
to forty; but, from every information I have yet got, the
loss of the enemy must indeed be very considerable.
Many particulars which their Lordships may wish
to know, I must, at present, take the liberty of referring
you to Mr. Dacres for; but as I am well convinced his
modesty will not permit him to say how great a share he
had in this victory, give me leave to assure you, that
during both actions nothing could be more pointedly
good than his conduct. I must also do the justice the
officers and seamen of this fleet merit, by saying that
every person under my command exerted themselves to
act up to the character of British seamen.
A circumstantial and authentic Account of the Roads
and Distances from New-York, to Crown-Point.
Miles.
FromNew-York to King’s Bridge 15
King’s Bridge to Conklin’s 22
Conklin’s to Croton’s River 12
Croton’s River to Peekskill 10
Peekskill to Rogers in Highlands 9

Rogers in Highlands to Fishskills 11
Fishskills to Poughkeepsie 14
Poughkeepsie to Staatsborough 11
Staatsborough to Rhynbeck 6
Rhynbeck to Ryer Shermerhorns 10
Ryer Shermerhorns to Rininston’s Manor 14
Rininston’s Manor to Claverack 7
Claverack to Kenderhook 14
Kenderhook to Halfway-house 10
Halfway-house to Albany 10
Albany to Saratoga 36
Saratoga to Fort Edward 20
Fort Edward to Lake George 14
Lake George to Ticonderoga 30
Ticonderoga to Crown Point 15
In all 290

Of the results of the fight a few words must be written, because their
value to the Americans was well-nigh inestimable under the circumstances.
The American fleet had fought to the last gasp. It was well-nigh
exterminated, but it had not suffered in vain. It taught the British that the
Americans were not only willing, but they were able fighters. In spite of the
tremendous odds against them, at the last they had proved themselves as
unyielding as the rocks that echoed back the roar of the conflict. Their
stubborn wills bade the ambitious Carleton pause and consider. If, with a
shattered hulk, they had kept the three best British vessels on the lake at bay
until the gondolas were aground and on fire, and if they were then still able
to make such a murderous fight as enabled them to fire and burn the last
ship with its flag flying till burned away, what would they not do in
resisting the British were an attack made on Ticonderoga?
The thought was cooling to the ardor of even Carleton. Worse yet,
should he succeed in taking Ticonderoga, these unyielding Yankees would
contest every rod of the long wilderness route with a skill that excelled that
of Carleton’s best men. And that settled the question that had arisen in
Carleton’s mind—the question of the advisability of continuing on his
course. As a most excellent account of this fight, which appeared in
Dodsley’s (London) “Annual Register” says, “the strength of the works, the
difficulty of approach, the countenance of the enemy, and the ignorance of

their number, with other cogent reason, prevented this design from taking
place.”
Having looked upon “the countenance of the enemy,” Sir Guy Carleton
changed his mind. He decided to return to Canada. The most glorious defeat
in the annals of the American navy had saved the nation from an invasion
that would have severed it in twain, and probably whelmed its forces in
utter defeat.

CHAPTER V

UNDER THE CRAGS OF THE “TIGHT
LITTLE ISLE”
THE SAUCY YANKEE CRUISERS IN BRITISH WATERS—WHEN FRANKLIN SAILED
FOR FRANCE—WICKES IN THE REPRISAL ON THE IRISH COAST—NARROW
ESCAPE FROM A LINER—A PLUCKY ENGLISH LIEUTENANT—HARSH FATE OF
THE AMERICANS IN THE BRITISH PRISON—STARVED BY ACT OF
PARLIAMENT—DEEDS OF THE GALLANT CONNYNGHAM—WELL-NAMED
CRUISERS—A SURPRISE AT A BREAKFAST TABLE—TAKING PRIZES DAILY—
WHY FORTY FRENCH SHIPS LOADED IN THE THAMES—INSURANCE RATES
NEVER BEFORE KNOWN.

Signal as has been the value of the services of the little vessels of the
infant navy of the United States in their operations along the American
coast and upon the woodsy waters of the highway from the north during the
year of the nation’s birth, the American sailors had really only just begun to
fight, and it was not until they carried the fight into the very harbors of
Great Britain that they taught the British merchants, who had been
supporting the British ministry in its oppression of the colonies, a lesson
they were slow to learn. For the British merchants had looked upon the war
in America as a blessing upon their business interests. It would be
somewhat expensive in the way of taxation, but it would ruin their
competitors, the enterprising colonists. It is in the spirit of trade and
tradesmen of all classes to view with complacency the little expenses that
ruin competitors. But some of the British merchants who rubbed their hands
and smiled with satisfaction as they heard of the retreat of Washington
across New Jersey in 1776, were to wring them in distress because of
wounds in their pockets before the end of 1777—because of ships that were
snatched away from under the very crags of what they were pleased to term
their “tight little isle.”

“In the meantime the irruption of the Phœnix and the Rose into the
waters of the Hudson had roused a belligerent spirit along its borders.”
These were the first British warships to sail up the Hudson in the
Revolutionary war, and their advent was in July, 1776. The Americans had
no ships to send against them, and they commonly remained at anchor out
of reach of shore batteries. It was because of their presence that it was
proposed to stretch an iron chain across the river at Anthony’s Nose. Other
obstructions were prepared, but the only thing done in the way of going
afloat to attack them was when some rafts were brought down the river
chained between a couple of old sloop hulls, the whole of which were
covered with dry fat, pine, tar, turpentine, etc. These were fired and let drift
with the tide, but as a substitute for the modern torpedoes they were not
successful.
The war was, indeed, carried across the stormy Atlantic in the autumn
of 1776, though only a small beginning was made that year. To Capt.
Lambert Wickes was given the honor of commanding the first American
naval ship to cross the Atlantic. Captain Wickes, while in command of the
sixteen-gun brig Reprisal, had, as already told, made such a good fight
when attacked by the British sloop-of-war Shark off Martinique that he beat
her off and escaped. For this he was chosen to carry Franklin, who had been
appointed American commissioner to France, across to Nantes.
Not only did Wickes carry his passenger safely into port; he captured
two prizes on the way and sent them into port also. And then, after refitting
in Nantes, he went on a cruise in the Bay of Biscay, where he captured two
more prizes, of which one was the king’s mail packet plying between
Falmouth and Lisbon, it being the custom in those days for the British
government to employ swift brigs of the navy on the regular mail routes.

The Phœnix and the Rose Engaging the Fireships on the Hudson
River.
From a lithograph of the painting by Serres after a sketch by Sir James Wallace.

France and England were at peace at that time, but by carrying the
prizes out to sea, after they had been successfully brought to port, they were
readily sold to French merchants, and the money was placed in the hands of
Franklin and the other American commissioner, Silas Deane.
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.

Engraved by Ridley from a Miniature by Thos. Langdon.

Iohn Bazely Esqr. Vice Admiral.
of the Red Squadron

The Lexington was captured on September 20, 1777. She had refitted at
Morlaix, whither she had gone when chased by the line-of-battle ship.
When ordered to sail she had not a full supply of powder on board, but was,
nevertheless, forced to go. She sailed on September 18th, and when two
days outside of the port she fell in with the man-of-war cutter Alert,
commanded by Lieutenant Bazely, and Bazely was one of the fighters of
whom British seamen have a right to be proud. His cutter was smaller than
the Lexington, and she had but ten cannon to the Lexington’s sixteen. The
wind was strong and the sea was rough for such light vessels, but Bazely
forced a fight, and for two hours and a half held his own. At the end of that
time, however, his rigging had been so badly hurt that he had to stop
fighting and make repairs. Seeing this, the Lexington, having expended all
but a trifle of her ammunition, made sail for home, and she would have got
away had any one but the plucky Bazely commanded the Alert. Bazely
made repairs, overhauled the Lexington, and again opened fire. The
Lexington held on her course for an hour without being able to reply, and in
the hope that the wind would carry away some of the cutter’s sails. But the
cutter was well found, and the Lexington was carried into Plymouth.
Lieutenant Bazely lived to become an admiral, and there is no doubt he
earned his promotion.
The fate of the Lexington’s crew, because like that of every American
cruiser of those days, shall be told somewhat in detail. They were thrown
into jail without trial on a charge of high treason, and there they were
deliberately starved. On one occasion they were glad to kill and eat a dog
that strayed into their yard. The conduct of the prison officials in their
bearing toward the prisoners was insufferably brutal.
Because the assertion that the prisoners were deliberately starved may
seem to some readers an exaggeration, the proof of the statement shall be
given from an English source. It may be found on page 152 of the “Annual
Register for the Year 1781,” published by G. Robinson, Paternoster Row,
London. In reporting the proceedings of Parliament for June 20th of that
year it says:
“A petition was presented to the house by Mr. Fox from the American
prisoners in Mill Prison, Plymouth, setting forth that they were treated with
less humanity than the French and Spaniards; that they had not a sufficient
allowance of bread, and were very scantily furnished with clothing. A

similar petition was presented to the house of peers by the Duke of
Richmond. It appeared upon inquiry that the American prisoners were
allowed half a pound of bread less per day than French or Spanish
prisoners. Several motions were grounded on these petitions, but those
proposed by the lords and gentlemen of the opposition were determined in
the negative, and others to exculpate the government in this business were
resolved in the affirmative.”
Neither the French nor the Spanish were fully fed, but by the deliberate
vote of Parliament the Americans received half a pound of bread less per
man each day than did the French and Spanish.
At one time prisoners escaped by tunnelling under the prison walls, and
in London got on board a vessel bound for Dunkirk. But a press-gang found
them and dragged them back to the jail. Among their number was Master’s
Mate Richard Dale. A year after he was recaptured he procured a British
uniform. How he got it he would never tell, not even when the war was
over, and it is therefore not unlikely that a woman brought it to him. With
that on, he walked out of the jail in open day and escaped.
Meantime another American cruiser had been at work on the British
coasts with notable results. The American commissioners in France had
purchased a fast cutter, which they equipped as a man-of-war. They named
her the Surprise, and that proved to be a very appropriate name. Capt.
Gustavus Connyngham was placed in charge of her, his commission being
one of the blank ones which had been given to the commissioners to fill out
at their own discretion. It was dated March 1, 1777, and Captain
Connyngham got away to sea on May 1st, but he had a deal of trouble
before he found himself fairly afloat. To avoid complications with the
French government he was obliged to send ashore all his cannon and
warlike supplies and load his vessel with merchandise for Norway. In this
way he left port. Then, when well outside, he met by appointment a vessel
that had his equipment and crew, and effected a transfer. But the
government had suspected that he was going to do this, and had compelled
him to give bonds not to do it. Two men were hired to sign the bond, but
one of them found he had made a bad bargain, even though he had signed it
with his eyes open, for when the first prize made by the Surprise came in he
was haled away to the Bastile, while the prize, in which he was to have a
share, no doubt, was given up to the English without legal process. The

names of the bondsmen are recorded simply as “Allen and Hodge.” Hodge
was the chief unfortunate, but he was released after six weeks.
The prize was the ship Joseph. She was captured the third day out. Four
days later (May 7th), while cruising off the coast of Holland, the Surprise
fell in with the British packet brig Prince of Orange, carrying the mail to
the north of Europe, and having a number of passengers on board.
It is likely that no ship’s company were ever more completely surprised
than were the people on the Prince of Orange. It was early in the forenoon
when the Surprise came alongside and carried the packet by boarding. Not a
gun was fired, and so little noise was made that not a soul below decks
knew that anything out of the usual course was occurring until the Yankee
captain coolly walked down the companionway and found the captain of the
Prince of Orange and his passengers eating breakfast very comfortably.
Because of the mails on board this packet Captain Connyngham
decided to carry his prize into port at once.
It will be remembered that the capture of this mail packet happened but
a few weeks after the capture of the Lisbon packet. So, as may be supposed,
the arrival of the Surprise, with the Prince of Orange as a prize, created a
tremendous excitement among the English. The British ambassador at Paris
demanded that Connyngham and his crew be surrendered for trial as pirates,
and threatened to leave the country if the demand was not complied with.
As the French government was not yet ready for war, and the firm attitude
of the English compelled seeming compliance with the demand,
Connyngham was arrested and his commission taken away from him. The
British ambassador sent for two sloops-of-war to come over and convoy the
Surprise and the Prince of Orange across to England. For a time it looked
as if the audacious Americans would really be hanged as pirates by the
infuriated Englishmen.
But in those days much time was required for completing matters of
diplomacy, and the American commissioners, with their agents, were
working day and night not only to save Captain Connyngham, but to send
him once more on a cruise against the enemy. Another swift cutter was
procured and secretly armed with fourteen six-pounders and twenty
swivels, while a crew of 106 men was shipped. The new man-of-war was
very properly named the Revenge, and before the sloops-of-war had arrived

from England Captain Connyngham had, “with some address and intrigue,”
been released from prison and supplied with a new commission and sent
away to sea.
It was on July 18, 1777, that the Revenge left port, and she was the fifth
ship of the American navy to cruise in England’s home waters. If the
Surprise had astonished the British seafaring folks, the Revenge astounded
them. And it must not be forgotten that the little fleet of three vessels under
Captain Wickes had already gone to sea on the same errand.
It is recorded that the Revenge “proved a remarkably successful vessel,
taking prizes daily,” which were, for the most part, sent to Spanish ports
and sold. The means so obtained were of the utmost value to the American
commissioners already in Europe and to those who came after, while the
damage inflicted on the British marine was, as already intimated, something
to make the British merchant wonder whether, after all, his investments for
the ruin of American rivals were likely to prove profitable. Nor was the
injury felt alone by those British merchants whose ships happened to be
captured. The insurance rates on all British ships rose at one period to
twenty-five per cent., and ten per cent. was demanded for the simple voyage
from Dover to Calais. Worse yet, the fear of the Yankee cruisers became so
great that shipments in British vessels were so far abandoned that “forty sail
of French ships were loading in the Thames on freight; an instance never
before known.” An escort was asked for and received for British ships in
the trade with Ireland, “something that had never been known even in the
wars with France.”
But the best of the story of Captain Connyngham’s cruise remains to be
told. Having been considerably injured by a gale, the captain felt obliged to
go into port for repairs. To return to a French port was extremely dangerous
because the whole French coast was closely watched and because even
were he found safely in port he would be very likely delivered over to the
English, so he sought safety in audacity and found it. Disguising his cutter
as best he might with the paint and materials in store, he entered an English
port (the name of which is not recorded), thoroughly refitted, and sailed
away unsuspected. Some time later he entered an Irish port and got a full
supply of provisions, paying for them with drafts on his agent in Spain.
Later still he refitted at Ferrol, and then sailed for America.

It is not uncommon for people to speak in these days of such deeds as
Captain Connyngham’s as if they were something of the past that might
never be repeated. They do not realize that every class graduated from the
Naval Academy at Annapolis contains men of equal bravery and resources
—men needing only the opportunity to show their metal.
It must be noted here that the British ministry chose to make a
distinction between the two ships fitted out wholly in the French ports (the
Surprise and the Revenge) and those that had come over from America;
they made a distinction in spite of the fact that these two were fitted out by
the American commissioners of the American government that had
maintained itself for a year. The Surprise and the Revenge were denounced
as pirates, and Connyngham as a pirate commander.
Unfortunately for Connyngham, he was captured in a privateer early
the following year after his cruise on the English coast. What treatment he
then received cannot be given in detail here, but if the British authorities
were willing to starve the prisoners from the Lexington, which was then
conceded to be a lawful ship of war, one may rest assured that it would have
been kinder to Connyngham to hang him out of hand. He would, indeed,
have been hanged but for the fear of retributive justice being meted out to
prisoners in the hands of the Americans. So, to put it bluntly, they tortured
whom they dared not kill, until the Congress, on July 17, 1778, passed a
resolution formally demanding the reason why he was “treated in a manner
contrary to all the dictates of humanity and the practice of civilized
nations.” And yet, in spite of the pitiful sufferings of Connyngham and the
other American seamen in British prisons, it was not until July 15, 1779,
that Congress resolved to “cause the crews of vessels captured from the
enemy to be confined on board prison ships and supplied and treated, in all
respects, in the same manner as the crews of vessels belonging to these
United States, and captured by the enemy, are supplied and treated.”
The story of the early doings of the American navy concludes with the
loss of the first American flagship, the Alfred.
It will be remembered that the Congress had, late in 1775, ordered quite
a fleet of small frigates built at different points along the coast—thirteen in
all. Of the whole number, six never got to sea, for they were captured in
port by the victorious British. Among those that finally carried the flag was

the Raleigh, a thirty-two-gun vessel, built at Portsmouth, and a very fair
ship for that time she proved to be. Toward the end of August, 1777, the
Marine Committee ordered the Raleigh, under the command of Capt.
Thomas Thompson, and the original flagship Alfred, which was still under
the command of Capt. Elisha Hinman, to sail for France to procure supplies
for the American army.
The two ships had been at sea only a few days, when, on September 2d,
they fell in with a small English merchantman called the Nancy, that
surrendered without a stroke. From her captain they learned that she had
gone adrift the day before from a big fleet bound to the Windward Islands
under convoy of one twenty-gun ship, two fourteen-gun brigs, and one
sixteen-gun sloop.
On learning this Captain Thompson carefully noted the positions of the
different men-of-war in the squadron, and learned the code of signals in use
in the fleet, the necessary flags for signalling having been taken from the
Nancy. He then headed away in pursuit.
At noon on the 3d he had overhauled the fleet, and from that time until
daylight of the 4th he was busy trying to cut out some of the merchantmen
without exciting suspicion. By signalling to the Alfred with the captured
code, he succeeded in concealing his character effectually; but on the
morning of the 4th he gave up the hope of getting a merchantman, and
sought a fight instead. Leaving the Alfred, that was too slow for the
enterprise, behind, he steered with closed ports right through the fleet until
in an advantageous position on the weather side of one of the brigs, the
Druid, when he opened up his ports, set his flag, and fired a broadside into
the unsuspecting Britisher.
The effect of the broadside upon the other ships of the fleet was
picturesque. Everywhere the pipe of the boatswain to call all hands was
heard. On every ship the men ran to and fro to crowd on sail, while every
tiller was thrown up or down as every ship strove to get as far away from
every other ship as possible. For no one knew what minute another
supposed cargo-carrier would prove to be a Yankee warship.
Meantime Captain Thompson fired volley after volley into the Druid,
receiving only a feeble fire in return, until the brig was so well wrecked that
she had to return to England. Her loss, according to Captain Carteret, who

commanded her, was six killed and twenty-six wounded, he himself being
among the severely wounded.
But, although badly cut up, the Druid did not surrender; and when the
other two warships, with several of the best-armed merchantmen who had
recovered from the panic, drew near, the Raleigh squared away and returned
to the Alfred.
Rightly considered, it was not an exploit to excite the pride of the
American naval officer, for the Raleigh had more guns than the two brigs
together, and should have been almost a match for all three of the warships.
American sailors had not yet reached the efficiency as man-o’-warsmen that
afterwards made them famous.
However, the two American ships reached France, and loaded their
supplies. On returning they took the southern route, hoping to meet some
British merchant ships. They met, instead of merchantmen, two British
men-of-war—the Ariadne of twenty guns and the Ceres of fourteen.
It happened that the two Americans were at the time (it was on March
9, 1778) far apart, the Raleigh being hull down to leeward. The two
Britishers came down on the Alfred, and without making very much of a
fight she surrendered. Seeing this, the Raleigh up helm and sailed for home,
where, on his arrival, the captain was very properly relieved from the
command of the ship. What John Paul Jones would have accomplished had
he been in command of the Raleigh that voyage, instead of Thompson, may
be inferred from what he did when a command was given him, as will be
told in the next chapter.

CHAPTER VI

JOHN PAUL JONES AND THE RANGER
THE FIRST SHIP THAT CARRIED THE STARS AND STRIPES—DASH AT A CONVOY
THAT FAILED—WHEN THE DUTCH WERE BROWBEATEN—THE RANGER SENT
ON A CRUISE IN ENGLISH WATERS—A SHIP TAKEN OFF DUBLIN—THE RAID
ON WHITEHAVEN—WHEN ONE BRAVE MAN COWED MORE THAN A
THOUSAND—THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT LORD SELKIRK’S SILVERWARE,
WITH THE NOBLE LORD’S EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE WHEN HE GOT IT
BACK—HOW CAPTAIN JONES MISSED THE DRAKE AT FIRST, BUT GOT HER
LATER ON IN A FAIR AND WELL-FOUGHT BATTLE.

A most important date in the history of the United States is June 14,
1777, for on that day it was in Congress “Resolved, That the flag of the
thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the
union be thirteen stars, white, in a blue field, representing a new
constellation.” In the annals of the navy it is also important, from the fact
that on that day Capt. John Paul Jones was appointed to the eighteen-gun
ship Ranger, which had been built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Repairing at once to his post, Captain Jones, in placing his ship in
commission, hoisted with his own hand the new-made flag of the Union,
and that was the first occasion on which “old glory” was spread to the
breeze on an American naval ship. Thereafter every effort was made to get
away to sea, but the difficulties which the struggling Americans had to
overcome in obtaining supplies were so great that the Ranger did not sail
until November 1st.
The destination of the Ranger was Nantes, France, and her mission in
European waters was to carry on the work begun in such famous fashion by
the Reprisal, the Lexington, the Surprise, and the Revenge.

On the way over Captain Jones, when not far from the Azores, sighted
a fleet of ten well-guarded merchantmen. The warships were too heavy for
the Ranger, and the merchant ships kept so close to their protectors that it
was impossible to cut one of them out of the fleet. The Ranger was not
swift enough for such a purpose. The Yankee ship-builder had not yet
learned the art of building men-of-war.
After leaving the convoy nothing happened save the capture of two
small English brigs in the fruit trade, and on December 2d the Ranger was
at anchor in the harbor of Nantes, then one of the most flourishing of
French ports.

From the Original in possession of Col. John H. Sherburne, Author of “The
Life and Character of John Paul Jones.”
At that time the American commissioners in France were Benjamin
Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee. The commissioners had been
secretly building a fine frigate in Holland—the finest afloat it was to be—
but the able British minister at Amsterdam discovered the ownership of the

new vessel and made such a vigorous protest that the Dutch were obliged to
refuse to let the Americans have her.
That was a great disappointment to Captain Jones, but he cheerfully
obeyed the orders of the commissioners, who decided that “after equipping
the Ranger in the best manner for the cruise you shall proceed with her in
the manner you shall judge best for distressing the enemies of the United
States, by sea or otherwise, consistent with the laws of war.”
Accordingly on February 10, 1778, the Ranger sailed from Nantes,
having in convoy several American merchant ships that were bound home,
and that were to be placed in charge of a French squadron then lying in
Quiberon Bay (Brest) and bound eventually for America; for France had by
this time acknowledged the United States as an independent nation, and had
decided to openly aid the Americans in their fight for liberty.
On reaching Quiberon Bay he had the great satisfaction of seeing the
French admiral salute the American flag after the Ranger had, under the
custom of such occasions, saluted the French flag. It was an honor
especially gratifying for the reason that this was the first occasion on which
a foreign power saluted the Stars and Stripes.
Having overhauled his rigging and taken on additional supplies,
Captain Jones sailed from Brest on April 10, 1778, and steered across to the
coast of England. Passing between the Scilly Islands and Cape Clear, he
overhauled a brig loaded with flax bound from Ireland to Ostend. As she
was of small value he scuttled her, and to save himself the bother of
prisoners, sent her crew ashore in their boat, for the capture was made in
plain view of the land. This was done on April 14th. Three days later he was
off Dublin, where he seized the ship Lord Chatham and sent her to Brest.
Thereafter he headed away to Whitehaven, that is found a short
distance south of the Clyde. It was a port with which Jones was entirely
familiar, for there he had passed his childhood. It was his intention to burn
the shipping which, as he knew, thronged the harbor. He arrived off the
harbor at ten o’clock at night of the same day he captured the Lord
Chatham, but a gale of wind prevented his landing, so he cruised on to the
north. The next day (April 18th) the Ranger chased a revenue cutter that
escaped him, but on the 19th he sank a coasting schooner loaded with
barley.

Map of the BRITISH ISLES AND THE COAST
OF FRANCE.
Showing first and second voyages of Capt. John Paul Jones, and
the route of the Reprisal.

Thereafter he continued his cruise to the north. The weather prevented
an attack on a fleet of merchantmen with a man-of-war at Lochryan, so the
Ranger was headed across to the Bay of Carrickfergus, Ireland, at the head
of which lies the city of Belfast. A fisherman picked up outside told Captain
Jones that the man-of-war Drake, a ship that mounted twenty guns and was
a larger ship and carried more men than the Ranger, lay at anchor inside.
All this was learned on April 21st. That night Captain Jones undertook
capturing the Drake as she lay at anchor. Waiting until night had fully come,
he stood up the bay, in spite of a freshening gale, until he saw the Drake
lying at anchor and rolling gently to the swell. At that the Ranger was
brought up into the wind almost beneath the jibboom of the Drake, and then
Captain Jones ordered his anchor let go.
Had his order been obeyed instantly, the Ranger would have swung to
her cable down across the cable of the enemy and then yardarm to yardarm
fair alongside.
Knowing nothing of the presence of an American man-of-war in those
waters, the crew of the Drake would have been found in their hammocks
and the Ranger would have carried her by boarding, with little if any loss of
life.
Unfortunately, the Ranger’s anchor was not dropped at the word, and
when, at last, it did catch in the mud, Captain Jones found himself between
the Drake and a lee shore and too far astern for effective firing. The Ranger
was, in fact, in almost as bad a situation as that in which Jones had intended
to place the Drake. To remain was to invite destruction, so the Ranger’s
cable was cut the instant she brought a strain upon it, and she was headed
out into the bay for another attempt at the same manœuvre, leaving the
anchor watch of the Drake to wonder what possessed the crew of what they
supposed was an especially ill-managed merchantman.
However, the second attempt was not made. The weather came on
fierce and cold, and the next morning, from his deck in the North Channel,
Captain Jones saw the hills on both shores white with snow. So he headed
away for another attempt on the shipping at Whitehaven.
Because the attempt on Whitehaven has been more persistently
misrepresented by British writers than any other act of the Revolutionary

war it is necessary to give not only the exact facts, but the reasons which
influenced Jones as an American naval officer in making the descent. To
fully appreciate his motives, it is only necessary to recall but a few
incidents of the British onslaught upon the Americans—to recall the
burning of Portland, Maine, by Captain Mowatt, who “dispersed at a late
season of the year, hundreds of helpless women and children, with a savage
hope that those may perish under the approaching rigours of the season,
who may chance to escape destruction from fire and sword”—to recall that
among the accounts which Sir Guy Carleton turned in for audit to the
British Parliament was one item of “five gross of scalping knives,” which
he distributed to the savages under his command for use on the unfortunate
Americans that they might fall upon, and which were used for scalping
women and children as well as prisoners of war.
John Paul Jones went ashore on the British coast to burn the British
shipping and no more. He was determined to “put an end, by one good fire
of shipping, to all the burnings in America.” He was also determined to
capture an earl to hold as a hostage, and compel a brutal enemy to treat
captured Americans as civilized nations have always treated prisoners of
war. He missed the earl, and his men took the earl’s silver plate to the value
of £500, which plate Jones purchased afterwards with his own money, and
returned to the earl with a manly letter.

An English Caricature of John Paul Jones.
(“From an original drawing taken from the Life on board the
Serapis.”)
Published in London, October 22, 1779.

In view of the barbarities of which the English had been guilty in
America, and of the retaliation which self-defence as well as justice
demanded, John Paul Jones, after his cruise along the coast, might well and
righteously have used the words which a titled British robber of the helpless
used when brought before Parliament to answer for his crimes: “By God, at
this moment I stand astonished at my own moderation.”

After one hundred years have passed away it is safe to say that every
American who reads of the events of the American Revolution stands
astonished at the moderation of the fathers.
As to the facts of the descent on Whitehaven, they may be soon told.
Lowering two boats after the Ranger had arrived, Captain Jones ordered
fifteen men, armed with cutlasses and pistols, into each. Then he placed
Lieutenant Wallingsford in charge of one, and took the other himself.
Unfortunately, one of the crew, a man named David Freeman, had shipped
with the express purpose of serving the English whenever opportunity
offered.
It is said that 220 vessels, great and small, lay in Whitehaven harbor, of
which 150 were on the south side, where the town stood, and the remainder
were on the north. Nearly if not quite all had been left aground by the ebb
tide—the tide that prevented Jones reaching the shipping until daylight.
Wallingsford was sent to fire the shipping at the north, while Jones landed
at the town.
Whitehaven was guarded at that time by two forts of fifteen guns each.
With his single boat’s crew Jones ran to the nearest one. The sentinels,
greatly alarmed, fled into the guard-house, where Jones locked them in.
Then he spiked the guns. At the other fort, a quarter of a mile away, he was
equally successful.
Turning, then, to see the flames rising from the ships across the harbor,
he found that nothing had been done to them. Lieutenant Wallingsford’s
failure to obey orders has been variously accounted for, but whatever his
error may have been, he wiped it out by fighting for the flag till he died in
the battle of two days later.
Seeing his plan partly frustrated, Captain Jones hastened back to the
water-front, and with his own hands built a fire on a large vessel in the
midst of the fleet, using a brand which he had snatched from the breakfast
fire in the kitchen of a nearby house. To increase the flames, he broke open
and spilled a barrel of tar over the light-wood he was firing.
Meantime the deserter had been alarming the town. “The inhabitants
began to appear in thousands.” There must have been not less than 1,200
sailors alone among the 150 ships lying there. As the flames mounted in air

above the burning ship the men of the town came down en masse, but Jones
stood between them and the fire, and, with pistol in hand, “ordered them to
retire, which they did with precipitation.” Men in a crowd numbering
hundreds fell over each other to get out of range. A more amusing instance
of the power of a resolute man over a mob will rarely be found in history.
For fifteen minutes John Paul Jones, single-handed, held at bay more
than a thousand men. Then he entered his boat and rowed away, leaving the
townsmen to fight the fire and shed tears of gratitude over the deserter who
had saved them from destruction at the hands of fifteen men armed with
cutlasses and flint-locked, single-barrelled, shoot-if-you-are-lucky pistols!
When Jones was well out in the bay the people found a couple of
cannon which Jones had overlooked. These they loaded and fired. And
Jones, recalling the time when a frigate had chased his brig in the Canadian
waters, fired a pistol in return.
From Whitehaven Jones sailed over to the Isle of St. Mary, landed with
a force of men, and surrounded the house of the Earl of Selkirk. It was the
avowed object of this landing to carry away the earl, “and to have detained
him until, through his means, a general and fair exchange of prisoners, as
well in Europe as in America, had been effected.” It was to ameliorate the
condition of the Americans, held in jail and deliberately starved, that
Captain Jones landed.

Pub. by A. PARK, 47 Leonard St. Tabernacle Walk, London.

“Paul Jones the Pirate.”
From an old engraving in the collection of Mr. W. C. Crane.

Finding that the earl was not at home, the men in the landing party
called on their commander to take the silverware from the castle as fair
plunder and but a just revenge for the acts of British sailors in America,
who had not only looted the homes of the rich, but had driven off the one
cow and the one pig of the laborer. Captain Jones permitted them to do so.
The following is the British account of the affair, taken from Dodsley’s
“Annual Register” (London) for 1778. On page 177 it says:

“Edinburgh, April 27. The following are the particulars of the
plundering of Lord Selkirk’s house by the crew of the Ranger, American
privateer.
“On the 23d of April, about ten o’clock in the morning, 30 armed men
came in a boat from a privateer of 20 guns, and pretending at first to be a
press gang, the men surrounded the house, and the officers entered and
desired to see the heads of the family. As Lord Selkirk was then at London,
Lady Selkirk made her appearance. They soon made known to her who they
really were; said they meant to have seized Lord Selkirk’s person had he
been at home, and to have carried him off, but all they now asked was to
have the plate of the house. As there could be no thought of resistance, this
was at once complied with; and having taken possession of it they walked
off and reimbarked. They behaved civily, and only the officers presumed to
enter the house, and happily her ladyship did not suffer from the alarm.”
With this British account of this affair in mind, let the reader turn back
and read the British account of the burning of Portland (then Falmouth),
Maine, and so compare the American deed with that of the British.
The silver taken was of the real value of £500, but when it was sold for
the benefit of the crew Jones bought it and returned it at his own expense—
at a cost of £1,000, all told—to the noble Lord. In August, 1789, years after
the plate was returned, the earl was constrained to write Jones that,
“notwithstanding all the precautions you took for the easy and uninterrupted
conveyance of the plate,” there were considerable delays; nevertheless, it
arrived safely. “I intended to have put an article in the newspapers about
your having returned it,” he adds, but his good intentions miscarried.
However, if he did not publicly acknowledge the honor of the American
naval captain who had spent $5,000 to return the plate, he privately
“mentioned it to many people of fashion,” so reads his letter. The British
historians deliberately omit mentioning that Jones returned the silver.
After the descent upon the Isle of St. Mary’s the Ranger still lingered
on that coast. Captain Jones knew very well that many cruisers were already
under orders to seek him; but they were still far away, and he must needs try
conclusions with the Drake that he had tried to take over in the bay near
Belfast.

On the morning of April 24, 1778, he hove to off the bay, and then
filled and backed until well along in the afternoon. The commander of the
Drake, seeing a stranger outside, sent a young officer in a small boat to see
what she was. Captain Jones handled his ship so skilfully that her stern was
kept toward the coming boat until she was directly under the Ranger’s
counter. Then the officer was induced to come on board, and not until he
had climbed up the ladder and reached the deck did he know that he was on
a Yankee cruiser.
Finding his officer did not return, the commander of the Drake got
under way. Meantime signal fires had been built on every hilltop along both
coasts, and the black columns of smoke were rising high in air. Moreover, a
fleet of five excursion boats crowded with curious spectators was seen
following the British man-of-war. But the wind was light and the tide
against him, and it was not until an hour before sunset that the Drake’s
captain was able to bring his ship within fighting range of the Yankee.
Finally he found himself under the lee quarter of the Ranger and but a
pistol-shot away. There he hoisted his colors. Captain Jones at once ran up
the Stars and Stripes.
“What ship is that?” said a voice on the Drake.
“It is the American continental ship Ranger. We are waiting for you.
The sun is but little more than an hour from setting. It is therefore time to
begin,” replied Captain Jones. Then turning to the man at the wheel,
Captain Jones ordered the helm hard up. The Ranger wore slowly around,
and the Drake followed her motion until they were drifting broadside to
broadside and yardarm to yardarm fair before the wind.
And then Captain Jones opened the battle with a broadside. The enemy
replied in kind, and as fair a fight as naval annals record was begun. But
after a little the fore and main topsail-yards of the Drake were cut in two at
the masts and hung useless. The mizzen-gaff was shot away and dropped.
The jib fell and dragged overboard in the water. The rigging and sails were
in tatters. Worse yet, blood was trickling from her scuppers because of the
dead and wounded on her deck. Among the dead at the last was her
commander, Captain Burden, who was killed by a musket-ball through his
brain. Among the wounded was the first lieutenant, and he was mortally
hurt.

The flag first spread on the Drake was shot away, but they raised
another. This, too, was shot away, and falling overboard, it dragged in the
water. A little later, and just as the sun was going down behind the Irish
hills, a cry for quarter was raised on the Drake, and the battle came to an
end.
The Ranger in this fight had eighteen guns. The Drake carried twenty.
The Ranger’s crew numbered 123. The Drake had 151 men on her books,
and, in addition to these, had taken on a number of volunteers from the
shore, who had been anxious to help whip the Yankees. These raised the
number of her crew to 160 by the lowest account and 190 by the highest.
The Ranger lost two killed, including Lieutenant Wallingsford, and six
wounded. The Drake lost forty-two killed and wounded. It is fair to say that
the British account of the battle in Allen’s history says the loss was but
twenty-four. But Allen probably counted only those killed and wounded
among the ship’s regular crew and ignored the volunteers, while the
Americans counted the corpses and men under the surgeon’s care.
The odds had been against him, but the honors remained with John
Paul Jones.
After the battle a merchant brig happened along, and a prize crew was
put on board of her. Then the fishermen who had been captured when the
Ranger first arrived on the coast were not only released, but enough gold
was given them to pay for all their losses, together with a sail from the
Drake’s outfit as a notice to the shore people that the Yankee had won. They
went away cheering the generosity of John Paul Jones.
And while speaking of the generosity of this American naval captain, it
should be told that, in fitting out the Ranger on the American side, he
advanced to the American government several thousand dollars (continental
currency) of his own money, and that he bore all the expense of fitting and
refitting her on the French coasts before her cruise. In all, he spent some
£1,500 sterling of his own money, and because of the poverty of the
American government he had to wait a long time to get it back again.
It was very well written of this cruise that “the news of the brilliant
achievements of Paul Jones electrified France and appalled England.”

Just how much England was appalled by the American demonstrations
on her coast may be inferred from a statement of the number of men
“raised” (i.e., gathered in by press gangs) for her navy. In 1774 she “raised”
345 men. In 1777 she “raised” 37,458, and in 1778 the number was 41,847.

CHAPTER VII

THE FIRST SUBMARINE WARSHIP
IT WAS SMALL AND INEFFECTIVE, BUT IT CONTAINED THE GERM OF A MIGHTY
POWER THAT IS AS YET UNDEVELOPED—WHEN NICHOLAS BIDDLE DIED—
HE WAS A MAN OF THE SPIRIT OF AN IDEAL AMERICAN NAVAL OFFICER—
FOUGHT HIS SHIP AGAINST OVERWHELMING ODDS TILL BLOWN OUT OF THE
WATER—THE LOSS OF THE HANCOCK—AN AMERICAN CAPTAIN DISMISSED
FOR A GOOD REASON—CAPTAIN RATHBURNE AT NEW PROVIDENCE—LOSS
OF THE VIRGINIA—CAPTAIN BARRY’S NOTABLE EXPLOIT—WITH TWENTY-
SEVEN MEN TO HELP HIM, HE CAPTURED A SCHOONER OF TEN GUNS BY
BOARDING FROM SMALL BOATS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, ALTHOUGH THE
SCHOONER WAS MANNED BY 116 SAILORS AND SOLDIERS.

One of the most striking features of the American naval service during
the war of the Revolution was its irregularity. There was a navy
continuously in existence, but the services rendered by individual men and
ships were extremely irregular. It has already been told how John Paul
Jones, after his successful cruise to the Cape Breton waters, had to remain
idle for many months. After his famous cruise in the Ranger he was again
idle until the king of France furnished him a ship. Captain Gustavus
Connyngham, who gained such a reputation in the Surprise and the
Revenge on the British coasts, was actually obliged to seek service in a
privateer, after his return to port, for lack of other employment. Jones had
an excellent offer to do this also, but he refused on the ground that he was
not fighting for money, but for the “Honour of the American flag.” If men
like Jones and Connyngham were left to shift for themselves, and without
pay at that, it follows that others were treated in like manner.
The cause of this condition of affairs is readily found by the student in
the method of caring for the navy adopted by the Congress. It was a method
in keeping with a deal of the work done then. First, there was a Marine

Committee of the Congress to buy ships and send them on a single “cruise
eastward.” Later, there was a Marine Board, part congressmen and part
plain citizens, “but no two of whom shall be from the same State.” There
was a “Continental Naval Board.” There was a “Board of Admiralty.” There
were naval agents. The powers and duties of all these were changed so often
that no one can follow them in less space than a large volume, and a more
wearying volume than that would be is difficult to imagine. There was, in
short, an utter lack of system in naval affairs throughout the whole
Revolution. Worse yet, the Congress was as lacking in funds as in system.
The first result of this state of affairs was to prevent the development of
an esprit de corps among the officers. As already told, Capt. Thomas
Thompson of the Raleigh ran away and left the Alfred to her fate when the
Ariadne and Ceres overhauled her. When John Paul Jones was towing the
Drake into Brest he saw a sail, and left the Drake for a time to examine the
stranger. While he was away the American officer in the Drake tried to
carry her off to another port, hoping to get her fitted out and sent on a cruise
with himself in command, independent of Captain Jones. The list of
offences of this class—the clashing of officers where they would in this day
stand shoulder to shoulder—is distressingly long.
Another very serious result of the mismanagement was in the effect on
the common sailors. It was very difficult to get men for the national ships,
because the life on the privateers was more to their liking, and the chances
of getting prize money very much greater.
And all this is worth relating because the men of the navy won glory
and were indispensable to the ultimate victory of a growing nation, in spite
of it. The record of the naval men as a whole was as brilliant as the
congressional management was inefficient, and that is a condition of affairs
that has since been known in the navy.
To return to the American coast and give an account of the more
interesting naval doings there during the time that the old flag was winning
glory in Europe, it is found that considerable losses were sustained, though
the story is not by any means wholly depressing.
For instance, there is the story of Capt. Nicholas Biddle. “Liberty never
had a more intrepid defender” than Nicholas Biddle. It will be remembered
that he was one of the original captains of the navy, and was appointed to

the brig Andrea Doria, in which he gained reputation. So, when the first of
the thirty-two-gun frigates, which Congress ordered in 1775, was
completed, Captain Biddle was placed in command. She was called the
Randolph, and she sailed from Philadelphia in February, 1777. Off Hatteras
she sprung her masts in a gale, and put into Charleston for repairs. Then she
sailed again, and within a week brought in six prizes, including a twenty-
gun ship called the True Briton. Unfortunately, a blockading squadron
appeared off Charleston at this time, and until March, 1778, he was held
there.

MAP OF THE AMERICAN COAST,
Showing Principal Battles and Forts during the Revolutionary and
French Wars.

Meantime, however, his success had fired the hearts of the South
Carolinians, and while he was there he had the satisfaction of seeing them
fit out four State cruisers carrying, all told, sixty-four guns. This work
completed, Captain Biddle, with the State fleet as consorts, sailed out to
look for the blockading squadron, but it had sailed away.
So Captain Biddle took his little squadron down along the Caribbean
coasts. Here, east of the Barbadoes, they happened to fall in with the British
ship-of-the-line Yarmouth, Captain Vincent.
To properly understand what followed, it must be known that a ship-of-
the-line was built of such heavy timbers that nothing smaller than a twelve-
pounder could seriously damage its hull. The only guns in Biddle’s
squadron that could hope to penetrate her hull were Biddle’s own, and his
ship had but thirty-two guns to the Yarmouth’s sixty-four, and they were
smaller at that; so Captain Biddle signalled the State cruisers to run for it
while he, in spite of the vast superiority of the enemy, sailed boldly up to
her, broadside to broadside.
Better yet, for one full hour he was able to maintain the contest with his
thirty-two small guns against sixty-four large ones. He was wounded, but he
refused to allow his men to carry him below, and while he was thus
directing the battle from the quarter-deck, the powder in the Randolph’s
magazine was in some way fired, and the ship was literally blown out of the
water. Pieces of the wreck, in flames, fell on the Yarmouth, while an
American ensign, rolled up ready to be sent aloft, in case the one flying
should be shot away, fell, unsinged, upon her forecastle.
It was at 10 o’clock on the morning of March 7, 1778, that this disaster
occurred. The Randolph had on board 315 men at the time. The people of
the Yarmouth supposed that all hands had perished, and made sail after the
rest of the Yankee squadron, though without success. On March 12th the
Yarmouth happened back over the very water where the fight had taken
place, and there found a piece of the Randolph floating about with four
seamen upon it, who were, of course, picked up. Captain Vincent of the
Yarmouth reported five men killed and twelve wounded.
The little brig Cabot, of fourteen guns, that made such a brave fight in
the first cruise of the first squadron, came to grief on the coast of Nova
Scotia. She was in command of Capt. Joseph Olney. The British frigate

Milford, with which John Paul Jones had had so much fun, happened along,
and as the Cabot was even slower than she, Captain Olney ran her ashore to
keep her from the enemy. The crew barely had time to get ashore, but they
fired the Cabot before leaving. Once on shore, they were, of course, afoot
and friendless in the enemy’s country, but Captain Olney and his men
captured a schooner and returned home in her.
This occurred in March, 1777. On April 9th, following, Capt. Dudley
Saltonstall, in the Trumbull of twenty-eight guns, captured two British
transports off New York harbor that were laden with military stores for the
British army, and so more than retrieved the loss of the Cabot. The
Trumbull lost seven killed and eight wounded. The only record of the loss
on the transports says that “the enemy suffered severely.”
The year 1777 was noted for the building of the first American
submarine torpedo boat. David Bushnell, of Saybrook, Connecticut (he
moved to Peekskill, New York, later), a most ingenious mechanical
engineer, devised a turtle-shaped cask large enough to hold a man and carry
a torpedo containing 150 pounds of powder, with mechanism to fasten it to
the wooden bottom of a ship and to fire it when so fastened. Because this
was the first attempt to use a submarine vessel for the purposes of war, and
because Bushnell’s invention, fearsome as it was, is not even yet developed
to anything like the degree of which it is capable, the description which he
wrote of the thing is well worth giving in full, as follows:

“GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND CONSTRUCTION OF A SUBMARINE
VESSEL, COMMUNICATED BY DAVID BUSHNELL, OF CONNECTICUT,
THE INVENTOR, A LETTER OF OCTOBER, 1787, TO THOMAS
JEFFERSON, THEN MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY OF THE UNITED
STATES AT PARIS.

“The external shape of the submarine vessel bore some
resemblance to two upper tortoise shells of equal size, joined together;
the flue of entrance into the vessel being represented by the openings
made by the swells of the shells at the head of the animal. The inside
was capable of containing the operator, and air sufficient to support
him thirty minutes, without receiving fresh air. At the bottom opposite
to the entrance was fixed a quantity of lead for ballast; at one edge,
which was directly before the operator, who sat upright, was an oar for

rowing forward or backward; at the other edge was a rudder for
steering. An aperture, at the bottom, with its valve, was designed to
admit water for the purpose of descending, and two brass forcing-
pumps served to eject the water within, when necessary for ascending.
At the top there was likewise an oar, for ascending or descending, or
continuing at any particular depth. A water-gauge or barometer
determined the depth of descent; a compass directed the course, and a
ventilator within supplied the vessel with fresh air, when on the
surface. The entrance into the vessel was elliptical, and so small as
barely to admit one person. This entrance was surrounded by a broad
elliptical iron band, the lower edge of which was let into the wood
whereof the body of the vessel was made, in such a manner as to give
its utmost support to the body of the vessel against the pressure of the
water. Above the upper edge of this iron band there was a brass crown
or cover, resembling a hat with its crown and brim, which shut water-
tight upon the iron band. The crown was hung to the iron band with
hinges, so as to turn over sideways when opened. To make it perfectly
secure when shut, it might be screwed down upon the band by the
operator, or by a person without.
“There were in the brass crown three round doors, one directly in
front and one on each side, large enough to put the hand through. When
open they admitted fresh air. Their shutters were ground perfectly tight
into their places with emery, and were hung with hinges and secured in
their places when shut. There were likewise several glass windows in
the crown for looking through and for admitting light in the daytime,
with covers to secure them. There were two air-pipes in the crown; a
ventilator which drew fresh air through one of the air-pipes, and
discharged it into the lower part of the vessel.
“The fresh air introduced by the ventilator expelled the impure air
through the other pipe. Both air-pipes were so constructed that they
shut themselves, whenever the water rose near their tops, so that no
water could enter through them. They opened themselves immediately
after they rose above the water. The vessel was chiefly ballasted with
lead fixed to its bottom. When this was not sufficient, a quantity was
placed within, more or less, according to the weight of the operator. Its
ballast rendered it so solid that there was no danger of its oversetting.

The vessel, with all its appendages and the operator, was of sufficient
weight to settle it low in the water. About two hundred pounds of the
lead at the bottom for ballast, could be let down forty or fifty feet
below the vessel. This enabled the operator to rise instantly to the
surface of the water in case of accident.
“When the operator desired to descend, he placed his foot upon the
top of a brass valve, depressing it, by which he opened a large aperture
in the bottom of the vessel, through which the water entered at his
pleasure. When he had admitted a sufficient quantity, he descended
very gradually. If he admitted too large a quantity, in order to obtain an
equilibrium, he ejected as much as was necessary by the two brass
forcing-pumps which were placed at each end. Whenever the vessel
leaked, or he desired to ascend to the surface, he also made use of these
forcing-pumps. When the skilful operator had obtained an equilibrium,
he could row upward or downward, or continue at any particular depth,
with an oar placed near the top of the vessel, formed upon the principle
of the screw, the axis of the oar entering the vessel. By turning the oar
in one direction he raised the vessel, by turning it the other way he
depressed it. A glass tube, eighteen inches long and one inch in
diameter, standing upright, its upper end closed, and its lower end,
which was open, screwed into a brass pipe, through which the external
water had a passage into the glass tube, served as a water-gauge or
barometer.
“There was a piece of cork, with phosphorus on it, put into the
water-gauge, condensing the air within, and bearing the cork on its
surface. By the light of the phosphorus, the ascent of the water in the
gauge was rendered visible, and the depth of the vessel ascertained by a
graduated scale.
“An oar formed on the principle of the screw was fixed in the fore
part of the vessel; its axis entered the vessel, and, being turned in one
direction, rowed the vessel forward; but being turned in the other,
rowed backward. It was constructed to be turned by the hand or foot.
“A rudder to the hinder part of the vessel, which commanded it
with the greatest ease, was made very elastic, and might be used for
rowing forward. The tiller was within the vessel, at the operator’s right

hand, fixed at a right angle on an iron rod which passed through the
vessel.
“A compass marked with phosphorus directed the course above
and under water.
“The internal shape of the vessel, in every possible section of it,
verged toward an ellipsis, as near as the design would allow; but every
horizontal section, although elliptical, was yet as near to a circle as
could be admitted.
“The body of the vessel was made exceedingly strong; a firm piece
of wood was framed parallel to the conjugate diameter, to prevent the
sides from yielding to the great pressure of the incumbent water in a
deep immersion. This piece of wood was also a seat for the operator.
“Every opening was well secured. The pumps had two sets of
valves. The aperture at the bottom for admitting water was covered
with a plate perforated full of holes, to receive the water and prevent
anything from closing the passage or stopping the valve from shutting.
The brass valve might likewise be forced into its place with a screw.
The air-pipes had a kind of hollow sphere fixed round the top of each,
to secure the air-pipe valves from injury. These hollow spheres were
perforated full of holes for the passage of air through the pipes; within
the air-pipes were shutters to secure them, should any accident happen
to the pipes or the valves on their tops. All the joints were exactly
made, and were water-tight.
“Particular attention was given to bring every part necessary to
performing the operation, both within and without the vessel, before
the operator, so that everything might be found in the dark. Nothing
required the operator to turn to the right hand or the left.

“DESCRIPTION OF A MAGAZINE AND ITS APPENDAGES DESIGNED TO BE
CONVEYED BY THE SUBMARINE VESSEL TO THE BOTTOM OF A SHIP.

“In the fore part of the brim of the crown of the vessel was a
socket, and an iron tube passing through the socket; the tube stood
upright, and could slide up and down six inches. At the top of the tube
was a wood-screw, fixed by means of a rod, which passed through the

tube and screwed the wood-screw fast upon the top of the tube. By
pushing the wood-screw up against the bottom of a ship, and turning it
at the same time, it would enter the planks. When the wood-screw was
firmly fixed, it could be cast off by unscrewing the rod which fastened
it upon the top of the tube.
“Behind the vessel was a place, above the rudder, for carrying a
large powder magazine. This was made of two pieces of oak timber,
large enough, when hollowed out, to contain an hundred and fifty
pounds of powder, with the apparatus used in firing it. A rope extended
from the magazine to the wood-screw above mentioned; when the
wood-screw was fixed, and to be cast off from its tube, the magazine
was to be cast off likewise, leaving it hanging to the wood-screw. It
was lighter than water, that it might rise up against the object to which
the screw and itself were fastened.
“Within the magazine was a clock, constructed to run any
proposed length of time under twelve hours; when it had run out its
time, it unpinioned a strong lock, resembling a gun-lock, which gave
fire to the powder. This apparatus was so pinioned that it could not
possibly move till, by casting off the magazine from the vessel, it was
set in motion.
“The skilful operator could swim so low on the surface as to
approach very near a ship in the night without fear of being discovered,
and might, if he chose, approach the stem or stern with very little
danger. He could sink very quickly, keep at any necessary depth, and
row a great distance in any direction he desired without coming to the
surface. When he rose to the surface he could soon obtain a fresh
supply of air, and, if necessary, he might then descend again and pursue
his course.
“EXPERIMENTS MADE TO PROVE THE NATURE AND USE OF
A SUBMARINE VESSEL.
“The first experiment I made was with about two ounces of
powder, which I exploded four feet under water, to prove to some of
the first personages in Connecticut that powder would take fire under
water.

“The second experiment was made with two pounds of powder,
enclosed in a wooden bottle, and fired under a hogshead, with a two-
inch oak plank between the hogshead and the powder; the hogshead
was loaded with stones, as deep as it could swim. A wooden pipe,
descending through the lower head of the hogshead and through the
plank into the powder contained in the bottle, was primed with powder.
A match put to the priming exploded the powder with a great effect,
rending the plank into pieces, demolishing the hogshead, and casting
the stones and ruins of the hogshead, with a body of water, many feet
into the air, to the astonishment of the spectators. This experiment was
likewise made for the satisfaction of the gentlemen above mentioned.
“I afterwards made many experiments of a similar nature, some
with large quantities of powder.
“In the first essays with the submarine vessel, I took care to prove
its strength to sustain the great pressure of the incumbent water, when
sunk deep, before I trusted any person to descend much below the
surface; and I never suffered any person to go under water without
having a strong piece of rigging made fast to it, until I found him well
acquainted with the operations necessary for his safety. After that I
made him descend and continue at particular depths without rising or
sinking; row by the compass; approach a vessel; go under her, and fix
the wood-screw into her bottom, etc., until I thought him sufficiently
expert to put my design into execution. I found, agreeably to my
expectations, that it required many trials to make a person of common
ingenuity a skilful operator. The first I employed was very ingenious,
and made himself master of the business, but was taken sick in the
campaign of 1776, at New York, before he had an opportunity to make
use of his skill, and never recovered his health sufficiently afterwards.
“After various attempts to find an operator to my wish, I sent one
who appeared more expert than the rest from New York, to a fifty-gun
ship, lying near Governor’s Island. He went under the ship and
attempted to fasten the wood-screw into her bottom, but struck, as he
supposes, a bar of iron. Not being well skilled in the management of
the vessel, in attempting to move to another place, he lost the ship, and
after seeking her in vain for some time he rowed some distance and
rose to the surface of the water, but found daylight had advanced so far,

that he durst not renew the attempt. On his return from the ship to New
York, he passed near Governor’s Island, and thought he was discovered
by the enemy; he cast off the magazine, as he imagined it retarded him
in the swell, which was very considerable.
“After it had been cast off one hour, the time the internal apparatus
was set to run, it blew up with great violence.
“Afterwards, there were two attempts made in Hudson’s River,
above the city, but they effected nothing. Soon after this the enemy
went up the river, and pursued the vessel which had the submarine boat
on board, and sunk it with their shot. Though I afterwards recovered
the vessel, I found it impossible to prosecute the design any further. I
had been in a bad state of health from the beginning of my undertaking,
and was now very ill. The situation of public affairs was such, that I
despaired of obtaining the public attention and assistance necessary. I
therefore gave over the pursuit for that time and waited for a more
favorable opportunity, which never arrived.
“In the year 1777, I made an attempt from a whale-boat against the
Cerberus frigate, then lying at anchor between Connecticut River and
New London, by throwing a machine against her side by means of a
line. The machine was loaded with powder to be exploded by a gun-
lock, which was to be unpinioned by an apparatus, to be turned by
being brought alongside of the frigate. This machine fell in with a
schooner at anchor, astern of the frigate, and concealed from my sight.
By some means or other it was fired, and demolished the schooner and
three men, and blew the only one left alive overboard, who was taken
up very much hurt.
“After this, I fixed several kegs under water charged with powder,
to explode upon touching anything as they floated along with the tide. I
set them afloat in the Delaware, above the English shipping at
Philadelphia, in December, 1777. I was unacquainted with the river and
obliged to depend upon a gentleman very imperfectly acquainted with
that part of it, as I afterwards found. We went as near the shipping as
we durst venture. I believe the darkness of the night greatly deceived
him, as it did me. We set them adrift, to fall with the ebb upon the
shipping. Had we been within sixty rods, I believe they must have

fallen in with them immediately, as I designed; but as I afterwards
found, they were set adrift much too far distant, and did not arrive until
after being detained some time by the frost; they advanced in the
daytime in a dispersed situation and under great disadvantages.
“One of them blew up a boat with several persons in it, who
imprudently handled it too freely, and thus gave the British that alarm
which brought on the ‘Battle of the Kegs.’ The above vessel, magazine,
etc., were projected in the year 1771, but not completed until the year
1775.
“D. Bushnell.”

The man who handled the submarine boat in New York harbor was
Sergeant Ezra Lee, and the ship mentioned was the sixty-four-gun liner
Eagle. It is a great pity that a full record of Bushnell’s experiments and of
the experiences of Sergeant Ezra Lee, who handled the strange craft, was
not made for the benefit of subsequent inventors, because much useless
labor would have been saved. For instance, every inventor who has since
worked on the idea has had to learn for himself that it is utterly impossible
to see through the water after he has been once submerged, while other
matters of little less importance have been worked out over and again.
The attack on the Cerberus mentioned above was described by the
British captain as follows:

“Wednesday night, being at anchor to the westward of New
London, in Black Point Bay, the schooner I had taken, at anchor close
by me, astern, about eleven o’clock at night, we discovered a line
towing astern that came from the bows; we immediately conjectured
that it was somebody that had veered himself away by it, and began to
haul in; we then found that the schooner had got hold of it (who had
taken it for a fishing line), gathered it near fifteen fathom, which was
buoyed up by little bits of sticks at stated distances, until he came to the
end, at which was fastened a machine, which was too heavy for one
man to haul up, being upwards of 100 cwt.; the other people of the boat
turning out, assisted him, got it upon deck, and were unfortunately
examining it too curiously, when it went off like the sound of a gun,

blew the boat to pieces, and set her in a flame, killed the three men that
were in the stern; the fourth, who was standing forward, was blown
into the water; I hoisted out the boat, and picked him up much hurt; as
soon as he could recollect himself, he gave me the following
description, as near as he could remember. It was two vessels shaped
like a boat, about twenty inches long, and a foot broad, secured to each
other at the distance of four feet, by two iron bars, one at each end, and
an iron tube or gun-barrel in the centre, which was loose (as he had
himself turned it round with his hand); they swam one over the other,
the upper one keel upwards; the lower swam properly, but was so under
water as just to keep the upper one a few inches above the surface; to
the after iron bar hung a flat board, to which was fixed a wheel about
six inches in diameter, and communicated itself to one on the upper
side of the boat, of a lesser diameter; opposite to these was another
wheel, on the flat of the under one or loaded vessel, which had likewise
communication with the wheels of the upper boat; it was covered with
lead, and the keel heavily loaded in order to keep it down in the water.
“The fatal curiosity of the seamen (who unfortunately had been
bred in working in iron) set this wheel agoing, which it did with great
ease backwards and forwards, and during their looking at it, which was
about five minutes from the time of its being first put in motion, it
burst. Upon examining round the ship after this accident, we found the
other part of the line on the larboard side buoyed up in the same
manner, which I ordered to be cut away immediately for fear of hauling
up another machine, which I concluded was fast at the end, and might
burst when near the ship.
“The mode these villains must have taken to have swiftered the
ship, must have been to have rowed off in the stream a considerable
distance ahead of the ship, leaving one of their infernals in shore, and
floating the other at the distance of the line, which, from the quantity
that we have got on board (near 70 fathoms), and what the man tells me
they saved in the schooner, which was upwards of 150 fathoms more,
must have been near 500 fathom; they at the length of this line put the
other in the water, and left it for the tide to float down, which in this
place runs very strong.

“As the ingenuity of these people is singular in their secret modes
of mischief, and as I presume this is their first essay, I have thought it
indispensably my duty to return and give you the earliest information
of the circumstances, to prevent the like fatal accident happening to
any of the advanced ships that may possibly be swiftered in the same
manner, and to forbid all seamen from attempting hauling the line, or
bringing the vessel near the ship, as it is filled with that kind of
combustible that burns though in the water.
“I am, sir, etc.,
“J. Symons.”

David Bushnell was born in Saybrook (now Westbrook), Connecticut,
in the year 1742. He entered Yale College in 1771, and graduated in 1775.
During his collegiate career he turned his attention to submarine warfare,
and after leaving college devoted his time and patrimony entirely to the
subject. He was noted for his studious habits, great inventive genius, and
eccentricity. The unfortunate issue of his projects rendered him very
dejected. Disappointed by his failures and the neglect of the government, he
went to France at the close of the war, where he remained for a number of
years, when he returned and settled in Georgia, under the assumed name of
Dr. Bush, desiring thus to conceal his identity and connection with the early
efforts of his life. There he was placed at the head of one of the most
respectable schools in the State, but subsequently engaged in the practice of
medicine, by which he amassed a considerable fortune. He was much
beloved and respected by all who knew him, and died at the age of ninety
years, in the year 1826. By his will his proper name became known; his
executors were required to make inquiries in the town of Saybrook for
persons of the blood and family of Bushnell, and whoever in the opinion of
the executors was found to be most worthy, on the score of moral worth,
should be regarded as the sole legatee. But should none of the kindred be
found to fulfil the condition set forth in the will, the estate was to be
transferred to Franklin College, Georgia. Legatees were found in
Connecticut.

Signatures of John Manly and
Hector McNeil.

The loss of the American frigate Hancock of thirty-two guns followed
the capture of the two valuable transports off New York. It was in May that
the Hancock, under Capt. John Manly (he who in the Massachusetts
schooner Lee worked such havoc on the British store-ships off Boston in
1775), sailed from Boston on a cruise, having in company the Boston of
twenty-four guns under Capt. Hector McNeil. When four days out they
overhauled a strange sail, and Captain Manly, after a bit of veering to and
fro to determine the enemy’s speed and power, gave him a broadside. At
this the stranger tried to run for it, and with stern chasers strove to disable
the Hancock’s rigging. But the Hancock was then one of the swiftest
American ships, and Captain Manly held his fire until alongside, when he
gave him a broadside.
Although manifestly of inferior strength, the enemy fought back
bravely for an hour, and then, the Boston having arrived within range, he
struck his colors. It proved to be the frigate Fox of twenty-eight guns,
Captain Fotheringham. The Hancock lost eight in killed and wounded, and
the Fox thirty-two.
Having placed a prize crew on the Fox, Captain Manly made the
mistake of sailing too close to Halifax, the principal British naval station in
America. Here, on June 1st, he fell in with three British ships, the Rainbow
of forty-four guns, commanded by Sir George Collier; the frigate Flora of
thirty-two guns, and the sloop-of-war Victor of eighteen guns.

[Over]
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.

A Typical Nassau Fort—Fort Fincastle.
From a photograph by Rau.

The next exploit of note was that of Capt. John Barry, who, while in
command of the brig Lexington, had had an honorable career. It will be
remembered that the command of the Effingham, then building in the
Delaware, was given to him and that the British captured Philadelphia

before the ship could get away to sea. To keep the ship out of the British
hands she was moved up the river to White Hill, New Jersey, and by order
of Mr. Hopkinson of the Navy Board was sunk. Barry and Hopkinson had a
very loud dispute over the sinking of the Effingham, for Barry was
confident that, with the ten guns already on board and the thirteen guns on
the frigate Washington that was in company with her, a good fight could be
made against any of the force the British were able to send. Hopkinson
became personal in his remarks, and Barry’s Irish blood got hot, and some
things not quite courteous were said in return; but Barry, to his great
disgust, had to sink the ship, and afterwards, on the order of Congress,
withdraw the offensive remarks, although time had proved him entirely
right in the matter of sinking the ship.
However, while charges were pending against him in this matter, he led
a boat expedition down the river, carrying four rowboats manned by
twenty-seven men, all told, past the British ships and soldiers at
Philadelphia, and arrived safely off Port Penn, which was then in the hands
of the Americans. On the opposite side of the river lay two ships, the
Mermaid and the Kitty, with two others not named, laden under convoy of
the large schooner Alert armed with ten guns. The ships were loaded with
food supplies for the British at Philadelphia.
The run past Philadelphia had been made at night, of course, and so
Port Penn was reached in broad daylight. But in spite of the fact that the
British were already astir and the Americans in plain view, Barry with his
gallant band made a dash at the schooner, and before the British could rally
for a defence clambered over the rail, cutlass in hand.
At that the British dropped everything and fled below, leaving Barry to
put on the hatches and keep them there. In view of the many occasions on
which the British historians charge the American sailors with cowardice it
must be told here that this “wild Irishman” with his twenty-seven men beat
down under the hatches one major, two captains, three lieutenants, ten
soldiers, and 100 seamen and marines—he captured 116 armed men with
just twenty-seven.
When he had secured them he stripped and burned the transports, and
carried the schooner over to Port Penn. This was on February 26, 1778.

The British sent a frigate and a sloop-of-war down the river to
recapture the schooner, and so, finding he could not get her away to sea,
Barry was obliged to destroy the vessel, which he did by pointing his guns
down her hatch and shooting holes through her bottom. But he had in the
meantime for two months patrolled the lower Delaware and cut off the
British supplies to such an extent that there was actual suffering in the
British camp. He gave them a taste, at least, of what Washington’s brave
hosts were suffering that winter at Valley Forge. He returned to White Hill
by travelling through the forest that then surrounded Philadelphia.
Having by this effort once more commanded the attention of the
authorities, he was sent to the Raleigh at Boston, and on September 25,
1778, sailed away with two merchant ships in convoy. Three days later he
was a wanderer in the unbroken forests of Maine.
The little fleet got to sea early in the morning. At noon two sails were
seen in the south, and Captain Barry, after signalling the convoy to steer
close-hauled, ran down for a look at the strangers. Because the wind was
light it took him the whole of the afternoon to learn their character, but at
sundown he found they were two English frigates. At this Captain Barry
ordered the merchantmen back to port, cleared his ship for action, and
thereafter for forty-eight hours engaged in a game of hide-and-seek with the
enemy wherein he had, now and again, the darkness of night, the horizon,
and sundry fog-banks to conceal him.

An English Frigate of Forty Guns.
From an engraving by Verico.

On sending the merchantmen toward port Barry took that course
himself, until the darkness wholly enveloped the enemy, when he again
resumed his course. At dawn next day he found himself in a fog, and during
the forenoon nothing could be seen, but at noon the fog disappeared, and
then the enemy were again seen to the south on a course parallel to Barry’s.
Seeing this, Barry came up close-hauled and crowded on all sail, while
the enemy came on in like dress until 3 or 4 o’clock, when another fog shut
them from view. Then Barry headed away eastwardly with a free wind, and
ran so until daylight on the 27th, when he furled the canvas and let her drift
under bare poles until 6 o’clock, while he searched the horizon for the
frigates.
Having seen nothing, Captain Barry made sail, and held a course to the
southeast until 9.30, when he again saw the enemy. At this he came up to
the wind, tacked about, and heading away to the northwest with “a
staggering breeze,” the Raleigh made “11 knots and 2 fathoms on a dragged
bowline,” per hour.
That was a pace that the Englishmen could not hold, and the Raleigh
soon dropped them behind the horizon, but at noon the Raleigh ran out of

the streak of wind, as a sailor might say, while the enemy were still holding
it.
The leader of the frigates rapidly overhauled the Raleigh after that, and
at 4 in the afternoon the Raleigh tacked to the west to see what the force of
the leader was. Captain Barry hoped he might make a good fight with her
single-handed before the other could come up, and at 5 in the afternoon “the
Raleigh edged away, brailing her mizzen and taking in her staysails.”
Crossing the enemy’s bows, the Raleigh dropped down abreast of him, and
set the American ensign. The frigate, showing fourteen guns on a side,
hoisted the king’s flag, and then the Raleigh gave her a broadside. She
replied swiftly, and at the second fire had the good fortune to carry away the
Raleigh’s foretopmast and mizzen-topgallantmast. She was now able to
outsail the Raleigh, and so shot ahead to get clear of the too hot fire of the
Yankee, and then began to fire at long range while Captain Barry was
clearing away the wreck aloft. Once the wreckage was down, however,
Barry bore up and strove to get alongside and board, but with her superior
canvas the frigate avoided this. Meantime the other ship was coming near,
and Captain Barry, finding he could not, in his crippled condition, maintain
a fight with two, decided to run his ship ashore on some islands that were
visible, for the fight was made off the coast of Maine.
And then night came on with a still fading breeze. The Raleigh, with all
sail set, headed for the coast. The frigates followed, and until midnight the
two ships drifted along with the red flames spurting from their sides, and
the nearing cliffs echoing to the thunder of the conflict.
At 12 o’clock the enemy hauled off for a brief interval, but the other
ship having come up, the two renewed the conflict, and then the Raleigh
grounded.
The enemy now took positions on the Raleigh’s quarter. Captain Barry
kept the four stern chasers working, but lowered his boats forward and went
ashore with a lot of his men to fortify the island on which he had grounded,
being determined to fire his ship and resist capture in any event. But while
he was away a frightened petty officer hauled down the flag.
The Raleigh was eventually put into the British navy, but Captain Barry
and his men on the island escaped to the mainland. The ship that made so
good a fight against the Raleigh was the Unicorn, of twenty-eight guns. Her

consort was the Experiment, of fifty. The Americans lost twenty-five killed
and wounded, and the Unicorn ten killed and an unknown number of
wounded—probably twenty-five or thirty.
On the whole, the years 1777 and 1778 were disastrous, and the record
was, in a sense, to the discredit of the American navy. Two captains were,
indeed, dropped from the naval list for failing to support the flag, and where
they failed the record was in part only made good by the heroism of the
others. Of the thirteen frigates which the Congress decided to build in
December, 1775, but four remained. Some were lost at sea, as already
described, and the rest fell into the hands of the British through the
operations of the land forces.
But if we compare the American forces with those of the English, the
wonder is that the Americans were able to keep the flag afloat at all, for the
British navy in American waters in 1778 numbered eighty-nine ships
mounting 2,576 guns, while the Americans had fourteen ships mounting
332 guns. And what is of more importance, the British ships were at this
time manned by crews that were disciplined, while, as already noted, the
Yankee ships were to a very great extent manned by landsmen. A time was
to come when, in the matter of training, the superiority was to be on the
other decks, but in 1778 it was all in favor of the British.

CHAPTER VIII

PRIVATEERS OF THE REVOLUTION
A TALE OF THE AMERICAN PATRIOTS WHO WENT AFLOAT OUTSIDE OF THE
REGULAR NAVY—THEIR PART IN DRIVING THE BRITISH FROM BOSTON—
REMARKABLE WORK OF THE LEE—TRUXTON AS A PRIVATEER—DARING
CAPT. JOHN FOSTER WILLIAMS—WHEN CAPT. DANIEL WATERS, WITH THE
THORN OF SIXTEEN GUNS, WHIPPED TWO SHIPS THAT CARRIED THIRTY-FOUR
GUNS BETWEEN THEM—GREAT WAS JOSHUA BARNEY—THE STORY OF THE
MOST FAMOUS STATE CRUISERS OF THE REVOLUTION—WON AGAINST
GREATER ODDS THAN WERE ENCOUNTERED BY ANY SUCCESSFUL SEA
CAPTAIN OF THE WAR—BRITISH ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF AMERICAN
PRIVATEERS—THE HORRORS OF THE JERSEY PRISON SHIP.

Great as was the influence of the burning of Falmouth (Portland),
Maine, in driving the Continental Congress into providing a continental
navy, the whole story of the results of that infamous act has not yet been
told. The “indignation against the commissioned pirates and licensed
robbers” was not felt in the halls of the Congress alone. “The General Court
of Massachusetts passed an act encouraging the fitting out of armed
vessels,” and one for “erecting a court to try and condemn all vessels that
should be found infesting” the American coast. This act was passed on
November 10th, and John Adams declared it one of the most important
documents in our history.
Connecticut and Rhode Island immediately followed the example of
Massachusetts, and on March 23, 1776, the Congress provided for private
armed vessels under the continental flag.
Of the very early deeds of these privateers only meagre details are
found recorded, but it appears that Washington, when he found the troops
under his command, in the fall of 1775, were well-nigh absolutely destitute
of powder, determined to supply them from the transports that were

continually bringing munitions of war to the British forces in Boston and to
the British ships in the harbor. Accordingly, he caused several small vessels
to be armed and sent afloat in Massachusetts Bay and along shore to
intercept the transports. He did this without waiting for authority from the
Congress, and the vessels sailed as Massachusetts cruisers.

From the copy at the Lenox Library.
Of the number sent, it is said that all but one proved to be manned by
incapable officers or mutinous crews, which is not quite true, but the one,

the schooner Lee, of eight small guns, Capt. John Manly, redeemed any
failure of the rest by the capture of the brigantine Nancy, already noted.
“This was an ordnance ship,” says Dodsley’s “Annual Register,” of
London, for 1776. She “contained, besides a large mortar upon a new
construction, several pieces of fine brass cannon, a large quantity of small
arms and ammunition, with all manner of tools, utensils, and machines
necessary for camps and artillery, in the greatest abundance. The loss of this
ship was much resented in England.” As a matter of fact, she carried 2,000
muskets, 8,000 fusees, 31 tons of musket bullets, 3,000 solid shot for
twelve-pounders, and two six-pounder cannon, besides gunpowder, etc. The
mortar was of thirteen-inch calibre, and afterward exploded. She was
brought into Cape Ann Roads on November 29, 1775. On December 8th the
Lee took three more transports that were less valuable to the Americans, but
the loss hurt the British rather more. For, insignificant as were the vessels
captured when considered as a part of the whole fleet employed against the
colonies, one need only glance at the state of affairs in Boston to understand
why the loss of one ordnance ship was “resented in England,” and why the
taking of three other transports was a still more serious matter. Boston was
cut off from the back country. All supplies had to come from over the water.
“Toward the end of the season Government went to a vast expense in
sending out provisions and necessaries of all sorts,” says the British
authority just quoted. “The want of fresh provisions had caused much
sickness there. ... No less than 5,000 oxen, 14,000 of the largest and fattest
sheep and a vast number of hogs were purchased and sent out alive.” They
also sent out coal and even kindling wood, not to mention vegetables. But
the winds were against them. The live stock died on board before they got
away from the home coasts, “so that the channel was everywhere strowed
with the carcasses of these animals.” The vegetables “fermented and
perished.” On top of all these losses the capture of even such small vessels
as schooners of a hundred tons was a serious loss, for the whole British
force in Boston was hungry, while houses had to be torn down to supply
fuel.
To add to the mortification of the enemy, some of the captures were
made within sight of British frigates which, through the failure of the wind
or the action of the tide, were unable to interfere. A British account of one
of these audacious attacks that in the end was frustrated will illustrate the
character of the Yankee privateer.

“On the 23d of November a small fleet of transports under convoy of
the frigate Tartar arrived off Boston, and with the exception of two safely
entered the port. The ship Hunter and a brig, owing to a shift in the wind,
were obliged to anchor outside the harbor, which being observed by two
American privateers that had been following the convoy, they in the most
daring manner attacked and boarded them, setting them on fire. A signal
was immediately made for the Raven to weigh anchor and go in chase, but
Lieutenant John Bourmaster, who had been appointed to protect Boston
Lighthouse, then under repair, and who was in command of an armed
transport, on observing the privateers fire upon the Hunter, set sail and
reached the transports in time to save them from destruction.”
Among the little cruisers that saw the most service was the Franklin
schooner. Under Capt. John Selman she went with the Lynch to the St.
Lawrence River to intercept the two transports mentioned in the report of
the doings of the Congress on October 5, 1775, wherein it was resolved that
“a letter be sent to General Washington to inform him that Congress having
received certain intelligence of the sailing of two north country built brigs,
of no force, from England on the 11th of August last, loaded with arms,
powder and other stores, for Quebec, without convoy, which it being of
importance to intercept,” etc., the general was to send two cruisers after
them.

From the copy at the Lenox Library.
Captain Selman failed to find the brigs, but “missing them, they took
ten other vessels and Governor Wright of St. John’s. All these vessels were

released as we had waged a ministerial war and not one against our most
gracious sovereign.”
They changed their tactics after their most gracious sovereign was
pleased to send Hessians to crush them.
The Franklin was thereafter stationed in and near Massachusetts Bay,
and early in the spring of 1776, under Capt. James Mugford, captured a
transport having 1,500 barrels of powder in her hold, besides other war
supplies.
It is recorded that Capt. Samuel Tucker, while in command of
Massachusetts cruisers, captured no less than thirty vessels belonging to the
enemy.
The most brilliant achievement of this mosquito fleet during 1776 was
on June 17th. The Connecticut cruiser Defence, Captain Harding, heard a
cannonading to the north of Plymouth, and cruising in that direction, met
the schooner Lee, now under Capt. Daniel Waters, and three other
privateers. They had had a running fight with two big transports that had
gone into Nantasket Roads. So the Yankees determined to follow them
there. At 11 o’clock at night Captain Harding ran in between the two
transports and came to anchor. He was but a dozen yards from each of
them. Having everything ready, he hailed and ordered both of them to
strike.
“Aye, aye—I’ll strike,” said a voice from one of them, and then a
broadside was fired from it into the Defence. The Defence replied, but the
enemy held out for an hour. When they surrendered it was found that the
two contained 200 regular soldiers of the Seventy-first Regiment. Major
Menzies, who had been in command, was the one to answer the hail by
saying he would strike, and then firing. He was killed with seventeen others
during the battle. The next morning another transport with 100 more men of
the same regiment was captured.
But if this was counted daring work by the British authorities, there
were other deeds to come which were unquestionably shocking to the
British merchants, for, following the example set by the Revenge and the
Surprise of the regular navy, the privateers went seeking prizes on the
coasts and in the very harbors of Great Britain herself. In daring, these

privateers quite equalled Connyngham and John Paul Jones. A British
account of one of these descents says:
“An American privateer of twelve guns came into this road (Guernsey)
yesterday morning, tacked about on firing of the guns from the Castle, and
just off the Island took a large brig bound for this port which they have
since carried into Cherbourg. She had the impudence to send her boat in the
dusk of the evening to a little island off here called Jetto and unluckily
carried off the lieutenant of Worthley’s Independent Company, here, with
the adjutant, who were shooting rabbits for their diversion. The brig they
took is valued at seven thousand pounds.”
It is unfortunate that the log-books and diaries kept on most of these
cruisers have disappeared, for many a stirring tale of adventure has thus
been lost. Nevertheless, authentic details of some of the deeds done are by
no means wanting. For instance, there was one Thomas Truxton of whom
the British heard to their sorrow in after years. He was in command of the
privateer Independence, of New York, in 1777. Going to the Azores, he
captured a number of small prizes, and then had the luck to fall in with the
convoy from the Windward Islands. There were frigates to protect the fleet,
but Truxton cut out three big ships, of which one was armed and manned
better than the Independence, save only for the difference in captains.
Returning to port, he fitted out the Mars with twenty odd guns and
made a cruise in the English Channel. Here his prizes were numerous, and it
is said that those he sent into Quiberon Bay “in a great measure laid the
foundation of Lord Stormonth’s remonstrance to the French Court, against
the admission into her ports of our armed vessels and cruisers”—a
remonstrance that was not heeded, and so the French became involved in
war with England to the great advantage of the colonies.
Later still, while en route to France in the St. James of twenty guns, he
beat off a ship of thirty-two guns that had been sent out expressly to capture
him. A good story is told of this fight. A ball had passed through her side
and lodged in her mainmast. “A fine forecastle man named Jack Sutton,
perceiving the ball the moment it struck the mast, seized it, ran with it to a
gunner, and said: ‘Here, gunner, take this shot, write post paid upon it, and
send it back to the rascals.’”

Capt. John Foster Williams was another daring privateer. In 1778, in
the Hazard, that mounted fourteen four-pounders and two three-pounders,
he captured the brig Active, that mounted eighteen six-pounders, six smaller
guns, and ten one-pounder swivels. The fight lasted forty minutes, and the
Active lost thirty-three in killed and wounded to the Hazard’s eight.
In May, 1779, he was placed in the twenty-gun ship Protector,
belonging to Massachusetts, and in June he fought the British privateer
Admiral Duff, an equal ship, yardarm to yardarm, for an hour, when the
enemy took fire and blew up. Only fifty-five of her crew were picked up.
Returning from this cruise, he fell in with the thirty-two-gun frigate
Thames, and after a running fire compelled her to haul off.
And then there was Capt. Alexander Murray. In the Revenge, of
eighteen guns, in 1780, he beat off two ships of the British navy, of which
one mounted eighteen and the other sixteen guns. This was at the capes of
the Chesapeake. Afterwards he took a cargo of tobacco from Richmond,
Virginia, in a ship that had only five six-pounders for armament. At sea he
fell in with a privateer of fourteen guns and 100 men. Murray, having so
few guns, shifted them across the deck as occasion required, and blazed
away. His ship, owing to the superior number of guns of the enemy, was
eventually so cut up aloft that only the mainmast and bowsprit remained
standing; nevertheless, Captain Murray beat off the enemy in spite of four
desperate attempts to carry him by boarding.

Alexander Murray.
From an engraving by Edwin of the painting by Wood.

Greater still was the renown of Capt. Daniel Waters. Captain Waters
was sent to sea by General Washington in the Lee, as already mentioned in
this chapter. In 1778, while in command of the privateer Thorn, of sixteen
guns, he amply justified the confidence the general had manifested in him
by his fight with two English sloops-of-war. One was the Governor Tryon,
of sixteen guns, Captain Stebbins, and the other the Sir William Erskine, of
eighteen guns, Captain Hamilton. After two hours of such desperate
fighting as was shown but rarely, the Tryon struck and the Erskine hauled
off. But Captain Waters would not let the Erskine escape. He set more sail,
overhauled her, and compelled her to strike. As night came on the Tryon

managed to escape, but Captain Waters manned the Erskine and sent her in.
He had but sixty men left in the Thorn. Nevertheless, when he fell in with
the Sparlin, of eighteen guns and ninety-seven men, next day, he gave battle
and captured her also.
If any further proof be wanted of the fact that it is the heart of the
commander and not the number of his men or the weight of his metal that
wins in a sea-fight, it will be found in the tale of the American privateer
Hyder Ali and the British ship General Monk. Capt. Joshua Barney
commanded the Hyder Ali, and he had had a lot of good training before he
became the hero of the story now to be told. He had had (through accident)
command of a ship when but seventeen years old, and acquitted himself
with honor. He had sailed in the Hornet in the first American naval
squadron. He had seen exciting service in the Wasp under Captain
Alexander. He had captured a British privateer while commanding the little
sloop Sachem. He was in the Andrea Doria when she fought the Racehorse.
He had been captured while bringing in a prize, and had survived the
frightful ill-treatment the prisoners on the prison ship Jersey received. He
escaped thence, and while in command of a cargo ship, had beaten off the
Rosebud, Captain Duncan, a ship of sixteen guns, by firing a crowbar at her,
and so cutting away all her headgear and disabling her foremast.

From an engraving by Gross after a miniature by
Isabey.
And so the 8th of April, 1782, arrived. On that day he took command of
the Hyder Ali, of the Pennsylvania State service, and started to convoy a
fleet of merchantmen from Philadelphia out to sea. The Hyder Ali carried

sixteen six-pounders and 110 men. At the capes the fleet found the British
frigate Quebec, the brig Fair American, of sixteen guns, and the brig
General Monk, Captain Rogers, carrying “only (sic) sixteen carronades,
twelve-pounders, and two long six-pounders” (so says Allen). The Quebec
could not get around the shoals, and had no part in the affray. The Fair
American went hunting the convoy, and the General Monk came after the
Hyder Ali.
As the Englishman approached, Captain Barney saw his immense
superiority in men and metal, but determined to make a fight. Calling his
officers and men around him, he said:
“If I direct you to prepare for boarding you are to understand me as
meaning that you are to remain at your guns, and be ready to fire the
moment the word is given. If on the contrary I order you to give him a
broadside, you are to consider me as calling for boarders, and to hold
yourselves ready to board as soon as we gain a proper position.”
A little later the Englishman ranged up within a dozen yards or less,
and in a loud voice demanded that the Hyder Ali strike her colors.
“Hard a port your helm—do you want him to run aboard us?” bawled
Captain Barney to the man at the wheel of the Hyder Ali.
“The ready witted seaman understood his cue and clapped his helm
hard a starboard. The enemy’s jib boom caught in the fore rigging of the
Hyder Ali and there remained entangled during the short but glorious action
that ensued. The Hyder Ali thus gained a raking position of which she
availed herself to its utmost benefit. More than twenty broadsides were
fired in twenty-six minutes and scarcely a shot missed its effect; entering in
at the starboard bow and making their way out through the port quarter. In
less than half an hour from the firing of the first broadside the British flag
waved its proud folds no longer in the breeze.”

Fight of the Hyder Ali with the General Monk, 1782.
From a painting by Crépin at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.

This quotation is from a “Biographical Memoir” of Barney, made from
his private papers by Mary Barney. Having captured the Monk, Barney
stood up the Delaware, drove the Fair American ashore, and easily escaped
the frigate. A comparative statement of the forces of the combatants is
worth giving. The British ship carried a crew of 136 men; the American,
110. The British ship was armed with sixteen twelve-pounders and two long
sixes—she could throw 102 pounds of metal at a broadside; the American
carried sixteen six-pounders—she could throw forty-eight pounds of metal
at a broadside. The British had more than twice the metal and they had a
much greater number of men—men, too, who had long been fighting
together, while the American crew had not been on board a month.
The comparison of losses is equally significant. The Monk lost twenty
men killed and thirty-three wounded—fifty-three out of 136. The Hyder Ali
lost four killed and eleven wounded. The first lieutenant, purser, surgeon,
boatswain, and chief gunner were among the Monk’s killed, and her captain
was severely wounded.

It is said that the General Monk had captured sixty American vessels in
two years.

A Relic of Two Revolutionary Captains: Bill of
Lading for John Barry Signed by Joshua Barney.
From the original at the Lenox Library.

Did space permit, many other brave deeds of the privateers might be
given. Of especial interest, though of small moment in their immediate
effect upon the war, was the work done in whaleboats along the coast and
especially upon Long Island Sound. The adventures of these brave—they
were often even reckless—men lived in the tales told at the firesides long
after the Revolution, and stirred the hearts that in another war were to
emulate the deeds of this one, and with a success that astounded the natural
enemy of the struggling young nation.
But if all the tales may not be repeated here, something may be told of
what these Yankee privateers accomplished. In the following quotation from

Dodsley’s “Annual Register” for 1778 is found a statement made in
Parliament regarding this work up to the end of 1777. It says:
“The number of vessels belonging to Great Britain and Ireland, taken
by ships of war and privateers belonging to the said colonies, amount to
733.—That of that number, it appears that 47 have been released, and 127
retaken; but that the loss on the latter, for salvage, interest on the value of
the cargo, and loss of a market, must have been very considerable.—That
the loss of the remaining 559 vessels, which have been carried into port,
appears, from the examination of merchants, to amount at least to
2,600,000 l.—That of 200 ships anually employed in the African trade,
before the commencement of the present civil war, whose value, upon an
average, was about 9,000 l. each, there are not now forty ships, employed in
that trade, whereby there is a diminution in this branch of comerce of 160
ships, which at 9,000 l. each, amount to a loss of 1,440,000 l. per annum.—
That the price of insurance to the West Indies and North America, is
increased from two, and two and a half, to five per cent with convoy; but
without convoy, and unarmed, the said insurance has been made at fifteen
per cent. But generally ships in such circumstances cannot be insured at all.
—That the price of a seaman’s wages is raised from one pound ten
shillings, to three pounds five shillings per month.—That it appears to this
committee, that the present diminution of the African trade, the interruption
of the American trade to the West Indies, and the captures made of the
West-India ships, have greatly distressed the British colonies in the West
Indies. That the numbers of American privateers, of which authentic
accounts have been received, amount to 173; and that they carried 2,556
guns, and at least 13,840 seamen, reckoning 80 men in each ship.—And
that, of the above privateers, 34 have been taken, which carried 3,217 men,
which is more than 94 men to each vessel.”

“The Howes Asleep in Philadelphia.”—A Caricature Drawn forth by
the Doings of Revolutionary Privateers.
(The cow represents British commerce; while the American cuts off her horns, a
Hollander milks her, the Frenchman and Spaniard help themselves to the milk, the British
merchant wrings his hands in despair, and the British Lion sleeps through it all. In the
background are the two Howes asleep, and the Eagle high and dry, the rest of the fleet
being nowhere visible.)

To this may be added a statement from the London “Remembrancer”
(vol. v), which says that “the number of English vessels employed in the
West India trade, captured by American cruisers, amounted on the 1st
February, 1777, to two hundred and fifty sail: value of their cargoes, about
ten millions of dollars. In the course of one week fourteen English vessels
were carried into Martinique. So overstocked was the market of this island,
by these privateers, that English silk stockings, which had usually sold for
two or three dollars, were disposed of for one dollar. Sailors went from door
to door, offering their prize goods for sale; nor could they dispose of Irish
linens for more than two dollars per piece. Other goods sold in proportion.
Of a fleet of sixty vessels, from Ireland, for the West Indies, thirty-five were
captured by American privateers!”

Still another British account of the distress occasioned by the
privateers, written from Grenada, says:
“We are happy if we can get anything for money by reason of the
quantity of vessels that are taken by American privateers. A fleet of vessels
came from Ireland a few days ago. From sixty vessels that departed from
Ireland not above twenty-five arrived in this and neighboring islands, the
others, it is thought, being all taken by the American privateers. God knows
if this American war continues much longer we shall all die with hunger.
There was a Guineaman that came from Africa with 450 negroes, some
thousand weight of gold dust and a great many elephant teeth; the whole
cargo being computed to be worth twenty thousand pounds sterling, taken
by an American privateer, a brig mounting fourteen cannon, a few days
ago.”

The British Prison Ship Jersey.
From an old wood-cut.

A brief reference to the prison ship in which the privateers were
confined when captured by the enemy on the American coast will serve
very well to close this chapter. The reference may be brief, because it is so
notorious in the annals of civilized warfare as to be known to every
schoolboy. The special jail of the privateers was the dismantled man-o’-war

hulk Jersey. As consorts she had four other hulks, but the Jersey was the
receiving ship. If the unfortunates captured and taken to England were, by
the deliberate and publicly debated act of Parliament, fed with an allowance
of bread that was half a pound less per day than was allowed to the hated
Frenchmen, one would naturally expect still worse treatment for those who
were kept by jailers unrestrained by the sentiments of the humane portion of
their countrymen.
The Jersey was at first anchored near the city of New York. She leaked
constantly, and her hold, where the prisoners were confined, was damp and
rotten. They had no means for cleaning themselves or the hold. The careless
were herded with those who would have been careful. The damnable
conditions there bred the ship-fever and other diseases. Instead of
disinfecting the hulk the authorities moved it over to Wallabout Bay, where
the Brooklyn Navy Yard is now located. This was done to keep the
contagion from spreading to the city. Then a regiment of renegade
Americans was quartered in most comfortable fashion within sight of this
prison ship, and the terrors of the ship were then deliberately increased. The
food of the prisoners consisted of the bread and meat that had been ordered
for the British forces, but was condemned as unfit for human beings. And
the quantity was very scant at that.

A Permit to Visit One of the Prison Ships.
From the original at the Lenox Library.

The sick were placed in bunks where the snow could sift down through
hatchways and in through open seams on to the one blanket allowed for
covering. To the ravages of disease were added the horrors of frozen limbs,
and living men saw their own feet drop off because of this treatment.
At night the prisoners were driven to their bunks with curses and the
cry of “Down, rebels, down!” In the morning they were turned out with
other imprecations and the words “Rebels, turn out your dead!”
And there were dead a-plenty to turn out every day in the year. The
British jailers would point to the well-kept renegades and offer to send any
prisoner who would join them to enjoy the same comforts, but the love of

home and of liberty was so strong in the hearts of these men that they chose
death instead of such a release from prison—more than ten thousand
Americans chose death by lingering torture on the British prison ships in
New York rather than dishonor.
David Sproats was the chief keeper of the prison ships. He boasted that
he had killed more “rebels” than all the king’s armies had done. To
aggravate his offences, he offered to exchange the sick and dying
privateersmen in his charge for an equal number of British regulars who
could pass inspection as fit for service, and because Washington refused to
thus aid in recruiting the waning forces of the enemy the horrors of the
prison ships were increased. And because of this refusal the English writers
say to this day that if any American died on the prison ship it was his own
fault, or the fault of the American authorities who refused to make an
exchange!

MAP OF THE WALE BOGT AND ITS VICINTY.
AT THE TIME OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

A Relic of the Prison Ships: Entrance to the Vault
of the Martyrs.
From an old wood-cut.

If those Englishmen who wonder why it is that American schoolboys,
when playing games of “war,” invariably speak of the “enemy” as “the
British”—if those wondering English wish to learn why this is so, let them
read with candid minds the true story of the American struggle for life and
liberty.

CHAPTER IX

JOHN PAUL JONES AND THE BONHOMME
RICHARD
A CONDEMNED INDIAMAN, ILL-SHAPED AND ROTTEN, FITTED AS A MAN-O’-
WAR—A DISHEARTENING CRUISE WITH INCAPABLE AND MUTINOUS
ASSOCIATES—ATTEMPT TO TAKE LEITH, AND THE SCOTCH PARSON’S
PRAYER—MEETING THE SERAPIS—WHEN JOHN PAUL JONES HAD “NOT YET
BEGUN TO FIGHT”; WHEN HE HAD “GOT HER NOW”; WHEN HE WOULD NOT
“SURRENDER TO A DROP OF WATER”—READY WIT OF RICHARD DALE—
WORK OF A BRIGHT MARINE—A BATTLE WON BY SHEER PLUCK AND
PERSISTENCE.

The one sea-fight of the American struggle for liberty that is of
unfailing interest was that in which John Paul Jones, in the Bonhomme
Richard, whipped the British frigate Serapis. And the student need not go
far to seek the reason for this interest, because it is found in the fact that it
was the man that won, and neither the ship nor the crew. It was won in spite
of such obstacles as no other man has ever been obliged to face at sea. It
was a victory typical of the ultimate success of the American cause, for it
was a victory that was literally dragged out of the breakers of destruction.
John Paul Jones reached Brest, France, after his brilliant cruise in the
Ranger, on May 8, 1778. It was not until February 4, 1779, that he was
again ordered in command of a ship. The delay was due, of course, to the
utter lack of funds to the account of the American commissioners in France.
France, however, was at war with England, and to the French court Jones
applied, time and again, but without success until after he happened to read
one of Franklin’s old “Almanacks” containing “Poor Richard’s Maxims.”
Therein he read that wise saying: “If you wish to have any business done
faithfully and expeditiously, go and do it yourself.”

This is worth telling, first, because Jones acted on this advice, and on
going to Paris was so well received that he got a ship. It is also worth telling
because the maxim made such a deep impression on Jones that, having been
placed in command of a ship, he changed her name to “Poor Richard,”
which, when translated into French, is Bonhomme Richard. That the
Bonhomme Richard will float in history so long as a record of sails exists
scarce need be said.
A most remarkable vessel was this that was transferred to the use of the
American commander. On reaching L’Orient, where she was lying, he
found her a huge, wall-sided merchantman that had ended her usefulness as
an India trader, and was now to be transferred to another use, just as worn-
out ships in these days become coal barges in the Atlantic coasting trade.
She had an enormously high poop and an enormously high forecastle. Her
masts were short, her sails were squat, and her bows and stern were as blunt
as those of an Erie Canal boat. But, worst of all, she was so old that the life
was out of all of her timbers, and some of them were wholly rotten.
Nevertheless, this energetic sailorman set about fitting her for a warship
where a man of ordinary enthusiasm would have hesitated about trusting
himself afloat offshore in her. What labor fitting her for sea implied may be
inferred from the fact that, after a look at her, “he hastened to Bordeaux to
order the casting of the cannon.”
As an Indiaman the ship had carried guns on her main deck. The guns
had been removed, and Jones went to Bordeaux to get eighteen-pounders to
put there, but finding it would take too long to provide them, he was forced
to content himself with twelve-pounders. On the forecastle and the
quarterdeck he mounted nine-pounders—four forward and four aft. Then, as
the ship stood high out of water, he went down on the deck below the main
and had six ports cut through on each side, and for these he procured six
eighteen-pounders, which were installed, three on each side, leaving three
empty ports on each side—ports which, though empty, served the purpose
of making the enemy think his ship more powerful than it really was. As the
event showed, it was not even as powerful as Jones supposed it was. But,
worst of all among the perils of such a voyage as was proposed (had Jones
been a man to calculate perils), was that found in the heterogeneous
character of his crew when shipped. American naval ships have since had as
curious mixtures as this one did, but it is worth noting that, besides

Americans, it contained men from England, Ireland, and Scotland; from
Norway, France, Spain, Portugal, Malta, and the Portuguese Islands; from
Africa, India, and the Malayan Peninsula. With such a crew as this, and
short-handed at that, Captain Jones had to go to sea; but, as will be told
further on, he got some recruits of a stamp worth having. Meantime, while
fitting out the Bonhomme Richard, he was joined by Master’s Mate Richard
Dale, who had escaped from the terrors of the British prison. Dale shipped
with Jones as master’s mate, but he was what would be called in the slang
of these days a “hustler,” and before the ship sailed the discriminating eye
of the master had picked him out for first lieutenant. Next to Jones, the
credit of the great fight that followed was due to the unwearied zeal and the
undaunted courage of this man.

From an engraving by Dodson after the portrait by
Wood.
Meantime arrangements had been making to give Captain Jones a fleet
instead of a single ship. The Congress had built a frigate of thirty-two guns
—she carried thirty-six, however, all told—which, because of the recently
formed alliance between France and the United States, was named the
Alliance. As a further compliment to the French one Pierre Landais, a
French naval lieutenant, was placed in command of her. It was a pleasant

thing to compliment France, but disastrous to appoint Landais, for he had a
vein of insanity in him due to brooding over his previous failure to gain
promotion in the service of his own country. The Alliance was detailed to
carry Lafayette home to France after his service in America, and this duty
she performed, although she was narrowly saved from capture when a
number of Englishmen in her crew mutinied—a crime, by the way, for
which no penalty was inflicted, because of the noble generosity of
Lafayette. The Alliance was ordered to sail under Captain Jones. To these
was added a merchant ship called the Pallas, commanded by Capt. Denis
Nicholas Cottineau. She was armed with thirty-two guns. Then a brig,
called the Vengeance, Captain Ricot (also a Frenchman), was secured, and
then the squadron was completed with a man-o’-war cutter carrying
eighteen small guns.
It was at first intended that Lafayette, with a considerable force of
soldiers, should go with the fleet and make a flying assault upon Liverpool,
but this project was abandoned because the French meditated a more
formidable assault upon the somewhat “tight little isle.” Then a general
cruise against British commerce was proposed and carried out.
But before any detail of this cruise is given a paragraph must be
inserted here from a letter of instructions which Franklin, as the head of the
American commissioners in France, sent to Captain Jones. When
considered in connection with the act of Parliament by which American
prisoners in England were starved, it is worth printing in italics:
“As many of your officers and people have recently escaped from
English prisons, you are to be particularly attentive to their conduct toward
the prisoners which the fortune of war may throw into your hands, lest the
resentment of the more than barbarous usage by the English in many places
toward the Americans, should occasion a retaliation and imitation of what
ought rather to be detested and avoided for the sake of humanity and for the
honor of our country.”
It was on February 4, 1779, that Captain Jones was ordered to the
Bonhomme Richard. It was not until June 19th that he was able to sail with
his little fleet. He had a right to suppose that his troubles were now at an
end, but as a matter of fact they were only begun. Capt. Pierre Landais was,
from the start, mutinous. He had claimed superiority of rank, and this not

being allowed, he was determined to thwart his chief in every way possible.
On the first night out he ran the Alliance foul of the Bonhomme Richard by
steering across her bows, carrying away his own mizzenmast and a lot of
the headgear of the Bonhomme Richard. At this a return to port became
necessary, and it was two months before the investigation by the authorities
and the repairs were completed.
Unfortunate as this mishap appeared at the time, it proved in the end a
blessing, for while lying in port 119 Americans came over from England
through an exchange of prisoners, and more than 100 of them shipped with
Captain Jones. In the fight that was to come not a man of these could have
been spared.
When, on August 14, 1779, the fleet once more sailed from L’Orient, it
had been augmented by the Monsieur and the Granville, two very good
French privateers. But, although they added to the number of guns, they
were a source of trouble. When four days out the Monsieur captured a
Holland ship that was in the hands of a British crew. The captain of the
Monsieur appropriated this as the private property of his ship instead of the
property of the squadron. When Jones interfered the two privateers left the
squadron. As they were Frenchmen many of their countrymen in the fleet
sympathized with them, and discontent was thus spread in the crews.
On August 21st a brigantine was captured and sent to L’Orient. On the
23d, off Cape Clear, the Bonhomme Richard, during a calm, was set toward
some rocks by a current. When some rowboats were lowered with a line to
tow her clear some Englishmen in one of them cut the tow-line and made a
successful dash for shore. Sailing Master Lunt pursued them in another
boat, was lost in a fog, and was finally obliged to go ashore. He was, of
course, sent to Mill prison.
On the 24th Captain Landais came on board the flagship, and in a most
insolent manner accused Captain Jones of losing the men through
incapacity. He declared that “he was the only American in the squadron and
was determined to follow his own opinion in chasing when and where he
thought proper, and in every other matter that concerned the service.”
And he did it, too. Had he done no worse Captain Jones would have
been thankful.

Pierre Landais.
From a copy, at the Lenox Library, of a miniature.

On the 26th the squadron separated in a gale, only the Vengeance and a
captured brigantine remaining in sight of the flagship, but on September 1st,
while the flagship was chasing a vessel near the Flannen Islands, the
Alliance was sighted with a prize she had taken. The prize proved very
valuable, for she was well loaded with all sorts of rigging and stores that
were in route to Quebec for use in fitting out a fleet on the American lakes.
On September 2d the Pallas was sighted, and two days later a Shetland
pilot was taken, and Captain Jones called a council of his captains to
consider the news obtained from him. Captain Landais refused to attend
this, even when a written order to do so was sent him. However, he
continued with the squadron that then sailed down the east coast of
Scotland, until September 8th, when his vessel disappeared once more.

The squadron now consisted of but two vessels beside the flagship—
the Vengeance and the Pallas. The Cerf had disappeared in the gale. On the
13th the Cheviot Hills were descried, and on nearing the coast next day a
ship and a brig were captured. From the crews of these it was learned that
there was no land battery to defend Leith, and that the only armed vessel in
the firth or bay on which it stands carried but twenty guns.
Captain Jones called the captains of the other two ships on board and
proposed an attack on Leith. “It is a matter of the utmost importance to
teach the enemy humanity by some exemplary stroke of retaliation,” he
said. He explained that they could at once capture some people of note to
hold as hostages, and could so alarm the nation that public attention would
be drawn to the north and away from the south coast, where the French
were really preparing to invade. The French captains hesitated and argued
half the night away, until Jones proposed to levy a heavy contribution on
both Leith and Edinburgh that lay just behind Leith. Then they agreed with
enthusiasm, but they had really lost their opportunity.
Returning to their ships, the captains made sail for Leith. The little
squadron succeeded in entering the firth, and got as far as Kirkcaldy. They
had, meantime, been seen from the coasts roundabout, and especially from
the heights of Edinburgh, so that the country-side was in a terrible state of
alarm. But luck was against the fleet, and the only result of the attempt on
Leith that is worth mention is a good story of the parson of the Kirkcaldy
Church.

Leith Pier and Harbor.
From an old engraving.

The tide had run well out as the fleet approached Kirkcaldy. Some of
the women of the town, at the first alarm of the coming of “the pirate,” ran
to the parson for protection. In answer to their cries he picked up the
armchair in his study, and with it ran down to the low-water mark on the
beach. He was in a perspiration when he got there and very much out of
breath, but as his flock gathered around him he plumped himself down in
his chair, facing the sea, and appealed to Almighty God as follows:
“Now, Lord, dinna ye think it is a shame for ye to send this vile pirate
to rob our folk o’ Kirkcaldy? For ye ken they are puir enough already, and
hae naething to spare. They are all fairly guid, and it wad be a pity to serve
them in sic a wa’. The wa’ the wind blows, he’ll be here in a jiffy, and wha
kens what he may do? He is nane too guid for onything. Muckle’s the
mischief he has done already. Ony pocket gear they hae gathered thegither,
he will gang wi’ the whole o’t, and maybe burn their houses, tak’ their
cla’es, and strip them to their sarks! And wae’s me! Wha kens but the
bluidy villain may tak’ their lives? The puir women are maist frightened out
o’ their wuts, and the bairns skreeking after them. I canna tho’t it! I canna
tho’t it! I hae been long a faithfu’ servant to ye, Lord; but gin ye dinna turn
the wind about, and blow the scoundrel out o’ our gate, I’ll nae stir a foot,

but just sit here until the tide comes in and drowns me. Sae tak’ your wull
o’t, Lord!”
While the parson prayed came one of the sudden squalls down from the
mountains. The squalls are common enough at that season, but the parson’s
flock, on seeing the bay flecked over with the white foam ripped by a
contrary wind from the tiny waves, with one accord shouted that the
parson’s prayer had been answered. The parson was so proud of his prayer
that he wrote it out for his admirers, and so it has been preserved for the
amusement of posterity.
As the old parson told the Lord, “the pirate” would have been upon
them all “in a jiffy”—had he not been delayed by the argument with his
captains, he would have reached Leith before the wind came out of the
west. It seems singular at the first look that Jones should have consulted the
captains at all, but it must be told that he was obliged to do so because the
jealous Landais had, before sailing, succeeded in getting the French
minister to order such consultations when matters of great importance were
in hand. The squadron was sailing under the American flag, but it had
French orders.
On leaving the Firth of Forth the French captains became mutinous
through fear of the British fleet sure to be sent from the south when the tale
of the attempt on Leith was told there. They gave the captain until the 22d
to make sail for other waters, and threatened to leave him if he did not do
so. But they thought better of it afterwards.
The Pallas did, indeed, disappear on the 22d while the squadron was
near Flamborough Head, but on the morning of the 23d the flagship, with
the Vengeance, fell in with her at daylight and found the Alliance with her.
It should be told, by the way, that on the 22d, while the Bonhomme
Richard was lying close in shore, she was accosted by a man in a small boat
who said he had been sent by a member of Parliament living near the coast
to ask for some powder and bullets for defence against “the pirate Jones,”
who was known to be on the coast. The Bonhomme Richard had been
mistaken for a British warship. Captain Jones sent a barrel of powder ashore
with a message of regret saying that he had no projectiles of proper size.

From an engraving by Guttenberg, after a drawing by
Notté, in the collection of Mr. W. C. Crane.
But the day of all days in the career of John Paul Jones, the 23d of
September, 1779, was now at hand. At noon, as the four vessels of the
squadron were jogging along to the north, they saw with mingled feeling of
consternation and hope a fleet that numbered forty-two ships come around
Flamborough Head. If this was a war fleet the fate of the squadron under
the American flag was sealed, and he who was called in British state papers
“the pirate Jones, a rebel subject and criminal of the state,” would hang at
Execution Dock. If it was a merchant fleet under an ordinary convoy the
condition of affairs would be different—it would be a most exhilarating
condition of affairs. There was a light breeze at the time, and the big fleet

was well inshore. As Captain Jones, after a prolonged examination,
concluded that he had merchantmen in a convoy of two frigates before him,
he saw a small boat pull hastily off to the larger of the two frigates and a
man mounted from it to her deck. A moment later three signal flags were
fluttering from the maintruck of the frigate and a gun was fired to windward
—a signal to the merchantmen to seek safety in flight.
In wild confusion the merchantmen obeyed, scattering hither and yon;
but the frigates, one of which was the Serapis, Captain Pearson, of fifty
guns, and the other the Countess of Scarborough, Captain Piercy, of twenty-
two six-pounders, bravely bore down to meet the enemy, in spite of the fact
that the Yankee fleet numbered four to their two. The captains of these two
English ships were so far worthy foes of any naval commander that ever
sailed.
Captain Jones now had what appeared an opportunity to not only
capture two good warships of the enemy without a too severe fight, but,
with good luck, some of the convoy. But once more the insubordination of
Landais on the Alliance became manifest, and well-nigh fatally. He not only
refused to obey the signal of the flagship to fall in line, but he sailed up near
the Pallas and said to her captain:
“If it is a ship of more than fifty guns we have nothing to do but to run
away.”
Fortunately, Captain Cottineau saw that more glory was to be obtained
by fighting the enemy than in quarrelling with the flag officer, and he
gallantly sailed to meet the smaller British frigate.
The Alliance was held aloof. The Vengeance was too far away to take
part in the battle.
In the movements of the fighting ships that followed, the wind was so
light that they merely drifted over the oil-smooth water. The sun sank out of
sight behind the hills and daylight faded away into darkness so that even the
lofty towers of canvas were seen only as the faintest shadows. But each side
was hunting for the other, and eventually, in the profound silence of a night
at sea, the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis drew near each other. When
but ten yards away from each other a voice from the Serapis demanded:
“What ship is that?”

“I can’t hear what you say,” replied Jones, wishing to get nearer before
opening fire. For a moment the ships drifted on in silence as before, and
then the voice was heard once more through the night:
“What ship is that? Answer, or I shall be under the necessity of firing
into you.”
Instead of answering the hail, Captain Jones in a low voice passed the
word to fire, and the next instant the spurting flames from the American
guns were answered, as it were, in the same breath by those of the British,
and the night battle was begun. It was then exactly seven o’clock.
At the first fire two of the three eighteen-pounders in the lower-deck
broadside of the Bonhomme Richard burst. “We could see that as we sighted
for our next broadside, because we could see how they hove up the gun-
deck above them,” wrote Capt. Francis Heddart, who was a midshipman on
the Serapis during the fight. And the midshipman and his men noted with
glee that thereafter none of these, the heaviest guns on the Yankee’s ship,
was fired. The crews of the two guns that burst were all either killed or
seriously wounded, and the men on that deck were called up to the main
deck to help work the guns there. And most remarkable results followed on
this move.

The Engagement between the Bonhomme Richard and
Serapis.
From an engraving by Hamilton of a drawing by Collier.

The Serapis had entered the fight close-hauled on the port tack and to
leeward. The Bonhomme Richard, running free, sailed across the enemy’s
bow and then came to the wind, while the enemy veered off a little, and
thereafter for one hour the two ships drifted side by side, drawing slowly
nearer to each other, while the men, with desperate energy, worked their
guns. But there was a vast difference in the guns. “We had ten eighteen-
pounders in each battery below,” wrote an officer of the Serapis afterward.
“I do not see why any shot should have failed.”
And no shot of that battery did fail during the first hour, and when they
failed later it was because they had shot the six ports of the Bonhomme
Richard into one huge chasm, not only on the side of her next to them, but
on the further side as well, so that when they fired some of the battery the
balls passed clear and fell into the sea beyond. There was not a splinter of
the American ship left in front of them. They had not only cut away the
walls of the Bonhomme Richard; they had practically cleared her lower
gundeck. There was no one left there save only a few marines that guarded
the line of boys passing cartridges from the magazine up to the guns on the
upper deck.
Nor was that the worst effect the English fire had had upon the
Bonhomme Richard. Taking advantage of the rolling of the vessels in the
long gentle swell, the English had been able to send a half dozen of their
eighteen-pound shot into the Bonhomme Richard below the water-line, and
she was “leaking like a basket.”
By this time the Serapis, having the wind of the Bonhomme Richard,
drew ahead, intending to lie across the latter’s bows and rake her. But the
captain miscalculated his distance, got too far down in front, yawed off, and
then putting his helm alee, came to the wind fair in front of the Bonhomme
Richard. A minute later the Bonhomme Richard ran her jibboom over the
stern of the Serapis, and then, because no great gun would bear on either
side, the fire, save for an occasional musket shot, ceased.
For a moment the two ships hung together in silence, and then the voice
of Captain Pearson was heard asking if the American ship had surrendered.
And John Paul Jones replied:
“I have not yet begun to fight.”

By the shifting of sails the two ships drifted apart. Once more the
commander of the Serapis strove to get into position to rake, but as the
Serapis wore around, the Bonhomme Richard forged ahead. Jones was
determined to keep close to the enemy, and soon the jibboom of the Serapis
fouled the starboard mizzen rigging of the Bonhomme Richard.

DIAGRAM OF THE SERAPIS-BONHOMME
RICHARD BATTLE
Note.—At 7.30 o’clock, when John Paul Jones said, “I have not
yet begun to fight,” the bow of his ship was against the stern of
the Serapis. He then backed his sails and went astern while the
enemy, with full sails, went ahead until, say, 7.45, when the
Serapis backed her foretopsail and wore around, bow from the
wind, and came back. Meantime Jones had filled away, and the
two ships got together at, say, 8.10 o’clock just where they had
first touched. They then drifted westerly until 9 o’clock, when the
Serapis anchored.

Turning to Carpenter Stacy, who was near at hand, Jones ordered a
hawser brought. When it came he helped with his own hands to lash the
jibboom of the Serapis fast to the mizzenmast of the Bonhomme Richard.
While doing this the hawser fouled in some way and Stacy began to curse.
“Don’t swear, Mr. Stacy,” said Jones. “In another moment we all may
be in eternity, but let us do our duty.”
They did their duty, and the ships were held hard and fast, and John
Paul Jones emphasized his faith in what had been done by saying:

“Well done, my brave lads. We have got her now.”
And so they had in one way. One anchor of the Serapis dropped over
on the Bonhomme Richard, and was secured where it would help to hold
her, and more lashings were passed elsewhere. Even when the Serapis
anchored she could not get away. But in the sense of capturing the Serapis,
never was such a triumphant cry raised with a less hope of accomplishing
the result.
The ships now lay with their starboard sides together. During the last
half hour or so the crew of the Serapis had been working their port battery.
When they ran across to work their starboard guns they were unable to open
their ports amidships because the ships were touching each other, so they
fired through their own closed ports, blowing the port-lids off.
On the Bonhomme Richard the men were no less determined. Their
remaining guns were fought even with cheerful vigor. Lieut. Richard Dale
used to tell how, on going down on the gundeck, he saw a gun’s crew of his
men racing with a crew over in the Serapis to see which would get loaded
first. The ships were side to side and the guns were muzzle-loaders. Each
crew, to get its charge set home, had to poke its long-handled rammer
through the enemy’s port before it could be inserted into the gun’s bore.
“Fair play, you damned Yankee,” roared an English gunner, poking his
rammer through the Yankee’s port.
“Mind your eye, Johnny Bull,” replied the Yankee, following the same
movement.
Alas! the “Johnny Bull” had been a trifle ahead of the “damned
Yankee,” and firing his gun, he dismounted that on the Bonhomme Richard.
The British were, in fact, soon quite as successful in their handling of
the main-deck battery as they had been with that on the lower deck. Every
twelve-pounder but one on the Bonhomme Richard was silenced in one way
and another, and so, too, were the little nine-pounders on the forecastle.
There were then but two cannon left in service on the Bonhomme Richard,
the two nine-pounders on the fighting side of the quarter-deck.

The Serapis and the Bonhomme Richard.
From an engraving by Lerpinière after a drawing by Fitler.

John Paul Jones had been working these two with his own hands,
loading one with double shot to cut down the enemy’s mainmast, and the
other with grape and canister to sweep away the crew on her deck.
In this desperate strait and when just in the act of ordering another
nine-pounder brought from the off side that he might use it on the crew of
the Serapis, his chief surgeon came up from below to announce that the
water was coming in so fast as to float the wounded, and to ask that the ship
be surrendered before she sank with all hands.
Turning on the surgeon with perfect self-possession, Captain Jones
replied, as if astounded at the request:
“What, Doctor! Would you have me strike to a drop of water? Here,
help me get this gun over.”
The doctor ran back to the wounded without delay, but Jones got the
gun over, and he served it, too.

A squad of twenty marines under Colonel de Chamilard had fled from
the quarter-deck, where they had been stationed to pick off the enemy’s gun
crews.
The enemy made an attempt to board. John Paul Jones, with a few men,
pikes in hand, stopped him. The moonlight was now bright, and seeing this
man before them—this “pirate”—they quailed.
Meantime matters had been going from bad to worse below decks on
the Bonhomme Richard. Not only was she steadily filling with water; the
blazing wads from the enemy’s guns had set her afire in several places.
These fires spread rapidly in spite of the efforts of some men sent below.
And then came the Alliance under Captain Landais. Sailing across the
bow of the Bonhomme Richard and the stern of the Serapis, of course, as
they lay together, he fired a broadside. The forecastle of the Bonhomme
Richard received the greater part of the projectiles, and Midshipman
Caswell was killed, while ten or a dozen seamen were killed and wounded.
Private signals were set, and a score of voices yelled to the Alliance that
they were firing into the wrong ship; but coming down on the broadside of
the Bonhomme Richard, she fired again, so that the cry arose:
“The Alliance has been captured by the British and is now attacking
us.”
It is likely that this was the only moment when John Paul Jones thought
of yielding, but as the Alliance drew off he continued the fight not only
against the enemy, but against the fire and water in his own ship.
And more to be feared were the fire and water. The ship was filling,
and when the carpenter tried the water, he found it five feet deep in her
hold, while the fire was rapidly approaching the magazine. On coming from
the well, he said disconsolately that the ship would sink. At that the Master
at Arms liberated the prisoners, two or three hundred in number, who were
confined below, and told them to save themselves. The struggle and
confusion that followed as these men came from their quarters were
frightful. Here were, indeed, many more English subjects running free than
all the crew of the Bonhomme Richard who were below decks. There were
almost as many as the entire crew. Then the gunner, who had heard the
remark about sinking and had seen the prisoners liberated, ran to the poop-

deck, and in a panic of fear strove to find the signal halliards that he might
haul down the flag in token of surrender. He was shouting as he ran:
“Quarter! for God’s sake, quarter! Our ship is sinking”; but John Paul
Jones heard the words, and turning around, he hurled an empty pistol at the
man’s head, fractured his skull by the blow, and knocked him headlong
down the hatch.
“Do you call for quarter?” shouted Captain Pearson, who had heard the
cry.
“Never!” replied John Paul Jones.
“Then I’ll give you none,” replied Pearson, and the fight went on, while
Jones sent his resourceful lieutenant, Richard Dale, below to see why the
cartridges of powder were no longer coming up, for neither he nor Dale at
this moment knew that the prisoners had been released.
But when he saw the condition of affairs below, Dale, instead of
quailing, with ready wit told the prisoners that the Serapis was just sinking
and their only hope of life was in keeping the Bonhomme Richard afloat. At
this the whole mob of them went to the pumps and to fighting the fire. They
worked in gangs till they dropped from sheer exhaustion, when other gangs
took their places.
There was one of them—a captain of a captured ship—who did not
believe the story. He climbed through the ports to the Serapis and told of
the hopeless condition of the American crew. But his story was discredited
because of an extraordinary occurrence on the Serapis. As the ships lay
together the mainyard of the Bonhomme Richard stretched fair over the
main hatch of the Serapis. Noticing this fact, a bright marine in the maintop
of the Bonhomme Richard took advantage of it. The marines in the tops had
been of the utmost service in clearing the decks of the enemy already, but
this man, with a leather bucket of hand grenades and a candle, climbed out
on the mainyard until over the hatch of the Serapis, and then, securing his
bucket to the sheet-block, he began dropping the lighted grenades into her
hold.
The hand grenade is a shell near the weight of a baseball. The first one
he dropped exploded on a great heap of gun cartridges that had accumulated
along the lower deck behind the guns. A tremendous explosion followed.

“It was awful! Some twenty of our men were fairly blown to pieces.
There were other men who were stripped naked, with nothing on but the
collars of their shirts and wristbands. Farther aft there was not so much
powder, perhaps, and the men were scorched or burned more than they were
wounded. I do not know how I escaped, but I do know that there was hardly
a man forward of my guns who did escape.” So wrote Captain Heddart,
already quoted. The explosion also set the Serapis on fire.

Paul Jones Capturing the Serapis.
From an engraving of the picture by Chappel.

That was the decisive moment of the battle. While the British had been
disabling all but three or four of the guns on the upper deck of the
Bonhomme Richard, the men in the tops of the Yankee ship and the

murderous fire of the nine-pounders, which Jones himself had worked, had
gradually driven all the men off the upper deck of the Serapis. That Captain
Pearson had escaped injury is a marvel, for he had with undaunted courage
directed the battle from the quarter-deck. But as the smoke of the great
explosion rose through his hatches, he found himself practically alone,
while Jones, with a cocked pistol in hand, was rallying his men successfully
to increase the fire of his upper-deck guns.
As the British commander saw the fight, he was now without men, and
the other Yankee frigate had but a short time before fired a broadside from
which some balls entered the Serapis. Captain Pearson knew nothing of the
treachery on the Alliance. He knew nothing (and this was to his discredit) of
the real state of affairs on the lower decks of the Bonhomme Richard. Going
to his flag that had been nailed to the mast, he tore it down with his own
hands.
A moment later John Paul Jones saw that the flag was down, and with
such feelings of relief as can scarcely be imagined, gave the order “cease
firing.”

CHAPTER X

AFTER THE SERAPIS SURRENDERED
RICHARD DALE TOO BRIGHT FOR THE BRITISH LIEUTENANT—A FAIR ESTIMATE
OF CAPTAIN PEARSON OF THE SERAPIS—THE TREACHERY OF LANDAIS—
REMARKABLE ESCAPE FROM TEXEL—HONORS FOR THE VICTOR—“THE
FAME OF THE BRAVE OUTLIVES HIM; HIS PORTION IS IMMORTALITY.”

As soon as the flag was dragged down on the Serapis, John Paul Jones
ordered Lieut. Richard Dale on board of her to take charge, but before he
could do so the mainmast of the Serapis came crashing down, pulling the
mizzentopmast with it. Then Dale jumped on the rail of his own ship,
grasped the brace of the yard from which the lucky hand-grenade had been
dropped, and swung himself down on the deck of the Serapis. A few of his
crew followed him.
“As he made his way aft he saw a solitary person leaning on the tafferil
in a melancholy posture, his face resting upon his hands. It was Captain
Pearson. He said to Dale,
“‘The ship has struck.’ While hurrying him on [the Bonhomme Richard]
an officer came from below and observed to Captain Pearson, that the ship
alongside was going down.
“‘We have got three guns clear, sir, and they’ll soon send her to the
devil.’
“The captain replied,
“‘It’s too late, sir. Call the men off. The ship has struck.
“‘I’ll go below, sir, and call them off immediately,’ and he was about to
descend when Dale, interfering, said,
“‘No, sir, if you please you’ll come on board with me.’”

The above is quoted from the “British Journal” of an old date. Dale was
of the opinion that, once that officer got below, he would have disregarded
the surrender—that he would have used the three guns to send the
Bonhomme Richard “to the devil,” as he had proposed to do. That he might
have done so is not doubted.

Captain Sir Richd. Pearson Knt.
Lieutenant Governor of Greenwich Hospital

And then came John Paul Jones to receive the sword of the defeated
Pearson. According to the older accounts of this fight, Pearson said, as he
handed his sword to his conqueror:

“It is painful to deliver up my sword to a man who has fought with a
halter around his neck.”
To this, it is said, Jones replied:
“Sir, you have fought like a hero; and I make no doubt your sovereign
will reward you in the most ample manner.”

John Paul Jones.
After a rare engraving.

In the present era of intense desire for arbitration instead of war a
historian of this battle has written that “The story that Captain Pearson said,
in giving up his sword, that it added to his mortification to give up his

sword to a man who fought with a rope around his neck, is an idle
fabrication, and a slur on Captain Pearson.”
Whether Captain Pearson said it or not cannot now be definitely
determined, but the reader shall judge for himself, further on, whether the
story is “a slur on” him or not.
The fight occurred so close inshore as to be plainly visible from the
bluff overlooking the sea, and hundreds of people from the country-side
gathered there to gaze upon the scene. For a time, of course, there was
nothing distinguishable but the flash of the guns through the night, but after
an hour the moon rose out of the sea, and then two ships, locked in the
embrace of death, stood out in the midst of a cloud of smoke. That these
spectators looked on confidently rejoicing in the prospect of a victory for
their own ship, need not be doubted. How they rejoiced as they thought that
their shores were now to be rid of the “pirates” is easily imagined; but who
shall picture their consternation when a boatload of their countrymen
escaped ashore and told the direful facts?
To show the spirit in which English historians have always written
about any matter in which the American navy had part, it is worth noting
that Allen (“Battles of the British Navy”), ignoring the presence of tens of
thousands of Hessians in the British forces in America, tries to throw
contempt on the crew of the Bonhomme Richard by calling them
“hirelings,” and even stigmatizes the established fact of the treachery of
Landais as an “absurd” charge.
A brief statement of the comparative strength of the two ships is
essential. The Bonhomme Richard entered the fight with forty-two guns,
which could throw 557 pounds of projectiles at a discharge; the Serapis
carried fifty, throwing 600 pounds. After the first broadside the Bonhomme
Richard had no eighteen-pounders in action, while the Serapis had twenty.
The crew of the American ship had been reduced to 304 by the drafts made
in manning prizes, and of these no more than one-third were Americans.
The Serapis carried 320, chiefly picked men. So effective had been the
work of the crew of the Serapis that at the end of an hour any ordinary man
would have surrendered the Bonhomme Richard; but John Paul Jones was
of different character from ordinary men. With a tenacity of purpose that
has never been surpassed, he continued the fight and won. The number of

killed on each ship was forty-nine. The Serapis had sixty-eight wounded
and the Bonhomme Richard sixty-seven, among whom were John Paul
Jones himself and Richard Dale. Jones was hit in the head, and the wound
afterwards seriously affected his eyes, but he said nothing about it in his
report. Dale was wounded by a splinter during the fight, but did not even
know it until after the fight was over. While sitting on the binnacle of the
Serapis and giving orders to get her under way, he found she did not move
when her sails were full. He did not then know she was anchored. Jumping
up to see what was the matter, he fell at full length on the deck. His blood
had cooled by this time, and the wound disabled him then.

Signature of Richard Dale.
From a letter at the Lenox Library.

The smaller British ship that was protecting the convoy, the Countess of
Scarborough, is lost to sight during the remarkable conflict between the
Serapis and the Bonhomme Richard, but she was forced into battle by the
gallant Captain Piercy of the Pallas, and for two hours she maintained it.
Then she surrendered. The Pallas was superior to her in guns and crew, but,
on the whole, not to the extent that British historians would have their
readers believe, for the Pallas was a merchant ship modelled to carry cargo
only, while the Countess of Scarborough was built as a man-of-war.
Of the treachery of Captain Landais a brief space will suffice because,
as already said, his disappointments while in the French service had made
him partially insane. That he fired into the Bonhomme Richard was proved
beyond any doubt by his own men, some of whom (the Americans) refused
to fire the guns at his order. It was proved by his own officers (Frenchmen
at that) that he said he would have “thought it no harm if the Bonhomme
Richard had struck, for it would have given him an opportunity to retake

her and to take the Serapis.” A sane man would have been executed for such
treachery as his, of course, but he was very properly dismissed only. He
settled down in New York City after the war, where he lived on an income
of $100 a year, derived from prize money that he had obtained. It was his
habit to take a walk on lower Broadway every day when the weather and
his health permitted. He was a curious figure there, for he “never appeared
abroad with his old-fashioned cocked hat in its legitimate station,” but
“carrying it forever in his hand, as a mark of homage and respect to, and in
commemoration of the cruel death of his beloved sovereign.”

A Letter from Pierre Landais.
From the original at the Lenox Library.

John Paul Jones.
From a miniature, recently found (1897) in a cellar at the Naval
Academy.

To return to the story of what happened immediately after the
conclusion of the battle between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis,
the facts may best be given in the words of John Paul Jones himself. In his
report he says:
“I had yet two Enemies to encounter far more formidable than the
britons, I mean fire and Water. the Serapis Was attacked only by the first,
but B. h. R. Was assailed by both, there was five feet Water in the hould,
and tho’ it Was moderate from Explosion of so much gun powder, yet the

three pumps that remained could with difficulty only keep the Water from
gaining. the fire broke out in Various parts of the Ship in spite of all the
Water that Could be thrown (immediately) to quench it, and at length broke
out as low as the powder magazine and within a few inches of the powder.
in that dilema I took out the powder upon deck ready to be thrown
overboard at the last extremity, and it Was ten O’clock A.M. the next day
the 24 before the fire Was entirely extinguished. With respect to the
Situation of the B. h. R. the rudder Was cut Entirely off the stern frame and
transoms Were almost Entire Cut away, the timbers by the lower Deck
especially from the mainmast to the stern, being greatly decayed With age,
were mangled beyond my power of description, and a person must have
been an Eye Witness to form a Just idea of the tremendous scene of
carnage, Wreck and Ruin that Every Where appeared. humanity cannot but
Recoil from the prospect of such finished horror and Lament that War
should produce such fatal consequences.
“After the Carpinters as well as Captain De Cottineau and other men of
Sense had well examined and Surveyed the Ship (which was not finished
before five in the Evening) I found every person to be convinced that it was
Impossible to keep the B. h. R. afloat So as to reach a port if the Wind
should increase it being then only a very moderate breeze. I had but little
time to remove my Wounded, which now became unavoidable and which
Was effected in the Course of the night and next morning. I was determined
to keep the B. h. R. afloat and, if possible, to bring her into port for that
purpose the first Lieutenant of the Pallas continued on board with a party of
men to attend the pumps with boats in Waiting ready to take them on board
in Case the water should gain on them too fast the Wind augmented in the
Night and the next day on the 25, So that it was Impossible to prevent the
good old ship from Sinking. they did not abandon her till after nine o’clock.
the Water was then up to the Lower deck, and a little after ten I saw With
inexpressible grief the last glimpse of the B. h. R.”

John Paul Jones.
From a very rare engraving at the Navy Department, Washington.

The Bonhomme Richard had gone into the fight with a great American
ensign, four times as long as it was broad, floating in the breeze. It was shot
away during the conflict and lay floating over the stern for a time, but it was
rescued. And when it was seen that the old ship was past saving, the battle-
torn flag was hoisted to its old place, and with that fluttering in the brisk air
the famous old ship sank out of sight.

John Paul Jones.
From an engraving by Chapman in the collection of Mr. W. C. Crane.

When John Paul Jones arrived at Texel on October 3d a British
squadron was close behind him. Sending in to the Dutch admiral, he asked
permission to anchor in the harbor. The Dutch were not then at war with the
English, and their admiral, influenced by the attitude of the Dutch court,
which was not friendly to the Americans, refused the permission, but later
he grudgingly granted it, and the Americans arrived in after a narrow
escape.
The conduct of Captain Pearson of the Serapis on arrival in Texel must
be noted because it helps to portray that of his conqueror. When the plate,
linen, etc., that had been taken from the Serapis were offered to him by

John Paul Jones, he refused to accept it from Jones, but said he would take
it if offered by Captain Cottineau of the Pallas. “Paul Jones magnanimously
overlooked this vulgar subterfuge, and returned it through Cottineau.” In
view of this undisputed fact, is it really a slur on Captain Pearson to
suppose that he said what he is charged with saying when he surrendered
his sword? The British, through their ambassador, demanded that the
Serapis and her consort be returned and that the Americans be delivered up
as pirates. The Holland court did not yield that far, though they compelled
John Paul Jones to go to sea in the face of a blockading squadron, and
because the request of the British was refused, war was declared against
Holland. And so the victory of the Bonhomme Richard was far-reaching in
its effects.
To offset the manifest advantages which accrued to the Americans
through this fight, and especially to counteract the fear and depression
which it occasioned throughout England and Scotland, the British ministry
adroitly chose to treat Pearson as well as if he had obtained a victory. He
was made a knight, and some London merchants were induced to give him
silver plate worth £100. Piercy was promoted, and got silver worth £50.
When John Paul Jones heard of Pearson’s luck he said:
“He has deserved it; and if I should have the good fortune to fall in
with him again, I will make him a lord.”
The flight of John Paul Jones from Texel in the Alliance was
characteristic of the man, for instead of taking the long route around the
north of the British Islands he boldly headed for the narrow Straits of
Dover, leaving port in a howling gale. He passed so close to Dover that he
counted the warships in the Downs, and he counted those at Spithead also.
He sailed from Texel on December 27, 1779, and he reached Corruna on
January 16th. It is worth noting that throughout this extraordinary passage
he kept the American flag flying.

John Paul Jones’s Medal.
On reaching Paris, John Paul Jones was the hero of the day. The
American commissioners paid him every honor. The king (Louis XVI) gave
him a gold-hilted sword appropriately inscribed and the Grand Cross of the
Order of Military Merit. When he appeared in the queen’s box at the opera
the whole audience rose up to cheer. Later in the evening a laurel wreath
was suspended above his head, but he left his seat then—“an instance of
modesty which is to this day held up as a model to French schoolboys.”
In the autumn of 1780 Jones sailed to America in the Ariel with
supplies for the American army. He was the honored guest of the greatest

men of the nation. The Congress passed resolutions in his honor three times.
It gave him a gold medal, and it placed him at the head of the navy, which
was an honor that he had fully earned and which was to him a greater
satisfaction than all other honors.

John Paul Jones.
From an engraving in the collection of
Mr. W. C. Crane.

Meantime the British government denounced John Paul Jones as a
pirate and put a price upon his head. It offered ten thousand guineas for
him, dead or alive, and that sum then was equal to more than $100,000 now.
It is to the glory of this naval captain that it was so. The English writers
to this day deliberately misrepresent the man. They strive to distinguish him
from all other heroes of the American Revolution because he was born in
Scotland. They pretend to admire those who were born in the colonies. But
in so distinguishing Jones they ignore the fact that the heroic General

Montgomery, who perished before the icy walls of Quebec, was born in
Ireland, as was Commodore John Barry, another American hero. The truth
is that John Paul Jones entered the American navy in December, 1775,
when every man in the service was a citizen of Great Britain. He became a
citizen of the United States when the new nation was born. At the end of the
war he could make the proud boast that “I have never borne arms under any
but the American flag, nor have I ever borne or acted under any commission
but that of the Congress of America.”
“I have ever looked out for the Honour of the American flag,” he writes
at another time, and when, at the last, he wrote his will in the face of death,
he described himself, although he had been loaded with honors, simply as
“John Paul Jones, a citizen of the United States.”
“The fame of the brave outlives him; his portion is immortality.”

A Letter from John Paul Jones to Thomas Jefferson.
From the original at the Lenox Library.

CHAPTER XI

THE YEAR 1779 IN AMERICAN WATERS
LUCKY RAIDS ON BRITISH TRANSPORTS AND MERCHANTMEN—DISASTROUS
EXPEDITION TO THE PENOBSCOT—THE TRUMBULL’S GOOD FIGHT WITH THE
WATT—THE FIRST YANKEE LINE-OF-BATTLE-SHIP—WHEN NICHOLSON, WITH
A WRECKED SHIP AND FIFTY MEN, FOUGHT FOR AN HOUR AGAINST TWO
FRIGATES, EACH OF WHICH WAS SUPERIOR TO THE YANKEE SHIP—CAPTAIN
BARRY’S EXASPERATING PREDICAMENT IN A CALM—THE LAST NAVAL
BATTLE OF THE REVOLUTION.

While John Paul Jones was moving heaven and earth to get away to sea
with his famous Bonhomme Richard, the American naval ships in home
waters were by no means idle, even though British successes, with
combined land and naval forces, had seriously reduced the fleet. On March
18, 1779, a squadron consisting of the frigate Warren, thirty-two guns, Capt.
John Burroughs Hopkins; the Queen of France, twenty-eight guns, Capt.
Joseph Olney, and the famous old Ranger, of eighteen guns (she that
whipped the Drake), under Captain Simpson, sailed from Boston. A few
days later a privateer was captured. From her crew it was learned that a fleet
of armed transports and storeships had sailed with supplies from New York
for the British army in the South.
How the Yankee squadron crowded on sail in pursuit of this fleet; how
the ships of the fleet were sighted two days later, jogging along at the
ordinary pace of the slowest; and how they came to the wind or squared
away or tacked or wore ship in a confused effort to escape at the sight of the
Yankees would have been something worth seeing by any one interested in
ocean races.
There were nine of the transports, and seven were taken. These
included the Jason, twenty guns; the Maria, sixteen guns; the Hibernia,

eight guns, and four unarmed transports. Captain Campbell and twenty
other English army officers were in the fleet en route to join their
regiments, and these were by no means an unimportant part of the capture
when one recalls the treatment Americans were receiving from the British
when captured.
The Captain Hopkins who had this good luck was a son of Esek
Hopkins, the first American naval captain. He carried his prizes into port at
once.
Then, in May the frigate Queen of France, under Capt. John P.
Rathbourne; the Ranger, under Simpson, and the Providence (twenty-eight
guns), under Capt. Abraham Whipple, went on a cruise. Whipple, it will be
remembered, was the leader of the party disguised as Indians who, with
paving stones as their chief weapons, captured and destroyed the schooner
Gaspé in the first salt-water conflict of the war (1772). Captain Rathbourne
was he who, in the little brig Providence, captured New Providence Island
on January 27, 1778, with six vessels that were in the harbor.
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.

From a very rare engraving at the Lenox Library.
While the British were approaching the Penobscot on this expedition,
this Captain Nicholson, in the thirty-two-gun frigate Deane (sometimes
called the Hague), and Capt. Samuel Tucker, in the twenty-four-gun Boston,
sailed on a cruise. They captured six prizes, including a privateer of twenty
guns, another of eighteen, and a merchantman armed with sixteen guns. The
eighteen-gun privateer was the Thorn. After returning to port, Captain
Tucker took the Boston to Charleston, and when that place surrendered he
was made prisoner, but was soon after exchanged for the captain of the
Thorn, whom he had captured earlier in the year. Returning to Boston, he
was ordered to take command of the captured Thorn, and in the cruise that
he then made he took seven vessels. As he had captured thirty vessels
before he entered the navy, it is likely that Captain Tucker took more prizes
during the Revolution than any other commander.
When Charleston fell, there were lost with the Boston, just mentioned,
the frigate Providence, of twenty-eight guns; the Queen of France, of equal
metal, and the Ranger, in which John Paul Jones captured the Blake.
Thereafter, of all the ships that the Congress had built or purchased and
placed in service, only six remained in the American navy. These were the

Alliance, of thirty-two guns, in which Landais had tried to betray John Paul
Jones; the Confederacy and the Deane, of equal metal; the Trumbull, of
twenty-eight guns; the Duc de Lauzan, of twenty guns, and the Saratoga, of
eighteen. Worse yet, at the end of 1779 both officers and men were scarce
because the British, knowing that the supply of American seamen was
limited, had refused to exchange sailor prisoners in order that they might so
keep the American forces reduced. And of the seamen available for the navy
not a small proportion preferred to sail in privateers because of the chances
of great gains found in them.

From a contemporary map at the Lenox Library.

Because of this condition of affairs it happened that when Capt. James
Nicholson sailed in the Trumbull on the last day of May, 1780, for a cruise
along the American coast his crew contained more landsmen—men and
boys who had never been outside of any harbor—than of seamen. With such
a mob as this in place of a crew, he fell in with a big British privateer on
June 2d.

Signature of Samuel Nicholson.
From a letter at the Lenox Library.

Nicholson had his sails trimmed like a merchantman’s, and the
privateer drew near to inspect, but soon saw that the Trumbull was a man-
o’-war. At that, although he carried thirty-four guns to the Yankee’s twenty-
eight, he made sail to escape. But Nicholson was after him with a swifter
ship, and fight he had to. A right stubborn fight it was, too. It began at a
range of 100 yards, and it was soon carried on with yardarms interlocked.
The blazing gun-wads of the enemy were several times blown through the
open parts of the Trumbull, and she was twice set on fire. But at the end of
three hours, and just when the enemy’s fire had slacked away to the point of
surrendering, the Trumbull’s mainmast went by the board, dragging the fore
topmast and the mizzen after it, and there she lay helpless.
The privateer might have riddled her then, but he had had enough, and
was glad to get away.
It was learned afterward that the enemy was the Watt, a privateer
especially designed and fitted to whip any American frigate. She lost ninety
in killed and wounded. The Trumbull lost thirty-nine in killed and wounded.
Perhaps the most curious fact about this fight was this, that a very large
proportion of the Trumbull’s crew were suffering from the worst stage of

seasickness when she opened fire. The Trumbull made port, but was unable
to see service again until August of the next year.
Meantime the Saratoga, under Capt. James Young, sailed from
Philadelphia in October, 1780, and on the 8th fell in with three vessels. By
hoisting English colors, the largest, a heavily armed ship, was decoyed
alongside, where she reported herself as a merchantman called the
Charming Molly, from Jamaica. At this the Saratoga hoisted the American
flag, gave her a broadside, and crashing alongside, threw grapnels over her
rail and rigging and held her fast.
The first lieutenant of the Saratoga, at this time, was Joshua Barney,
whose exploit in the Hyder Ali has already been described. At the head of a
party of fifty boarders Barney climbed over the rail of the merchantman,
and after a sharp fight cleared her deck. Then it was learned that she carried
ninety men. She was manned by a prize crew under Barney, and sent in.
The Saratoga then made sail after the other two, who had been fleeing
down the wind to escape. It is not hard for a sailorman to picture their
hopeless race as the long Yankee, with a cloud of canvas aloft and the white
foam roaring away from her bows, came a-whooping after them. It was a
hopeless race because they were only brigs, the one carrying fourteen and
the other four guns. They were taken without resistance, and manned and
sent toward port.
Nevertheless, that was a most disastrous cruise for the Saratoga. With
her prizes she sailed for the Delaware, but she fell in with the Intrepid, a
ship of seventy-four guns, on duty there. Ordering her prizes to scatter, she
made all sail, and with success, for she got away. But she found an enemy
more powerful even than a ship-of-the-line. She found, doubtless, an
October hurricane, for she was never heard of after she disappeared from
the view of the Intrepid’s lookouts. The prizes, too, were all recaptured.
So five warships only were left to carry the American flag. Another was
building at Portsmouth, New Hampshire—the America, a seventy-four-gun
ship-of-the-line. John Paul Jones was assigned to her, but before she was
launched, the French ship-of-the-line Magnifique was wrecked in the
Massachusetts Bay, and the Congress, to show its appreciation of what the
French had done to help the United States, presented the America, while
still on the ways, to the French king.

That act was crushing to John Paul Jones; but when all was ready for
the launching, he hoisted the flags of both nations, and so sent her into the
water. And that was the last service he rendered his adopted country. No
other ship fit for the head man of the navy remained afloat, and the
Congress could not build another like the America. And then came the end
of the war, when Jones entered the Russian service, subject to a call at any
time from the American Congress, and without sacrificing his American
citizenship, and there he became a rear admiral. Leaving that service, he
was appointed American consul to Algiers, a most important post, as will
appear further on; but before the slow mail brought his commission he died
in Paris on July 18, 1792.
To return once more to the frigate Trumbull, it must be said that if any
doubt as to his courage or persistency was created in the minds of the
American people when he abandoned the grounded Virginia without firing a
gun in her defence, Captain Nicholson redeemed himself in his last battle in
the Trumbull, even though he lost her.
The Trumbull sailed in August, 1781, as an escort for a fleet of twenty-
eight merchantmen. If her crew was inefficient when she fought the
privateer Watt, it was now well-nigh the worst conceivable for the occasion;
for in numbers she lacked 200 men of a full complement—she had less than
half the number needed to work and fight the ship—while of the hundred
and odd men she did carry, many were landsmen, and a lot more were
Englishmen, who, on learning that she was certain to go to sea short-
handed, shipped in her in the hope of finding opportunity for a mutiny. This
was not an unusual circumstance during the Revolution, for the British
Parliament had passed an act offering a large bounty to her “loyal subjects”
who, after making oath to support the American Constitution, should be
able to carry an American ship into a British port.
When off the capes of the Delaware this worse than half-manned
Trumbull, in a gale lost her fore topmast and main topgallantmast—a
misfortune unquestionably due to the misconduct of her English crew. She
was then not only worse than half-manned, but she was worse than half-
found in sails.
While in this condition (and it should be remembered that the Trumbull
carried but twenty-eight guns) the British frigate Iris (formerly the

American frigate Hancock), of thirty-two guns, ranged up on one side of
her, and another British ship, name unknown, on the other.
Instead of surrendering, as he would have been justified in doing,
Captain Nicholson cleared the ship for action, and the battle began. And
then at the first broadside the Englishmen to a man, by preconcerted action,
fled to the hold and succeeded in frightening the landsmen into following
them, so that but fifty men were left to fight the enemy.

After a miniature in the possession of Miss Josephine
L. Stevens.
But among those fifty were Richard Dale from the deck of the
Bonhomme Richard, and one Christopher Raymond Perry, who will be
heard of later, and the summons to surrender was scorned. Never before had
such a fight as this occurred—a fight wherein fifty men in a crippled ship of
twenty-eight guns struck back at a thirty-two-gun ship carrying seven times
as many men and helped by another ship that was itself undoubtedly more
than a match for a cripple. And yet for an hour James Nicholson, Richard
Dale, and Christopher Raymond Perry kept their men at the guns. Sixteen

men were killed and wounded out of the valiant fifty. Even then the flag
was still flying. There is no telling how long the desperate conflict would
have continued; but a third British ship, the General Monk, came into the
fight and in a position to rake the American at short range. It was a case
then of surrender or sink, and the flag of the Trumbull was hauled down.
In March of 1781 the Alliance, under Capt. John Barry, was found in a
most exasperating position off the British coast. She had sailed from Boston
in February, and after taking a privateer called the Alert, reached L’Orient
safely. There she was joined by a French privateer of forty guns, called the
Marquis de la Fayette. Sailing on March 31st, they captured the British
privateers Mars, of twenty-six guns, and the Minerva, of ten, the two
carrying crews aggregating 167 men. Then the Alliance went on alone, and
on May 28th fell in with two smaller vessels that boldly attacked her.
It had been a quiet day, but as the two smaller vessels approached, the
Alliance lost the wind altogether, while the others, with the aid of big oars,
came on, took safe positions at short range under her quarters, and opened
fire. Captain Barry could bring only three nine-pounders to bear on each of
the enemy, while they were delivering heavy broadsides of eight and seven
guns, respectively. Captain Barry was so badly wounded by a grapeshot that
he was carried below; but just when the surrender of the Alliance seemed
inevitable a breeze filled her sails, and swinging around, she ran in between
the two enemies, and with broadsides from her eighteen-pounders quickly
brought down their flags. One was the sixteen-gun brig Atalanta, and the
other the fourteen-gun brig Trepassy. They lost ten killed and thirty
wounded between them. The Trepassy was sent to England with prisoners,
and the Atalanta to the United States, but she was recaptured off Boston.
The Alliance reached port safely.
A little later (June 22, 1781) the Confederacy was captured by the
English. She was employed as a government packet to keep open
communication with France, but while returning home laden with military
supplies a two-decker and a frigate, the Orpheus and the Roebuck, overtook
her, and her commander, Capt. Seth Harding, had to strike his colors.
The last naval action (the General Monk was captured later by a
privateer) of the Revolutionary war was fought by the Alliance, Capt. John
Barry. He had sailed from Havana with a large quantity of specie for the

United States. This was March 7, 1782. She had the Duc de Lauzan in
company. When not long out of port three British frigates were
encountered. The Yankees started to run for it, and the Lauzan, a slow
sailer, was ordered to throw her guns overboard.
However, a French ship of fifty guns hove in sight on the weather bow,
and at that Captain Barry waited for the leading English frigate, supposing
the Frenchman would join in, of course. A fight that brought glory to Barry
and credit to the Englishman followed, but at the end of fifty minutes the
Englishman had out signals of distress. As the Frenchman held aloof,
Captain Barry was compelled to let the Englishman haul off under cover of
his consorts.
The English ship was the Sybille (sometimes written Sibyl), of thirty-
eight guns—a heavier ship than the Alliance. She lost thirty-seven killed
and fifty wounded, while that of the Alliance was three killed and eleven
wounded.
The significant feature of this fight is in the wide margin between the
two lists of killed and wounded. The Yankees had at last learned to handle
cannon effectively. But now the end of the war had come.
Four months before this last naval fight of the American Revolution
Lord North, the British premier, on hearing of the surrender of Lord
Cornwallis at Yorktown, had strode up and down his room with his arms
frantically waving above his head, while he cried:
“Oh, God! it is all over. It is all over. It is all over.”
The “most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unjust, and diabolical”
war known to the history of the English-speaking people was over, and
during the latter end of March, 1782, “Lord North bowed to the storm and
resigned.”
On July 4, 1776, when the Congress declared the independence of the
colonies, the American navy consisted of twenty-five vessels, all sizes
counted, mounting 422 guns. Thereafter other ships were built, and some
were purchased and some were captured from the enemy and put into
service. But because the enemy at all times had more than five guns afloat
and in service on the American coast to every one that the Americans
mustered in the naval list, the American ships, one by one, fell into the

hands of the enemy, or were destroyed to save them from such a fate, or
were lost at sea. When the war ended but three naval ships, bearing eighty-
four guns between them, remained. The American navy had almost
perished, but, like Arnold’s fleet on Lake Champlain, it had given the
Englishman an opportunity to see the face of the enemy. Even as in the fight
which the Bonhomme Richard waged, it won victory even when it was so
shattered as to all but disappear while yet the smoke of battle hung over the
water. For without the aid of the sea power the war of the Revolution would
have failed. From that glorious day before Boston when the hearts of the
Continentals were fired by the long wagon-train, loaded with war material,
captured by an American cruiser from the enemy, until the last service of
the Alliance in bringing specie from Havana, there was never a time when
the sea power did not render helpful and glorious service to the struggling
patriots ashore.

An Old Naval Order.
From the original at the Lenox Library.

In the 800 ships that were captured from the enemy were found the
materials that succored the life of the nation. Not one American cruiser was
captured by English privateers, while sixteen English cruisers were taken by

American privateers, which were manned in many cases for the most part
by boys and haymakers, while in many an American victory the odds in
weight of metal and number of men were greatly in the favor of the British.
By their daring and persistence the Yankee cruisers made Yankee prowess
known throughout Europe and even to the yeomanry of England.

CHAPTER XII

BUILDING A NEW NAVY
WHEN ENGLAND, IN HER EFFORTS TO WREST COMMERCE FROM THE
AMERICANS, INCITED THE PIRATES OF AFRICA TO ACTIVITY, SHE
COMPELLED THE BUILDING OF THE FLEET THAT WAS, IN THE END, TO BRING
HER HUMILITY OF WHICH SHE HAD NEVER DREAMED—DEEDS OF THE
BARBARY CORSAIRS—AMERICAN NAVAL POLICY AS LAID DOWN BY JOSHUA
HUMPHREYS—THE WONDERFUL NEW FRIGATES—TROUBLES WITH THE
FRENCH CRUISERS ON THE AMERICAN COASTS—TRICK OF A YANKEE
CAPTAIN TO SAVE A SHIP—A MIDSHIPMAN WHO DIED AT HIS POST—
CAPTURE OF THE INSURGENT—A LONG WATCH OVER THE FRENCH
PRISONERS—ESCAPE OF A TWICE-BEATEN SHIP—THE VALIANT SENEZ—
STORY OF ISAAC HULL AND THE LUCKY ENTERPRISE.

It is with feelings of distress and shame, not unmingled with
indignation, that the patriotic American of these days reads such parts of the
history of his country as have a bearing upon the navy during the years that
followed the Revolutionary war.
No sooner was the war over than all the men that remained in the naval
service were paid off and turned adrift on the beach, while every ship that
remained—even the Alliance, that had well demonstrated her efficiency—
was sold. The people of the new nation were so fearful of a monarchial
form of government, and of everything that in the old world pertained to it,
that they went to the remarkable length of sacrificing the one weapon that
could defend them from old-world encroachment—the navy—lest
scheming politicians use it to enslave their own people.
But while the politicians wrangled over the chaotic conglomeration
that, at the time, was called the general government, the business men made
haste to retrieve the losses brought upon them by the war, and as there had
been but two sources of income worth mention before the war—the

commerce of the seas and agriculture—it was to them that the energies of
the people were applied. It was an along-shore nation. The salt air fanned its
most populous cities. So familiar were the people with the ocean, that every
one spoke of the time when he should be rich as “when my ship comes
home.” So to the sea went hosts of people seeking fortune. The merchant
with his capital, the land-owner with his timber, and the mechanic with his
skill and muscle, united to build and man ships for the ocean-carrying trade,
and so well did they work together that ships the equal of any other, in some
cases the superior of any in the world, were sent down the ways. Men who
had learned to be aggressive while afloat with the flag in war-time were
placed in command of these ships, and the contest for supremacy in trade,
which had had so great a part in bringing on the Revolutionary war, was
renewed with an energy and an independence of action of which the people
as colonists had not dreamed. Even so small a craft as an Albany sloop was
sailed away from New York for Canton, China. She had only a page-map
from a school geography for a chart of the world, but she made her port and
made home again, and she was the first sail to make the direct passage from
New York to China waters.
The British merchants with dismay saw their own ships passed by and
the Yankees chosen by shippers of cargoes—chosen because both safer and
swifter. And when the British merchant complained, he found (as he has
always found) his government ready to listen and to act in his behalf.
What that government was willing to do to aid the British merchants
was so discreditable that the story of it well-nigh staggers belief, although
the proofs are, in fact, beyond doubt.
On the Mediterranean coast of Africa were found a number of small
Mohammedan states ruled by vassals of the Turk. For time out of mind
these petty rulers had levied a blackmail tribute from every seafaring nation
that traded in the Mediterranean Sea, and even sailed in their cruisers out
upon the Atlantic to capture ships that were not intending to enter the
enclosed waters. When one recalls how much superior the power of
England was to that of all these pirates combined, it seems astounding that
even she should have contributed to the blackmail, but the reason for her
doing so may be found in the debates of Parliament of that day. Said Lord
Sheffield in 1784:

A Mediterranean Corsair Anchoring.
From a picture drawn and engraved by Baugean.

“It is not probable that the American States will have a very free trade
in the Mediterranean. It will not be to the interest of any of the great
maritime powers to protect them from the Barbary States. If they know their
interests, they will not encourage the Americans to be carriers. That the
Barbary States are advantageous to maritime powers is certain.”
In short, England deliberately encouraged these infamous pirates
because they harassed the ships of other nations, and on the payment of a
small tribute, which was kept small because of her great navy, they left hers
wholly unmolested.
But the mere avowal of this policy in the hall of Parliament was by no
means all that she did. For some time previous to 1793 Portugal had
maintained her rights upon the sea as against these pirates by keeping a
strong fleet at the Strait of Gibraltar—a fleet that pounced upon every
Barbary corsair that appeared. It was not for the protection of her own
commerce only that this was done. By an understanding with the United
States the American flag was protected and American merchantmen
furnished with convoys when needed.
Under the protection thus afforded, the American merchantmen
swarmed into the profitable trade on the east side of the Atlantic. English

merchants viewed the increasing numbers of American ships there with
dismay, and English diplomacy, as said, at once intervened.
Taking advantage of a general agreement among the so-called Christian
powers, under which England was to be allowed to act for all in certain
minor matters when negotiating with the Barbary powers, the British
government instructed the British agent at Algiers to bargain secretly for a
truce between the Dey and the government of Portugal. The truce was to
last a year, and in consideration of allowing the Portuguese ships to trade
free of blackmail, the Portuguese blockade was to be removed from the
Strait of Gibraltar, and it was further provided that “the Portuguese
Government should not afford protection to any nation against Algerian
cruisers.”
The only nation that had been protected by Portuguese men-of-war was
the American. This truce, which was arranged by the British consul-general
at Algiers, Mr. Charles Logie, was deliberately planned to turn the pirates
against American ships. Worse yet, it was done without even consulting
Portugal, and in secret so that the pirates could get away before the
Americans could possibly be warned. And once it was made, British
influence at the Portuguese court prevented its abrogation.
As early as July 25, 1785, the Boston schooner Maria, Capt. Isaac
Stevens, had been captured by Algerian pirates near Gibraltar, and on the
30th of the same month the ship Dauphin, Capt. Richard O’Brien, was also
taken. Thus twenty-one American citizens were made slaves to the Arabs.
Because of the Portuguese blockade of the strait no other American ship
had been captured, but the moment British diplomacy had freed the pirates
from that restraint, the Dey sent his corsairs seeking the American flag.
There is no doubt in reasonable minds that a special search was made, at the
request of the British agent, for the Stars and Stripes. In one cruise of the
pirate squadron eleven vessels were captured and 112 American seamen
were reduced to slavery.
Did the American nation declare war at once? It did not. It could not.
There was not a warship afloat bearing the American flag.
Having no ships of war, Congress was forced to buy the freedom of
these enslaved Americans. The men captured in 1785 were ransomed for
$59,496 (coin). For the 112 captured at the instigation of the British agent, a

far greater ransom was paid. The Congress had refused to build a navy for
the protection of Americans when abroad, but now they were compelled to
buy the release of enslaved Americans by building the Crescent, “one of the
finest specimens of elegant naval architecture which was ever borne on the
Piscataqua’s waters.” They had to arm and fit her for sea. They had to
freight her with “twenty-six barrels of silver dollars and many valuable
presents for the Dey,” and then send her to Algiers, where ship and cargo
were given in exchange for the enslaved Americans.
“It is worthy of remark, that, as appears by documents published at the
time, the peace obtained from the Dey of Algiers cost the Government of
the United States near a million of dollars ($992,463.25), a sum quite
sufficient to have kept the barbarian’s port hermetically sealed until he
should have humbly sued” for peace, had it been expended in building
suitable warships. And so would have been saved the noble lives and the
property afterwards lost on the African coast.
But out of the national humiliation sprang a new navy. The people who
had called every legislator that spoke for the honor of the flag a blatant
demagogue; the people who had feared naval tyrants, who had feared
taxation, and who had argued that a small navy was worse than none—the
peace-at-any-price men had been in a great majority. Now the publication of
these facts opened the eyes of enough to make a majority the other way.
Nevertheless, so little regard had the members of Congress for the honor of
the nation that “the resolution of the House of Representatives, that a naval
force adequate to the protection of the commerce of the United States ought
to be provided, passed by a majority of two votes only.”
However, pass it did, and was approved on March 27, 1794.
At that time the ablest shipbuilder in the United States was Joshua
Humphreys, a Quaker, who for thirty years had been laying down keels at
Philadelphia. Going to General Knox, the Secretary of War, he made a
notable statement. The number of ships which the United States could
support, he said, would always be less than the number in any of the large
European navies. It was therefore necessary that such ships as we did have
should be fast-sailing enough to either fight or run at will, and when they
chose to fight they must be equal, ship for ship, to anything afloat. To
accomplish this they must be longer and broader than the existing type and

yet not so high out of water. On this model they would carry, he said, as
many guns on one deck as the others carried on two; could fight them there
to better advantage; and, what was more, the improved model would give
much more stability—would allow so much more canvas to be spread aloft
that, blow high or blow low, the Yankee could show her teeth or her heels,
as occasion demanded.
Not only were Humphreys’ theories accepted then; they have prevailed
in the American navy to this day. However, this is not to say that the
theories of Mr. Humphreys have always been realized in practice.
Six frigates were ordered laid down on this model: the Constitution, of
forty-four guns; the President, of forty-four; the United States, of forty-four
—all sister ships—and the Chesapeake, the Congress, and the
Constellation, all of thirty-six guns each.
The United States was built by Humphreys, at Philadelphia, and he sent
her afloat on July 10, 1797. The Constitution, the famous “Old Ironsides,”
was built by Cloghorne & Hartly, of Boston, and she floated on October 21,
1797—just 100 years ago. And she is still afloat to bear the flag. Capt.
Samuel Nicholson had charge of her (Congress had provided for officers
and men), and on the day she was to be launched he proposed to hoist the
flag with his own hands. But instead of doing so at once on reaching the
yard that morning, he gave orders that no one else should do it, and then
went away to breakfast. That was an error fatal to his ambition. When he
was out of sight one Samuel Bentley, a shipwright, bent the flag to the
halliards, and, with the help of another man, hoisted her to the mizzen-
truck. Captain Nicholson swore like a pirate, it is said, but the flag was up
and he would not haul it down again.

John Barry’s Commission as Commander of the United States.
From the original at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.

Later a dozen smaller ships were ordered built or purchased, besides
galleys, schooners, and brigs. And then came a time when it was absolutely
necessary to use them. The Revolution was on in France, and the European
powers, with England in the lead, were trying to crush the new republic. In
fighting back, the French cruisers had played havoc with American ships
carrying legitimate goods to European ports—had captured and condemned
many American merchantmen laden with American products not
contraband of war, simply because those ships were en route to ports of
nations at war with France. So retaliation became absolutely necessary,
disagreeable as it might be to fight a former ally.
It should be noted here that the United States government did not
actually declare war against France, but on July 7, 1798, all treaties in
existence between the governments were declared abrogated, and
meantime, on May 28, 1798, the American cruisers were authorized “to
capture any French vessel found near the coast preying upon American

commerce.” It was under the act of May 28, 1798, as strengthened by that
of July 7th of the same year, that the American ships went hunting the
Frenchmen. But while there was an actual state of war on the ocean, there
was never a time when the American State Department was not striving to
negotiate a permanent peace with the discordant elements that, in those
days of the French Revolution, ruled at Paris.
When hostilities began the American navy had in all twenty-two ships,
mounting 456 guns and carrying 3,484 men, ready for battle; they were
made ready before the end of the year.
As originally organized in the war for freedom, the American navy had
held but a few puny merchantmen—thin-walled, crank, and slow. But now,
though still comparatively few in number, the ships of the nation were “fore
and fit,” and, better yet, they were manned by men who had smelled the
sulphurous breath of an enemy’s guns. Officers and men from the old
cruisers and privateers came forward to volunteer in such numbers that a
ship’s complement was filled in some cases in half a day. Meantime some
new blood, the sons of the officers and seamen of the other war, and others,
too, came, eager to take the chances of war, and some were accepted.
Even before the treaties were abrogated two ships were sent to sea—the
Constellation, under Capt. Thomas Truxton, who had made fame as a
privateer, and the Delaware, under Stephen Decatur, Sr., father of the
Decatur who made fame later on. The French ship Croyable, of fourteen
guns, was found off the Delaware. She had taken several American ships, so
she was sent into Philadelphia, and not long afterward came out again under
the American flag, and bearing the appropriate name Retaliation. She was
commanded by William Bainbridge, an able officer. But luck was not with
her.
Early on the morning of November 20, 1798, while cruising with the
Montezuma and the Norfolk, two small fleets were seen. The Retaliation
went looking at one fleet and the other two at the other. When too near for
comfort the Retaliation found she had two French frigates before her, and
one, the Insurgent, of thirty-six guns, quickly overhauled her when she
strove to fly.
Captain Bainbridge, after surrendering, was taken on board the second
Frenchman, the Volontaire. Her captain refused to accept his sword, and

after the proper civilities of the occasion he was allowed to go to the
topgallant forecastle with the other officers to watch the Insurgent chasing
the Montezuma and Norfolk. It was a mighty cheering spectacle to the
French, for the Insurgent, with her great spread of canvas bellying to the
wind, was overhauling the Yankees hand over fist. But just when the
Insurgent was expected to open fire Captain St. Laurent of the Volontaire
turned to Bainbridge and said:
“Pray, sir, what is the force of those vessels?”
“The ship carries twenty-eight twelve-pounders and the brig twenty
nine-pounders,” replied Bainbridge in a matter-of-fact way.
That was double their real weight of metal, and it was a weight that
outmatched the Insurgent. Greatly alarmed, Captain St. Laurent, who was
the senior French officer, ordered the Insurgent recalled.
When she got back within hail her captain shouted:
“Sir, if it had not been for your signal I should have had those vessels
in ten minutes more.”
“Citizen Captain, you do not know, sir, what vessels you were chasing.
Your ship is not able to contend with a force of twenty-eight twelve-
pounders and twenty nine-pounders,” said Captain St. Laurent.
At that the Insurgent’s captain chopped the air violently with his hands
and replied:
“Sir, they have nothing heavier than sixes, and do you suppose that this
ship could have anything to fear from such guns?”

A French Vessel of 118 Guns, a Century Ago.
From an engraving by Canali.

“Did you not say, sir,” demanded St. Laurent, turning on Bainbridge,
“that the ship carried twenty-eight twelve-pounders and the brig twenty
nine-pounders?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Bainbridge, cheerfully, “and if I had thought at that
moment that I could have saved the ships, by telling you that they carried
twenty-four-pounders, I would have done so.”
Three months later the fighting captain of the Insurgent (his name was
Barreaut) had an opportunity to show his metal, and it is fair to say that he
took advantage of it nobly.
At noon on February 9, 1799, while the Constellation, Captain Truxton,
was cruising between Nevis and St. Kitts at the northeast corner of the
Caribbean Sea, the lookout discovered a sail to leeward. There was a fresh
breeze from the northeast, and squaring away before it, the Constellation
spread studding-sails, and with the white foam roaring away from the bow

and a swirling wake dragging astern, she went swooping down to
reconnoitre. But no sooner had sail been spread than a black squall came
down with the wind, and all hands had to turn to, as if for life, to shorten
sail.
There were lively lads aloft on the Yankee ships of those days, for the
crews, down to the powder monkeys, were inspired by a sense of honor.
They stripped the Constellation in time to save her spars, but the other ship
lost her main-topmast, and when the squall had passed, it was seen that she
had changed her course, hoping to reach port at St. Eustatius.
But the Constellation was soon upon her. She hoisted American colors,
but could not answer a private signal, and a little later sent up the French
flag and fired a gun in defiance.
Later still (it was at 3.15 o’clock), when the Constellation, with her
canvas above the topsails furled, came bowling down, the enemy hailed, but
no reply was made. Captain Truxton was not yet ready, but when he had
arrived within ten yards just off the enemy’s weather quarter and the hail
was repeated, Captain Truxton answered with a full broadside.
The fire was instantly returned, and then the enemy shoved his helm
hard down, intending to luff up yardarm to yardarm and board the
Constellation. In that move lay his only hope for victory, for he carried a
hundred men more than the Constellation. But Captain Truxton was not to
be caught. The Constellation being unhurt aloft, was able not only to steer
clear of the crippled Frenchman, but to pass across his bows and rake him.
Then the Constellation dropped down on the starboard side and gave
the Frenchman other broadsides, and following up the advantage of superior
sailing power, she once more crossed his bows and raked again. Again she
passed alongside, firing as she went, and this was so effective that every
eighteen-pounder in the main-deck battery of the Frenchman was
dismounted, leaving him nothing but twelve-pounders for continuing the
fight. Nevertheless, the Frenchman held fast his colors until the
Constellation once more drew ahead in a position to rake. The fight was
then absolutely hopeless and the Frenchman struck.

DIAGRAM OF THE
INSURGENT-CONSTELLATION BATTLE.
It was then learned that she was the Insurgent, Captain Barreaut.
The Constellation carried forty-eight guns, throwing 848 pounds of
metal at one discharge, while the Insurgent carried forty guns, throwing 791
pounds of metal. The Constellation’s crew numbered 309, and the
Insurgent’s just 100 more. The battle lasted one hour and fourteen minutes.
The French lost twenty-nine killed and forty-one wounded, the
Constellation two killed and three wounded.

A French Vessel of 120 Guns.
From an engraving by Orio.

One gets a remarkable picture of the discipline on board the
Constellation when reading, in the report of the battle, that one of the two
men killed was shot dead by Lieut. Andrew Sterrett for deserting his post at
the first fire.
More interesting still is the story of the Insurgent during the three days
after the battle. Lieut. John Rodgers and Midshipman David Porter, with
eleven men, were sent on board to take charge, and supervise the transfer of
prisoners. While yet 173 of the French crew remained in her the two ships
were separated by a West India hurricane. These thirteen Americans were
left to face the gale and 173 of the enemy. Worse yet, all the hatch gratings,
hand-cuffs, and shackles had been thrown overboard after striking colors.
But Rodgers and Porter were the men for the occasion. They drove the
prisoners below the hatches and placed one resolute, well-armed man at
each hatchway with orders to kill any one who strove to get out. With the
others they worked the ship for three days and two nights. They did not
sleep or rest during that time, but they brought the ship into St. Kitts, where
the Constellation, with an anxious crew, awaited them.
Still more to the honor of the flag was the fight between the
Constellation and the Vengeance on Sunday night, February 2, 1800, for the

Frenchman was in every way superior, and Captain Truxton compelled him
to fight.
It was after a long chase that the Constellation drew up on the weather
quarter of the enemy at a distance of fifty or sixty yards. The ship had
already been cleared for action, and now the battle lanterns were lighted,
the crew were ordered to preserve perfect silence, and Captain Truxton
stepped to the lee rail and hailed. For a reply the enemy opened fire with
such guns as he could bring to bear, and some of the shot struck home. But
Truxton was not yet in a position to suit him, and the Constellation forged
ahead, with her crew standing in perfect silence at their stations, peering out
at the red flash of the enemy’s guns in the night, and shrinking back as the
shot came in and here and there knocked a man dead or struggling across
the deck. The wounded were instantly borne below, while the quarter-
masters sanded the blood, but no man spoke a word.
As the time passed, the strain upon them became greater. The Captain
noticed that the men were flinching more and more, and sternly ordered
them to stand to their posts until they got the word, and then to aim at the
hull and fire deliberately, but to load swiftly. And the men obeyed that
order.
Reaching the vantage point where every gun would bear, the order to
fire was given, and echoing from the crash of the balls in the enemy’s hull
came such shrieks and cries as told of the havoc wrought there.
Thereafter until 12.30 o’clock that night the crew of the Constellation
loaded as quickly as possible and fired as deliberately as if but practising
with the battery at a target. So swift was their work that the guns got heated,
and men crawled out the ports and dipped up water with buckets to cool
them off. But at midnight the fire of the enemy, that had been slacking
away, died out entirely. The victory seemed won—it was, in fact, won over
and again, for the French flag had been lowered twice during the fight
(some historians say three times), but the Constellation people did not see it
because of the smoke, and, under the circumstances, the Frenchmen felt
compelled to fight on. But when they could fight no more and victory was
assured for the American flag, the captain of the Constellation found that
her main standing rigging had been wholly shot away. He called all hands
to send up preventers, but before the work could be done the mast fell,

carrying Midshipman James Jarvis and several men overboard, all but one
of whom were lost. Jarvis might have escaped before the mast went, but
chose to remain at his post and face death.

Medal Awarded to Thomas Truxton.

Having lost her mainmast, the Constellation was so badly crippled that
the enemy slipped away in the night to Curaçao. She was the Vengeance,
Capt. A. M. Pitot. She carried fifty-two guns, throwing 1,115 pounds of
shot, while the Constellation at this time carried fifty guns, throwing 826

pounds of shot. The crew of the Vengeance numbered 330 to 310 on the
Constellation. She lost fifty killed and 110 wounded, while the
Constellation lost fourteen killed and twenty-five wounded. Her ability to
escape was hard luck for the Yankees, for she was carrying a very valuable
cargo, including a lot of specie.
If there is any one feature of this battle better worth remembering than
any other it is the escape of the Vengeance after she was twice whipped—
her escape through continuing the fight. For it proves, as John Paul Jones
proved in the Bonhomme Richard, that a ship is never hopelessly defeated
until she is sunk or wholly disabled.
Another interesting battle was that between the Boston, Capt. John
Little, and the Berceau, Capt. André Senez, who was, during the American
Revolution, a midshipman under Count D’Estaing in the operations that
enabled Washington to complete the capture of Cornwallis. The Boston was
a larger ship, with more men and more and heavier guns than the enemy,
but when she ranged up within ten yards of the Berceau and Captain Little
demanded that she surrender, the valiant Senez replied “Never!” This was at
about 4 o’clock in the afternoon of October 12, 1800. The Boston opened
fire, and with cries of “Vive la Republique!” the Frenchmen replied, and so
effective was their fire and so determined was their commander that the
battle raged for twenty-two hours, save for the intermissions during which
the Boston had to haul off and repair rigging. But at 2 p.m. of the 13th the
Berceau was practically shot to pieces and she had to surrender.
The dash of Lieut. Isaac Hull, when he cut the valuable privateer
Sandwich out of Puerto Plato, was characteristic of the man who
distinguished himself in later years. The privateer was lying in position to
rake anything entering port, and she was protected by a good shore battery.
But filling the Yankee sloop Sally with seamen and marines from the
Constitution (Hull was then her first lieutenant), he entered the harbor at
night, sent the marines ashore, where they spiked the fort guns, while he
with his sailors boarded and carried the privateer and sailed her out of port
and sent her home. But though a brave, it proved to have been an illegal
capture, and full restitution was made to the owners.
The adventures of the twelve-gun schooner Enterprise, Lieutenant
Shaw—notably that when she fought the letter of marque Seine that would

not surrender until twenty-four had been killed and disabled out of a crew
of fifty-four—were of the most stirring character. In six months she
captured eight Frenchmen and recaptured four American ships the French
had taken. The Experiment, Lieut. William Maley, was handled in like
fashion. Both vessels often met and whipped superior forces, but space is
lacking to give the story of their deeds.
This high-seas war with France began on May 28, 1798. It came to an
end when, on February 3, 1801, a treaty of peace was ratified by the
American Senate. Nearly three years had passed away. By it peace was
assured for the future, and as for the past, all government vessels captured
on either side were to be restored. By this provision the Americans returned
the Berceau, the Vengeance, and a smaller cruiser. The Insurgent was lost at
sea. Seventy-six French ships, in addition, such as privateers and armed
merchantmen, carrying together 500 guns, had been captured, and these
were retained. No American warship was captured by the French except the
Retaliation, which was originally taken from them.

“The Sally Attacked by a Sea-Serpent off the Shore of Long Island.”
From a French engraving.

The patriotic American does not care to dwell on this trouble with a
people that had rendered such great aid when the nation was struggling for
life against the oppressor. The significant features of such conflicts as took
place were found in the efficiency and good discipline of the crews of the
American ships and the development of an esprit de corps unknown during
the Revolution. The pride and dignity of the new nation were stirring the
blood of its naval seamen.

A French Cutter of 16 Guns.
From an engraving by Merlo.

CHAPTER XIII

WAR WITH BARBARY PIRATES
A SQUADRON UNDER RICHARD DALE SENT TO THE MEDITERRANEAN—THE
DEY OF ALGIERS BECAME FRIENDLY, BUT THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI SHOWED
FIGHT—FIERCE BATTLE BETWEEN THE SCHOONER ENTERPRISE AND THE
TREACHEROUS CREW OF THE POLACRE TRIPOLI—SLAUGHTER OF THE
PIRATES—TRIPOLI BLOCKADED—GROUNDING AND LOSS OF THE
PHILADELPHIA.

The story of the first conflict with the pirates of the Mediterranean Sea
follows that of the small war with France. It was a conflict made necessary,
as already explained, because, in the supposed interests of her trade, a
civilized nation sicked on the Barbary whelps to tear the peaceful passer-by.
Not only did the British agent negotiate a treaty by which the pirates would
be turned loose into the Atlantic, especially to prey on American commerce;
a British subject named Lisle was admiral of the Tripolitan fleet when the
Bashaw of Tripoli, seeing the success of the Dey of Algiers in levying
blackmail on the United States, declared war against us.

Benjamin Stoddert.
From a Painting at the Navy Department, Washington.

On May 20, 1801, the Secretary of the Navy (Congress had established
a Navy Department on April 30, 1798, with Benjamin Stoddert as
Secretary) ordered a “squadron of observation” to the Mediterranean. Capt.
Richard Dale was placed in command, and it consisted of the President,
Capt. James Barron; the Philadelphia, Capt. Samuel Barron; the Essex,
Capt. William Bainbridge; and the twelve-gun schooner Enterprise, that had
done such effective work against the French in the West Indies. She was
now under Lieut. Andrew Sterrett, the officer who shot a sailor on the

Constellation for leaving a gun in time of battle. Under Sterrett was David
Porter, who had shown his metal on the captured Insurgent and elsewhere.
When this fleet appeared off Algiers the Dey found his wrath, which
presents had not appeased, suddenly changed to effusive friendship for the
Americans, but the Bashaw of Tripoli was not so easily awed. However, it
was not until August 1st that a fight occurred. On that day, while cruising
off Malta, the Enterprise fell in with the war polacre Tripoli, carrying
fourteen guns and eighty men. By no means a cheap enemy at any time, she
eventually proved a most treacherous one. After the battle had raged for two
hours at point-blank range, the Tripoli’s flag was lowered. Lieutenant Porter
put off in a boat to take possession, while the crew of the Enterprise in great
part turned to repairing damages to their rigging. Thereat the corsairs
opened a murderous fire and hoisted the red flag again. The men of the
Enterprise quickly returned to their guns, and after a fierce conflict the
corsairs, seeing that in fair fight they were worsted, once more hauled down
their flag in order to catch the Yankees somewhat off guard. The ruse
succeeded again, and Porter was on his way to take possession, when the
corsairs renewed battle more vigorously than ever.

“Captain Sterrett in the Enterprise, Paying Tribute to Tripoli.”
From an old wood-cut.

“Sink the damned, treacherous creatures to the bottom!” said Sterrett.
Exasperated by the treachery they had seen, the crew started in to obey the
order with a will, and the corsair captain saw his fate before him. Not only
did he then haul down his flag, but he brought it to the gangway, and
throwing it into the sea, he bowed his head to the deck and begged for
quarter. Out of eighty men the corsair had lost twenty killed and twenty-
eight wounded. The Enterprise did not lose a man. Congress gave Sterrett a
sword and every other member of the crew a month’s pay because of “the
aforesaid heroic action.” When the commander of the corsair reached
Tripoli he was paraded through the streets on a donkey and bastinadoed for
surrendering.

A Schooner-of-war, Like the Enterprise.
From a wood-cut in the “Kedge Anchor.”

Following—though, of course, not because of—this action a good
many changes were made in the American squadron—changes such as
increasing its force and putting in new commanders two or three times; but
eventually it appeared that, although here was a good squadron for open-sea
fighting, the Americans were not armed for battering down a city so well
fortified as Tripoli, and the Bashaw refused to make a treaty. A weary
blockade of the port followed. There were conflicts of small moment with
gunboats that tried to steal away to sea, and even the land forces were
bombarded at times. A party under Porter once landed and fired some
gunboats that had been hauled out on the beach, and on this occasion the
Arabs fought by throwing handfuls of sand in the faces of the Americans,
hoping to blind them.

Scene of Naval Operations IN THE
MEDITERRANEAN SEA.
Finally, the 31st of October, 1803, came on, and it was a memorable
day in the history of the American navy. The frigate Philadelphia, Capt.
William Bainbridge, that had been maintaining the blockade off Tripoli, had
been blown away from her station by a furious gale, and, while returning
during the morning of the 31st, saw a corsair stealing into port. The Yankee
brig Vixen, that had helped hold the station, was nowhere in sight, and the
Philadelphia made sail in chase. There was a fine breeze blowing, and the
Philadelphia gained rapidly, but the corsair hugged the coast, and Captain
Bainbridge found he was getting into shoal water. Had he been provided
with accurate charts he would have seen he was in worse than shoaling
waters, for he was running among reefs, the channels of which were well
known to the corsairs.

William Bainbridge.
From an engraving by Edwin.

By 11 o’clock, with only her topsails and courses set, the Philadelphia
was bowling along at eight knots an hour. The bow guns were already
throwing shot at the flying corsair and almost reaching him, while the walls
of the city rose scarcely three miles away. The three men who were in the
chains heaving the lead had called eight fathoms of water with drawling
regularity for some time, when one man suddenly cried out seven fathoms,
and fifteen seconds later another but six and a half.
Instantly the helm was thrown hard over and the ship came up to the
wind, headed for the open sea, and then with a shock that threw many of her
crew to the deck, she struck the reef. The bow rose six feet out of the water,

while the cordage and masts creaked and groaned under the tremendous
strain.
For a moment the crew looked about in silence, and then the voice of
the captain was heard calling for lead-lines over the bow and stern. It was
found that there was but twelve feet of water forward and seventeen aft. A
boat was lowered and a party sent to sound around the ship. They found that
she had left the channel when the helm was put down. Thereat every sail
was set aback; anchors and guns were thrown overboard forward or run aft
to reduce the load at the bow. Even the foremast was cut away, but all to no
purpose. She was hard and fast ashore.
Meantime the enemy’s gunboats had come out and opened fire on the
grounded frigate. The Americans replied with such few guns as could be
brought to bear, but eventually the tide ebbed, and the Philadelphia keeled
over until nothing could be done in her defence. So the magazine was
flooded, the pumps were disabled, holes were bored through her bottom,
and at 5 o’clock her flag was hauled down.
For some time the Tripolitans held aloof, fearing the sort of treachery
they were accustomed to among themselves, but as night fell they boarded
and plundered everything and everybody in sight. Even the clothing was
stripped from many of the crew.
In all, 315 men surrendered. Among the officers was Lieutenant Porter,
already mentioned; Jacob Jones, James Biddle, and James Renshaw, who,
though now prisoners, were to help make history in notable fashion in
another war to come.
Two days later a strong wind from the north piled the water of the
Mediterranean high on the reef. The stern of the Philadelphia floated,
anchors and cables were put out astern, and having stopped up the holes the
Americans had bored, and having brought a strain on the cables, the
corsairs hauled her off, and she was towed to an anchorage under the
Bashaw’s castle. And more than that, the Tripolitans succeeded in getting up
and replacing the guns, anchors, and most of the shot that had been thrown
overboard to lighten her.
That Bainbridge was eventually honorably acquitted when tried by
court-martial for losing his ship, scarcely need be said.

CHAPTER XIV

DECATUR AND THE PHILADELPHIA
STORY OF THE BRAVE MEN WHO DISGUISED A KETCH AS A MERCHANTMAN
AND SAILED INTO THE HARBOR OF TRIPOLI BY NIGHT, DREW UP ALONGSIDE
THE CAPTURED PHILADELPHIA, AND THEN, TO THE ORDER “BOARDERS
AWAY!” CLIMBED OVER THE RAIL AND THROUGH THE PORTS, AND WITH
CUTLASS AND PIKE DROVE THE PIRATES INTO THE SEA OR TO A WORSE FATE
—“THE MOST BOLD AND DARING ACT OF THE AGE.”

With 315 American prisoners, including twenty-two officers, to hold
for ransom, and with a swift and most substantial thirty-six-gun frigate
added to his fleet, the Bashaw of Tripoli had gained a decided advantage
over the Americans. He was so pleased over it that on a festival day that
followed the accident, he brought the officers before him where his court
was assembled in gala attire and, after a proper greeting, the Americans
were liberally sprinkled with ottar of roses and other perfumes and were
served with coffee and sherbet. Later, however, they were confined in filthy
dungeons and otherwise ill treated. But, in spite of dungeons, through the
aid of Mr. N. C. Nissen, the Danish consul at Tripoli, who was unremitting
in kind attentions to the Americans, Bainbridge was able to communicate
with the American fleet, and on December 5, 1803, he sent a letter, written
with lime juice (which becomes legible when heated), in which he proposed
that the Philadelphia be destroyed as she lay at anchor by the Americans,
who might come into the harbor at night in a schooner, and, after firing her,
get away again. The suggestion was adopted, and it was carried out in a
fashion that made the name of Decatur famous in the annals of the
American navy.
At this time Stephen Decatur, Jr., was a lieutenant of the navy and in
command of the famous schooner Enterprise. On December 23, 1803, he
fell in with a Tripolitan ketch named the Mastico, that was carrying a lot of

female slaves to the Sultan of Turkey, and very quickly captured her. This
prize he carried to Syracuse, where the American fleet, under Capt. Edward
Preble, was at anchor.
It is worth recalling here that Capt. Edward Preble, who was now in
command of the Constitution, had, as a boy of fourteen years, been driven
from his home at Portland (Falmouth), Maine, when that town was
destroyed by the infamous Mowat at the beginning of the war of the
Revolution.

Stephen Decatur.
From an engraving by Osborn of the portrait by White.

At Syracuse the project of destroying the Philadelphia by means of a
small vessel well manned was mentioned to Decatur. He eagerly asked to be
allowed to undertake the work with his schooner, the Enterprise, but the
matter was not at once decided on. Later Lieut. Charles Stewart, who

commanded the brig Siren, asked for the place, but Preble had decided
meantime that Decatur should do it and that the captured ketch Mastico
should be employed because she was of a rig that could more easily enter
the harbor of Tripoli without attracting attention.
Accordingly, the ketch was taken into the service as a tender and a
picked crew of sixty-two volunteers put on board, with a faithful Malta man
for pilot. In addition to these, there were a dozen young officers from the
Enterprise and from the flagship Constitution, among whom were two
midshipmen of whom the world was to hear later on—James Lawrence and
Thomas Macdonough. Macdonough was then but twenty years old, while
Lawrence was but sixteen. Decatur himself was only twenty-four.
Having everything in readiness, the Mastico sailed on February 9,
1804, for Tripoli, with the brig Siren in company to lie in wait off the harbor
and pick up the crew of the Mastico should they be obliged to take to the
small boats at any time.
Running across to Tripoli, the expedition arrived by night, but a furious
gale defeated the hope of success and all but swamped the Mastico. For six
days she rolled to the waves, her crew in distress for lack of food and of any
sleeping accommodations whatever, and because of the vermin the slaves
had left behind. But on the 16th of February the weather moderated to a
breeze that would just serve their purpose, and they stood in for the harbor,
overhauling their combustibles on the way and finding everything dry and
fit.
When night drew on, the men were divided into five crews, of which
three were to fire as many different parts of the ship, one was to hold her
upper deck, and one to remain in and guard the ketch. Meantime seven
more volunteers had been taken from the Siren. When night had fully come
the little ketch parted from the brig, and at 9 o’clock was sailing into the
harbor by the channel in which the Philadelphia had been lost.
All the crew but six well-disguised men were hidden below or stretched
out on deck in the shadow of the bulwarks, as soon as the city’s lights came
well in view, and with a failing wind the ketch thereafter drifted toward the
great hulk of the Philadelphia, which was soon brought plainly in view in
the moonlight. Her ports were aglow with lights, and her crew were seen to
be at least awake if not alert.

Drawing near at about 10 o’clock, the pilot, at Decatur’s order, steered
the ketch so as to foul the Philadelphia’s rigging at the bowsprit. Then a
sentinel hailed the ketch. The Malta pilot replied that the ketch had lost all
her anchors during the gale and wished to make fast to the cables of the
Philadelphia until others could be procured on shore. Then an officer asked
what brig was off shore, for he had seen the Siren in spite of precautions.
The pilot replied that it was the English war-brig Transfer, which had been
purchased at Malta for the Tripolitans and, fortunately, was due to arrive.
As the pilot talked, many of the Tripolitans gathered at the
Philadelphia’s rail and ports to peer over at the ketch. So when, at last, the
chains at the Philadelphia’s bow were almost within grasp the wind failed,
and the next instant a cat’s-paw caught the ketch aback; she began to drift
toward the broadside of the big ship, where all these Tripolitans would have
a fair view of her deck. It was a moment of great peril, but without the least
flurry two of the disguised sailors got into a small boat and carried a line to
a ring-bolt on the man-o’-war’s bow. Then the disguised men on board the
ketch began hauling in, while those lying in the shadow of the bulwarks,
trusting to the depth of the shadow, lent their aid by hauling hand over fist
as they lay there.
Meantime the Tripolitans had sent a small boat with a line by which
they intended to swing the ketch astern of the Philadelphia, but the Yankees
in the small boat, with great presence of mind, took it from them and
carried it to the ketch, “to save the gentlemen the trouble,” as they
explained in broken Maltese.
During all this time the pilot had been entertaining the Tripolitan officer
with a high-colored description of the ketch’s cargo—had really entertained
him until the men hauling on the bow line had brought the ketch within ten
yards of the big ship, when unhappily the tension on the line from the stern
drew the ketch broadside on to the Philadelphia, where the eyes of the idle
spectators could fall on the men who were lying on the ketch’s deck eagerly
hauling in on the bow line. One fair look was enough, and in an instant the
ship was resounding with the cry,
“Americano! Americano!”
The moment for action had come. Springing to their feet, the
Americans ran away with the line. A Tripolitan climbed over the

Philadelphia’s bows and cut the line loose, but the momentum already
gained was great enough to land the ketch fair in place, where grapnels
were thrown out, and with that Decatur cried, “Boarders away!” and sprang
for the rail of the Philadelphia.
By the side of Decatur stood Midshipmen Morris and Laws. Laws, to
be the first at the enemy, strove to get through a port, but his pistols caught
and held him for a moment, while Decatur slipped just enough to give
Morris the honor of being first, and then came Decatur and all the rest with
swinging cutlasses to clear the deck.

Burning of the Frigate Philadelphia by
Decatur.
From an old wood cut.

The Tripolitans had been fairly caught napping and, while never a word
was spoken, the quarter-deck was cleaned in a trice. Then the Americans
formed instantly in a line athwartship and charged silently forward.
Whelmed by the fierce onslaught, the Tripolitans fled for life, and the rapid
sound of bodies falling into the water alongside told whither many were
fleeing. Others ran below, where some met death from the cutlasses and
pikes of sailors who had climbed through the ports, and others hid to meet a
worse fate a brief time later.

So swift and thorough was the work of the American boarders that in
ten minutes the last show of resistance was ended. And then a single rocket
drew its line of flame high in air to tell the anxious friends without the bar
that the Philadelphia was captured.
Even while the rocket mounted, the three crews that had been assigned
to fire the ship were passing up the combustibles from the ketch, and never
was a work of destruction more completely done than that which followed.
Midshipman Morris, he who had first reached the enemy, was in charge
of the crew that fired the cockpit, the lowest attainable point in the ship. He
did his work effectually, but so swiftly had those worked on the deck above
him that when he followed his men up they barely had time to escape.
On reaching the upper deck the flames were found pouring from the
portholes on both sides and flaring up to lap the tar-soaked shrouds and
stays. Decatur was there, waiting for those from the cockpit. When they
came he paused but a moment to see that the fire was effectually set, and
then over the rail tumbled every man jack of the expedition, Decatur
himself being the last to leave the burning ship. Indeed, the ketch was then
drifting clear, and he had to jump to reach her. He had been on board but
twenty-five minutes, all told.
With poles and oars the Americans now strove to get away, but in some
way the ketch swung around under the stern of the big ship with boom
afoul, her sail flapping against the ship’s sides, and, at the last, with the
flames pouring through the ship’s cabin windows into the cabin of the
ketch, where all the ammunition of the expedition was stored, covered over
with sail-cloth only. The peril was imminent, but it was averted when some
one discovered that the forgotten line from the stern was still fast.
When that was cleared, and with their big oars, eight on a side, the
crew began to sweep the ketch away toward the sea, the flames on the
Philadelphia reached her tarred rigging at the rail. Running thence to the
masthead, they made such giant torches as illuminated the whole bay and
exposed the fleeing ketch as if in the light of day.
The Tripolitans hastened to their guns. The ketch was still well within
range, for the Philadelphia lay but a quarter of a mile from the fort, and in a
few moments heavy shot were bounding and splashing over the smooth

water on every side. But, whether from anger or mere excitement, the
barbarian aim was bad, and only one shot reached the little vessel, and that
merely passed through a sail.
And then to the roar of the cannon on the beach was added that of the
guns of the Philadelphia, which, heated by the fierce flames of deck and
frames, began to discharge themselves. But not all of them were fired so.
Only a few had been noted when the wondering spectators saw the great
hull suddenly burst open, with huge sheets of flame spurting from between
the parting timbers. The masts with their flaming rigging shot up a hundred
and fifty feet into the air. All eyes were for a moment dazzled with the
blazing light, and then came a shock and roar that made the earth and sea
shudder. The fire had reached the well-filled magazine.
The waves from the explosion came out to rock the triumphant
Americans in their little ketch, now rapidly reaching their shipmates and
safety.

The Blowing up of the Frigate Philadelphia
The U. S. Frigate Philadelphia while blocking the harbour of Tripoli; strikes upon a rock. In this
situation she surrenders. Com. Decatur obtains leave to attempt to recover or destroy her, & with 70
volunteers sails for the ship. He reaches her & though moored under the Bashaw’s Batteries &
surrounded by his Navy, he with his men rush on board & boldly attack & conquer the crew of near
1000 men. Finding her recovery impossible, they set her on fire, which soon produces a terrible
explosion, while Decatur & his crew safely escape from the harbour, amid a tremendous fire from the
enemies batteries & ships.

Not one American lost his life and but one was wounded. Of the
Tripolitans more than twenty were certainly killed by the boarders, while
many wounded ones jumped overboard, and many cowards sneaked to
hiding places below, where the flames ended them.
To reward those who had participated in this feat, which Lord Nelson,
it is said, called “the most bold and daring act of the age,” Congress made
Decatur a captain and gave him a sword, and to each of the others two
months’ pay. And, because of this adventure, the name of the ketch was
changed to Intrepid.
To show his feelings in the matter, the Bashaw of Tripoli placed the
American prisoners in a cold, damp apartment in the castle, where their

only light was from an iron grating in the ceiling, and he did not release
them from it until compelled to make peace.

Piece of the Philadelphia’s Stern.
From the original piece at the Naval Institute, Annapolis.

CHAPTER XV

HAND-TO-HAND WITH THE PIRATES
A FIGHT AGAINST ODDS OF THREE GUNBOATS TO ONE—DECATUR AND
MACDONOUGH LEADING THE BOARDERS—COLD-BLOODED MURDER AND
THE VENGEANCE THAT FOLLOWED—WHEN REUBEN JAMES WON FAME—
ELEVEN AGAINST FORTY-THREE IN A HAND-TO-HAND STRUGGLE, AND THE
REMARKABLE RESULT—THE HANDY CONSTITUTION—FIRED THEIR GUN AS
THE BOAT SANK UNDER THEM—WHEN SOMERS AND HIS MATES WENT TO
THEIR DEATH IN A FIRESHIP—END OF THE WAR WITH THE PIRATES.

After the destruction of the Philadelphia the war against the
Tripolitans was carried on with increased vigor. A number of gunboats,
carrying one long heavy gun each, and two barges, carrying a big thirteen-
inch brass mortar each, were “generously loaned us by his Sicilian
majesty.” With these and the force already in hand a number of attacks were
made on the city of Tripoli by Captain Preble, who was still in command of
the American forces. The first of these, and the most notable as a battle,
took place on the afternoon of August 3, 1804. Six gunboats, in two
divisions, were sent in to attack the enemy’s fleet. Master Commandant
Richard Somers, of whom a remarkable story will be told further on, led
one division, and young Stephen Decatur, now a captain, the other. Of the
six gunboats only three succeeded in weathering the point and getting at the
enemy; but one of these carried Stephen Decatur, and another Stephen’s
brother, Lieut. James Decatur. The Tripolitan fleet numbered nine gunboats,
each at least as well manned and armed as any of the American boats, but
the Yankees dashed at the head of the fleet with hearty cheers. Stephen
Decatur’s boat was the first to open the fire. Its long gun had been loaded
with a thousand musket-balls in a bag, in lieu of the ordinary projectiles,
and it was fired at point-blank range. A moment later the Yankee boat was
beside the enemy, and Decatur led the way to her quarter-deck. The

Tripolitans retreated forward, where a wide, open hatch protected them,
after a fashion, from direct assault; but a narrow gangway was found on
each side of the hatch—a gangway where men might advance in single file
—and over these narrow paths the Yankees charged. Decatur was first on
one side and Midshipman Thomas Macdonough on the other—the
Macdonough who was to win still greater fame on Lake Champlain. It was
a bloody but a brief fight, and the Tripolitans fled over the rail, save eight
who tumbled down the hatch and were made prisoners.

From an engraving by Kelly of the picture in
Faneuil Hall, Boston.
When an examination was made they found the Tripolitan captain dead,
with fourteen bullets from the great gun through him.

Meantime Lieut. James Decatur had, with equal ardor, attacked another
of the Tripolitans, and her commander, seeing the great power of the
Americans, determined to try to do by treachery what he could not hope to
do open-handed. He hauled down his flag after the first fire had been
received, and then waited the coming of Lieut. James Decatur to take
possession—waited with a loaded pistol at hand. As Decatur stood at the
rail ready to board and take possession, the Tripolitan shot him dead, the
bullet passing through his head. As the Tripolitan had hoped, the Americans
were thrown into confusion by the unexpected attack, and he was able to
haul off.
But he did not escape. In some way Stephen Decatur heard that his
brother had been murdered. He was towing his captured gunboat to a place
of safety, but he cast her off, and, seconded by his crew, who were
thoroughly aroused by the story, he went after the assassin.

Decatur avenging the murder of his brother.
Com. Decatur whilst bearing a prize from the harbour, hears of the treacherous murder of his
brother by a Turk; (the Turk having surrendered) in a moment changes his course, and with 10 men
for his crew seeks his enemy—rushes on board—and after a desperate struggle, with numbers far
superior, kills the Turk—captures his enemy’s boat—& again retreats from the harbour.

A round of grapeshot and musketry was poured into the fleeing
barbarian, and then Decatur led the boarders, and himself selected the
captain for his own victim. A most desperate hand-to-hand fight followed,
for the Tripolitan was a more powerful man than the American. Decatur
lunged at him with a boarding pike. The Mussulman parried the blow,
caught the weapon, and wrenching it away, lunged at Decatur. Decatur had
drawn his sword, and with this he parried the thrust, but his sword broke
short off at the hilt. The Tripolitan lunged again, and Decatur, although he
parried the blow, was wounded in the chest and arm, and a moment later the
two were clasped in a wrestling struggle for life.
At this another Mussulman aimed a blow at Decatur’s head from
behind. It was apparently all over with the gallant American, for no other
American was within reach save one, a seaman, Reuben James, and both of
his arms were disabled. But James leaped in, and with his head caught the
blow aimed at Decatur.
And then the Tripolitan threw Decatur to the deck, and Yankees and
Mussulmans thronged in and piled themselves over the two leaders.
As it happened, each of the leaders fell, with one arm free and one
pinned by the men on top. The Tripolitan with his free arm drew a long
knife, Decatur a pocket pistol. For a moment each felt the other’s ribs to
locate the heart, but Decatur was first by a fraction of a second, and his
pistol-ball did faithful work, killing the Mussulman instantly.

Reuben James Saving Decatur’s Life.
From an engraving of the picture by Chappel.

Then the Americans cleared the enemy from over their captain, and
when he reached his feet the victory was won, for the Mussulmans fled over
the rail as usual. It is comforting to know that the brave Reuben James
recovered from the wounds he had received, and lived to serve the nation
more than forty years. It was his boast that he was in “ten fights and as
many skrimmedges,” and it was his custom to celebrate the anniversary of
each with enthusiasm. A jolly old tar was Reuben James.

Of equal bravery were the men on the third American gunboat. She was
commanded by Sailing Master John Trippe and Midshipman John D.
Henley. Ranging up beside the enemy, these two officers and nine men got
on board of her, and then the two boats separated, leaving these eleven men
to face the whole barbarian crew, with no chance of retreat and small hope
of timely assistance.
But Trippe and Henley were just the men to lead such a forlorn hope.
Pikes and swords in hand, the eleven charged the enemy, Trippe and Henley
singling out the Tripolitan captain, knowing that victory was assured if they
could cut him down. But he was a magnificent specimen of humanity, and it
is said that he had sworn on the Koran to win victory or die.
Fighting with the energy born of fanaticism, he wounded Trippe no less
than eleven times, and at last Trippe went down with one knee on the deck,
but while in this position he caught the Tripolitan with breast unguarded
and thrust him through with a pike. And that ended one of the most
remarkable fights recorded in the annals of the navy. For Trippe and his ten
men killed fourteen of the Tripolitans, and made the remainder, twenty-two
in number, prisoners. The number of the enemy wounded was only seven.
The Americans struck to kill in that fight. Besides Trippe, a boatswain’s
mate and two marines were wounded, but none was killed among the
Americans.

John Trippe.
After a French engraving.

Meantime Master Commandant Somers, finding he could not sail his
boat inside of the reef by the route Decatur had taken, went down wind to
the opposite end of the reef, and for a time faced five of the enemy’s boats.
The other American gunboats came in later, and the enemy was driven off.
The Constitution (the flagship) and the smaller vessels of the American fleet
sailed close under the enemy’s batteries, silencing them over and again, and
bombarding the city. That the batteries were not permanently silenced was
due to the fact that the Tripolitans had 25,000 soldiers within, and these
remanned the guns of each battery as soon as the American ships ceased
firing at it.
So well did the Americans show their power here in hand-to-hand
fights that thereafter the Tripolitans would never engage them in that way.
And the manner in which the Constitution was handled must also be
mentioned, for she was sailed boldly into the harbor, and there sail was
taken in or made as if it were a mere exhibition of skill in a friendly port,
while her guns were handled with the precision of peaceful target practice.
The admiration of all foreigners was excited, but the time when American
naval crews were to compel the respect of all foreign powers had not yet
arrived.
In the subsequent attacks on the city, there were many incidents of
interest to American readers. A heavy shot penetrated the castle one day
where the American prisoners were confined. It covered Captain Bainbridge
with the débris of the wall and snatched the clothes off the bed on which he
was lying.
While one of the American gunboats was firing on a shore battery, a hot
shot penetrated her magazine and she was blown up. At the moment of the
explosion Midshipman Robert T. Spence and a gun’s crew were loading the
big gun on the bow. As it happened, the explosion did not injure either them
or their gun, although it opened wide the bottom of the boat. And so it came
to pass that, as the smoke cleared away, spectators saw Spence and his men
still at work loading the gun. And not only did they complete their work; as
the boat sank under them they gave three cheers for the flag, and fired their
last shot at the enemy, with the rising water wetting their feet.

The Battle of Tripoli, August 3, 1804.
From the painting by Corné, 1805, at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.

Spence was not able to swim, but he got hold of a big oar, and so kept
afloat with eleven others until picked up, when he and the others saved
turned to and continued the fight.
The story of the most stirring and the most unfortunate attack on the
city remains to be told. Captain Preble, “desirous of annoying the enemy by
all means,” decided to send a fireship among their shipping. The ketch
Intrepid, that had served so well in the attack upon the captured
Philadelphia, was selected for the sacrifice. A hundred barrels of powder in
bulk and 150 fixed shells and a lot of old iron were placed in a bin
amidships, and from this a pipe led to a room well aft, where a huge mass
of combustibles was placed. It was intended to handle the ketch as a
blockade runner and so get her into the midst of the enemy’s shipping. She
was then to be fired in the after-room, and the blaze there, it was supposed,
would be fierce enough to prevent the Tripolitans extinguishing it.
Meantime a train regulated to burn fifteen minutes would be running
through the pipe to the magazine. Two swift rowboats were placed on the

ketch, and in these her crew hoped to escape to the smaller vessels that
would be in waiting to pick them up.

Map of the HARBOR of TRIPOLI,
Showing where the Philadelphia grounded and where burned and where Intrepid was blown
up.

The glory which Decatur and his men had won in their attacks on the
Philadelphia had inspired the whole force of the fleet, and volunteers a-
plenty were eager to man the ketch. Of those who offered, Master
Commandant Richard Somers was chosen to command, while Midshipman
Henry Wadsworth was made second, with ten seamen for a crew. In
addition to these was a stowaway—Midshipman Joseph Israel. He had
pleaded in vain for permission to go, and so hid on board. He was
discovered, but was then allowed to go.
Every man of the crew knew very well the great danger of the venture,
and Somers and his officers declared they would not be taken alive. Somers,
before starting, took off a ring he wore and, breaking it into three pieces,
gave one to Decatur, another to Master Commandant Charles Stewart, his
most intimate friends. He kept the third himself. The two pieces given away

were to be preserved as mementoes if he failed to return. The seamen of the
crew disposed of their effects as if facing certain death.
It was on the night of September 4, 1804, that the attempt was made. A
fog lay low over the water, and a fair wind filled the sails as the ketch, at 8
o’clock, left the flagship and sailed away silently into the night.
A little later the Argus, the Vixen, and the Nautilus, all small cruisers,
stood over toward the channel in order to cover the retreat of the ketch, for
three Tripolitan gunboats had anchored there during the afternoon and were
likely to make trouble for the ketch’s crew. The Nautilus led the way for the
guarding fleet, and she held the ketch in view until so near the channel that
there was danger that she (the Nautilus) would be discovered, when she
hauled her wind to await the event of the expedition.
Her crew soon saw the ketch fade away in the night, but so intense was
their interest that many climbed over the rail to get down with their ears to
the water that they might hear the sooner any sound coming from her.
In the rigging of the Nautilus, not far above deck, Midshipman
Ridgeley was able, with the aid of a powerful glass, to follow the ketch into
the channel. He saw her glide as a shadow between the gunboats there. At
this moment a signal gun was fired from the shore. It was followed by the
rapid firing of every cannon on that side of the harbor. Immediately there
was a commotion among the three gunboats in the channel, and at that the
light of a lantern in the hands of one who ran was seen passing along the
deck of the ketch.

The Explosion of the Intrepid.
From an old engraving.

This light paused over the midship hatch to drop out of sight an instant
later, and then a hell of flame burst up to the sky, where the light had
disappeared.
A shock followed that made the ships beyond the bar quiver until tiny
waves spread away over the smooth water. And with the shock came a roar
that deafened. And then, as the echoes of the roar died away among the
distant hills, the patter and splash of shells and splintered timbers were
heard on every side, while cries as of fear and distress arose from the city—
cries that were followed by absolute silence.
All night long the Americans cruised to and fro about the channel,
firing guns and rockets at intervals, hoping against despair to find a
survivor. When morning came to give a fair view of the harbor, one of the
enemy’s gunboats was missing, and the Tripolitans were hauling three
others, badly shattered, out on the beach. The ketch and all who sailed in
her—the “men, whose names ought to live in the recollection and affections

of a grateful country, and whose conduct ought to be regarded as an
example to future generations”—had been blown to pieces.
Richard Somers, finding that his venture was discovered, and the crew
of a Tripolitan gunboat coming on board, had deliberately fired the mine,
and, Samson-like, had destroyed himself with the enemy.
Fragments of the wreck and a number of bodies of white men were
picked up in the harbor. The bodies were viewed by Captain Bainbridge, but
none was definitely recognized.
Other attacks on the city followed. The Congress gave Preble a gold
medal, each of his officers and midshipmen a sword, and all others of the
crew a month’s pay because of their good work there. The force was
increased by other ships until there were five frigates, a brig, three
schooners, a sloop, and a dozen or so gunboats and bomb barges in the
fleet, making the most powerful squadron that had ever assembled under
the flag. For that day and place it was an impressive display of the sea
power. In the meantime a formidable uprising had taken place in the
Bashaw’s dominions, and the capital of his chief province was captured by
the leader of the revolt with the aid of the Americans. So the Bashaw
became alarmed and eventually offered to deliver up all prisoners for a
ransom of $60,000 and to agree never again to trouble American commerce.
This offer was accepted, and peace followed. The fleet then sailed to Tunis,
whose ruler, stimulated by the British consul-general, had expelled the
American agent. To him terms of peace were dictated under the muzzles of
the guns of the fleet. And that was a matter of wonder to the nations of
Europe, for never had such a thing been done before. So closes the story of
the American navy’s work during the period between the Revolution and
the War of 1812.

Preble’s Medal.
As it appears in the perspective of a hundred years, that was in many
ways a most important epoch. It was, first of all, the time in which the
ruling policy of the American navy, as regards the construction of ships,
was formed—the policy under which it was determined to build only as
many ships as might be necessary to defend the nation and its commerce

from aggressors, but each ship to be the most powerful possible for its size.
Every device and model that seemed likely to add to the efficiency of these
vessels was tried, regardless of expense. The eager enterprise of the new
nation and the ships this enterprise set afloat excited endless derision from
the British officers of that day. The Constitution was called “a pine box” by
some Englishmen who inspected her. They had to learn by hard experience
their error.
The foreign commerce of the nation, through the influence of this new
fleet, was not only freed from the evils which the Mediterranean pirates had
brought upon it, but also from those for which the French anarchists were
responsible. Indeed, that commerce grew until the increase of the tariff
collected from imports amounted to several times the cost of the whole
American navy.
But valuable as were these gains, they were, perhaps, together of less
importance than was the effect of the deeds of the naval heroes upon the
people of the new republic. In the war of the Revolution we had, indeed,
won liberty, but we still dragged the slave-chains of colonists. Without
having known what it was to be freemen we had established a government
of and by the people and we found ourselves in unfamiliar quarters. We had
placed ourselves, so to speak, on the quarterdeck without having mastered
the art of navigation, and while quartered in the cabin, we had the manners
of the forecastle and smelled of bilgewater. Our new uniforms did not fit us
well, but there was no form of training that could so quickly swell the
muscles until they would fill the garments of liberty as a righteous foreign
war. The war with the Barbary pirates was of all wars most righteous. It
stirred the indignation of the most sluggish patriot to read of the deeds of
these black hounds of the sea, while the signal valor of those who fought
under the American flag leavened the spirit of the whole nation. As the
stories of the deeds of those who fought afloat for liberty had prepared the
way for manning the new fleet which aggression compelled us to build, so
the stories of the deeds of the heroes of the new navy nerved the nation for
the conflict that was already at hand. Small as were the numbers of the
crews who carried the flag overseas in this epoch, it is safe to say that they,
and they alone, strengthened the heart of the people until it was possible to
resist the shock of 1812.

CHAPTER XVI

WHY WE FOUGHT IN 1812
A STIRRING TALE OF THE OUTRAGES PERPETRATED ON AMERICAN CITIZENS BY
THE PRESS-GANGS OF THE BRITISH NAVY—HORRORS OF LIFE ON SHIPS
WHERE THE OFFICERS FOUND PLEASURE IN THE USE OF THE CAT—DOOMED
TO SLAVERY FOR LIFE—IMPRESSED FROM THE BALTIMORE—A BRITISH
SEAMAN’S JOKE AND ITS GHASTLY RESULT—THE BRITISH ADMIRALTY’S
WAY OF DEALING WITH DELIBERATE MURDER IN AMERICAN WATERS—
ASSAULT OF THE LEOPARD ON THE CHESAPEAKE TO COMPEL AMERICAN
SEAMEN TO RETURN TO THE SLAVERY THEY HAD ESCAPED—BUILDING
HARBOR-DEFENCE BOATS TO PROTECT AMERICAN SEAMEN FROM OUTRAGE
ON THE HIGH SEAS—OTHER GOOD REASONS FOR GOING TO WAR.

There were many causes operating through weary years to force the
American nation to declare war against the British in 1812, which the
reader will recall readily, of course. Great Britain retained the frontier posts
which she had agreed to surrender when the war of the Revolution came to
an end. She used these posts as headquarters for Indian tribes, whose
friendship she cultivated that she might use them to the injury of the United
States. She even incited them to attack the American pioneers, and
furnished them with guns and scalping knives when night assaults on
peaceful settlers were to be made. Although all Europe was submerged in a
turmoil of blood, she turned aside from the great interests there to foment
discord between the States of the American Union, seeking thereby to
disrupt the nation in the hope that a part—the New England part, at that—
would return to the colonial relationship. Remembering the prodigious
growth of American shipping and the consequent complaints of her own
shipowners, she used every means to harass American commerce. To detail
all of the evils she heaped upon the decks of American ships is unnecessary,
but the reader will remember that a time came when she ordered that every

American ship carrying cargo to any part of Europe must call first at a port
in England, land the cargo, pay duty on it, and then carry it away again,
subject to such regulations as seemed most beneficial to her.
As the Edinburgh Review for November, 1812, said, “the spirit of
animosity and unconciliating contempt pervaded the whole proceedings of
the government” toward the Americans. And although “they are descended
from our loins—they speak our language—they have adopted our laws—
they retain our usages and manners—they read our books—they have
copied our freedom—they rival our courage; yet they are less popular and
less esteemed among us than the base and bigoted Portuguese, or the
ferocious and ignorant Russians.”
That the retention of the frontier posts, the inciting of the Indians to
night attacks on the frontiersmen, and the interferences with American
oversea trade were separately sufficient causes of war and, combined, more
than sufficient, will not now be seriously disputed, if the advocate of peace
will stop to consider what ought to be done were any one of these uncalled-
for aggressions attempted now. And yet so great was the American
antipathy to another war, so great was the American desire to hold a neutral
position as to the wars of Europe, that neither the one nor the other nor all
together were sufficient to nerve them to strike the blow. Still another and a
stronger incentive was needed, if war was to be declared—a grievance that
would appeal to the heart of the whole people. And not only was this
incentive found; it was continually present and crying aloud for vengeance.

“The Press-gang impressing a Young Waterman
on his Marriage Day.”
From an English engraving, illustrating an old song.

To fully appreciate this, the chief cause of the War of 1812 between the
United States and England, one must first know well how the crews of the
British naval ships of that day were recruited and what manner of life these
crews led when in actual service. As to the manner of recruiting, the facts
are, no doubt, well known to almost every reader. Gangs of men, under the
lead of petty officers, and commonly piloted by a crimp, were sent ashore in
home ports by the captain who found his ship short-handed. These gangs
went to the resorts of seamen in the port where the ship happened to lie, and
there took by force every English-speaking sailor they could find and
carried him on board the warship. Failing to find a resource in the sailors’
boarding-houses, they knocked down any able-bodied man encountered in
the street, and he was then carried instantly to the ship. Failing in getting
enough men in this fashion—as, for instance, when the ship was in a
foreign port or on the high seas—it was the custom, the every-day custom,
to send the press-gang, on board any ship where it was supposed that
English-speaking sailors might be found, and there take and carry off all
such sailors.

The life that the crews so recruited led cannot, of course, be described
here in full detail. The reader will readily imagine that the officers who
snatched a man away from his home without even the poor privilege of
telling his wife and children of his fate would not show any great care for
the feelings or comfort of the man when on board the ship. But any picture
of the life there which an American, at the end of the nineteenth century,
might base on the mere fact that sailors were kidnapped, would be wholly
inadequate, for the reason that no American of these days, unacquainted
with the facts, could imagine such a degraded state of slavery. That the
crews were ill-fed; that they were worked to the limit of their endurance;
that the pay was as nothing (it is on record that one kidnapped man received
£14 2s. 6d. for serving two and a half years); that the kidnapped men were
not allowed to go ashore and were not allowed to write letters to their
families where any effort was likely to be made for their release—all these
conditions are, or were, a matter of course. It was in the matter of
preserving what the officers called discipline—in keeping these unfortunate
slaves in subjugation—that the real brutality of the British naval officers
appeared. For the officers, who depended on clubs and manacles to recruit
their crews, made no appeal to them save through their fears—used nothing
to enforce an order but the cat-o’-ninetails. One undenied description of the
flogging of a man on a British man-o’-war—a man-o’-war well known later
on in the annals of the American navy—shall serve as an illustration of the
ordinary punishments inflicted there.

Another View of the “Young Waterman” and the
Press-gang.
From an English engraving.

In the year 1811 the British frigate Macedonian was commanded by
Capt. John S. Carden, and his executive officer was one David Hope. “It
was a peculiar feature of the brutal punishment of flogging that officers and
men who at first sickened and fainted at the sight of it gradually grew
indifferent and in some instances acquired a craving for the bloody ordeal
and took a fiendish delight in superintending it. David Hope was one of
these. He took the exquisite delight of a connoisseur in the art of flogging,
being especially fond of seeing the tender flesh of boys lacerated and torn.”
One day a midshipman on the Macedonian named Gale, “a rascally,

unprincipled fellow,” lost a handkerchief. A sailor found it on the deck, and
as it was unmarked, kept it. Gale saw it in the sailor’s possession, and the
sailor was court-martialled, convicted of theft, and sentenced to be flogged
through the fleet—to receive 300 lashes from the cat—and to serve one
year in prison.
On the day appointed the Macedonian’s launch was put into the water
and rigged, under the supervision of this David Hope, with a frame on
which the bare-backed sailor was lashed. A surgeon, to keep watch that the
man was kept alive, boarded the launch with the boatswain and the boat’s
crew, and then all hands were called to man the rail and rigging, where all
could view the torture.
This done, the lash was applied to the man’s back until “the flesh
resembled roasted meat burned nearly black before a scorching fire.”
Then the launch was sent to another ship and to another and another,
where fresh boatswains applied the lash anew to the raw back of the man,
the doctor standing by and seeing that the man remained conscious to suffer
the torment. When 220 blows had been given the doctor ordered the
whipping stopped. The sailor begged to have the other eighty blows given
that he might be done with it, but this was refused. He was carried back to
the Macedonian and cared for until he had recovered his strength, when the
remaining eighty were given to him, and then he was flung into prison.

A Flogging Scene. (“The Point of Honor”—a Sailor about to be
Flogged is Saved by a Comrade’s Confession.
From a drawing by George Cruikshank.

Just before the War of 1812 a deserter from a British ship slipped on
board the United States frigate Essex. When an officer with a gang came for
him he was, of course, surrendered. On asking, then, that he be allowed to
go below for his clothes, permission was granted, but instead of getting his
clothing he ran to the carpenter’s bench, picked up an axe, and deliberately
chopping off his left hand, he carried it on deck and threw it at the feet of
the British lieutenant, saying he would cut off his foot also before he would
serve again in the British navy. As he was no longer able to do duty as a
sailor the lieutenant left him.

The United States Frigate Essex.
From a lithograph at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.

Lest these stories seem to the humane reader to exaggerate the horrors
of life on a British naval ship, the following facts from the London “Annual
Register” for 1781 (page 41 of “Principal Occurrences”) will be found
conclusive: The total number of men “raised” for the navy, 1776 to 1780,
was 170,928. Of these, 1,243 only were killed by the enemy, while 18,545
“died,” and 42,069 deserted. More than ten per cent. of all who were
“raised” “died,” while almost one-fourth of them all succeeded in deserting,
in spite of the rigors of the imprisonment into which they were carried.
It is necessary to give figures relating to the Revolutionary period
instead of the era of the War of 1812, because British officials have
absolutely refused to publish any such statistics since 1800.
What bearing all these facts have on the War of 1812 between the
United States and Great Britain, if not plain already, will very soon appear.
Animated by the belief that “our maritime supremacy is in fact a part of the

law of nations,” and by the further belief that “America certainly cannot
pretend to wage war with us; she has no navy to do it with,” the British
naval officers kidnapped English-speaking sailors wherever they were
found, even when these sailors were confessedly born citizens of the United
States. The British government did, indeed, rule that where an American
(natural-born) had a certificate from the American government attesting his
nativity—where he could, by documentary evidence, prove his nativity—he
might be excused by the British “recruiting” gangs, but the rule was, in fact,
a mere diplomatic subterfuge for use should policy at any time require a
“disavowal.” In actual practice the only judge of a man’s citizenship was
the recruiting officer of the short-handed ship, and the lithe-limbed Yankee
sailor was just the kind of a man the British press-gang was looking for. In
fact, the British periodicals of that day continuously scoffed at these
citizenship papers, and it was asserted in Parliament, as well as by the press,
that the American naval officers, as well as naval officials stationed on
shore, deliberately issued false papers at every opportunity—in short, that
the Americans, as a nation, were liars, perjurers, and forgers.
As early as 1747, when Massachusetts was a colony in most peaceful
relations with the home government, a press-gang caused a bloody riot on
the streets of Boston, where press-gangs were “already stigmatized as
barbarous by public opinion.” Indeed, one of the irritations leading to the
hostilities begun in 1775 was the work of the press-gang. The war of the
Revolution forever settled the question of the right of the British
government to impress an American, but instead of stopping such violations
of the rights of a free-minded people it rather increased them. For the hatred
and contempt which the British felt toward the Americans as a people
during that war was intensified by the result of it. It was the personal
pleasure of the British officer to get these Yankees where he could make
them feel his power. It is on record (see “Life of Elder Joseph Bates”) that
the British officers were particular to see that these Americans took off their
hats when the band played “God Save the King,” and that a common form
of address was “Here, you damned Yankee scoundrel,” do this or that. That
the “damned Yankee scoundrel” was triced up and flogged on the slightest
provocation by these officers, who confessedly enjoyed seeing flesh creep
under the lash, scarcely need be said.

No sooner was the war of the Revolution over and American merchant
ships free to sail to British ports than the outrages began on the American
seamen. It was literally true that the United States had no navy and could
not wage war with England. We did not have even one ship-of-war left to
carry the flag, and the party that ruled the nation then was utterly opposed
to building one. It called itself the party of the people—it was fearful lest
something or somebody enslave the people—but when the friends of
American seamen, shanghaied into the barbarous slavery of a British
warship, protested, this “liberty-loving” party pigeon-holed the documents.
But let us be just in this matter. It was the liberty-loving party that did at last
declare war. The opposition preferred to trust in “the humanity” and “sense
of justice” which the offending nation was supposed to possess.
So the press-gangs worked on merrily. Not only was the American
walking in the street of a foreign city in immediate danger; the American
ships on the high seas were stopped and stripped of their crews. The British
ships even lay to off New York, Boston, and other American ports to
intercept American merchantmen, from which seamen were taken until they
were so short-handed that they were lost. The American seamen were left to
face death by shipwreck, as they were disciplined to death on the decks of
British naval warships. And because they were lithe and quick-witted—
because they more readily devised means for escape from this slavery than
others—they were transferred to the ships doing duty on the coasts of
Africa and in the East Indies, just as American prisoners captured during the
war of the Revolution were sent to and compelled to serve on those stations.
As the Edinburgh Review for November, 1812, admitted, “they were
dispersed in the remotest quarter of the globe, and not only exposed to the
perils of service, but shut out, by their situation, from all hope of ever being
reclaimed.” They were doomed to slavery for life.
How the indignation was of slow growth—so slow, indeed, that it
needed the outrages of the Barbary pirates to stir it even to the feeblest
blaze—has already been told in the story of the origin of the new navy. But
at last a majority of two was found for a resolution of the Congress
declaring that a seaside nation ought to have a navy, and so a navy was built
—a navy so small in numbers as to be absolutely insignificant when
compared with that whose “supremacy is in fact a part of the law of
nations.” It was built of American oak, manned by American seamen, and

sent afloat with the American flag flying from every mast. It did good—it
did the best kind of work—but when the Barbary pirates were cowed it was
reduced “to a peace footing.” There was never an effort made with it to
resent the enslaving of American seamen. So the aggressions increased
continually. And the politicians talked. They talked about the illegal
confiscation of American ships under the decrees and orders of the French
and English governments—they were more concerned about the dollars
than the liberties of the people—and finally when war seemed inevitable,
they seriously discussed the advisability of abandoning the seacoast to the
expected invaders! The chatter about no European enemy being able to find
a permanent footing on the broad American soil, where so many millions of
freemen were to be ready with squirrel rifles and shotguns to repel him, was
quite as common at the beginning of the nineteenth century as it is at the
end of it. The word “jingo” was not in use in those days. But the men who
asserted that government existed solely in order that the power of the whole
people should be exerted to protect every individual in all his rights
wherever in the wide world he might find himself, heard plenty of equally
opprobrious epithets applied to them. And the utmost that was done for the
sake of national honor was the building of a lot of boats for “harbor-
defence.”
And then came a day when, to the injury that had been done
unceasingly, was added insult, the memory of which to this day brings the
hot blush of shame as well as the flood-tide of indignation to the brow of
every American patriot.
It was on the 16th of November, 1798. As the reader will remember,
this nation was then actually at war with France, although no formal
declaration of war had been made. The French ship Croyable, of fourteen
guns, had been captured, taken into the American service under the name of
Retaliation, and recaptured by the French ship Insurgent. Because of these
troubles a fleet of sixty American merchant ships had gathered at Havana to
await a convoy, and the Constellation, Capt. Thomas Truxton, and the
Baltimore, Capt. Isaac Phillips, were sent to bring them home.
This service having been performed in satisfactory manner, the
Baltimore was sent alone to convoy a smaller fleet from Charleston back to
Havana.

On November 16, 1798, while en route on this passage, the convoy fell
in with a British squadron consisting of two seventy-four-gun ships-of-the-
line, one ninety-eight-gun ship-of-the-line, and two thirty-two-gun frigates.
Because both Great Britain and the United States were then at war with
France, the two nations were, of course, allies at this time. Nevertheless,
knowing that the British ships were sure to be anxious for more sailors,
Captain Phillips signalled his fleet to square away before the wind, and so
get out of reach, while he bore up to have a talk with the Englishmen.
On arriving near the flagship—the Carnatic, Captain Loring—Captain
Phillips pulled over to her in his gig. He was received with the usual
civilities, and then was coolly informed that every man on board the
Baltimore who did not carry the government certificate that he was an
American citizen would be impressed into the British service.
A ship of the American navy was to be treated as merchant ships had
been treated.
Captain Phillips protested, and said he would surrender his ship first.
Then he returned to the Baltimore, where he found a British lieutenant
already on deck and mustering the crew.
No form of protest was of any avail. Everything said or done excited
only the contemptuous smile of the lieutenant, and in the end, being
overpowered by the great ship-of-the-line squadron, Captain Phillips had
the humiliation of seeing five of his men impressed in the British service.
Meantime Captain Loring had taunted Captain Phillips with the
statement that there were already a number of impressed American citizens
in the Carnatic’s crew.
And all that the American government did in the matter was to dismiss
the unfortunate Phillips from the service—dismiss him as a scapegoat for
the scurvy sins of those really responsible for the disgrace that had fallen
upon the navy. For Phillips very well knew how the administration had
pigeon-holed the complaints of the friends of kidnapped seamen—knew
very well that the Navy Department could not be depended on to support
him in resenting such aggression.
In one respect Phillips deserved his punishment—he had sworn to
defend the flag, and he did not fire a gun. Not only should he have cleared

his ship for action; it was his duty to fight, Nicholas-Biddle fashion, until
the last plank was shot from under his feet.
Humiliated as every patriot was when the story of this outrage was
spread over the nation, greater and lingering shame was in store. Not only
did the outrages on American commerce increase as the years passed on; a
still heavier blow was to fall on the face of American manhood. A British
ship was to shoot an American ship to pieces in order to recapture four
impressed Americans who had succeeded in escaping from the slavery they
had endured—the British frigate Leopard was to assault the Chesapeake on
the high seas in time of peace.
But before that attack another was made that was less aggravating than
the one on the Baltimore, only because it was the second of its kind—
because, being the second, the American people may be supposed to have
been somewhat accustomed to their humiliation. This was on June 12, 1805.
Lieut. James Lawrence—he had his revenge afterward in the Hornet-
Peacock fight—was carrying a small gunboat to the Mediterranean to help
in the war with the pirates. Off Cadiz he had the misfortune to fall in with
the British fleet under Admiral Collingwood, when three of his men were
taken from him. That the administration at Washington (it was during Mr.
Jefferson’s second term) rested easily under the outrage is plain from the
fact that only the briefest mention of it is made in any history. The
impressment of Americans was such a common, such an every-day,
occurrence that the fact of three taken from a national ship was, to use a
newspaper reporter’s expression, worth only a three-line jotting.
And another three-line jotting is devoted to what is called the Leander
affair. A British squadron was cruising off Sandy Hook on what is, in these
years, the favorite American ground for yacht races. They were lying in
wait, as was their custom, for American ships, from which they could gather
in seamen. When a little American sloop came along on April 25, 1806, “a
shot was recklessly fired from one of them, the Leander.” It is fair to
suppose that this shot was fired as a joke on the sloop’s crew. If one recalls
the undisputed character of such men as Lieutenant Hope of the
Macedonian, already described, one may readily believe that the average
British officer of that day would have thought it a good joke to scare a
sloop’s crew by firing a cannon-ball across her deck. The gunner on the

Leander, to make the joke as laughable as possible, aimed carefully. His
shot killed the man at the tiller.
When the people of New York learned the facts through the return of
the sloop, the local excitement was very great. All the vessels in the harbor
hoisted their flags at half-mast on the day the body was buried, while the
Tammany Society attended the funeral in a body. So Mr. Jefferson’s
government felt constrained to protest. At that, Captain Whitby, who
commanded the Leander, was taken through the form of a court-martial,
unanimously acquitted of wrong-doing and promoted.
The crowning outrage, however, came in the year 1807. Early in that
year a squadron of British warships had congregated in the mouth of
Chesapeake Bay to blockade some Frenchmen lying at Annapolis. The
American Congress had granted an appropriation meantime (though with
stingy hand) for enough seamen to man the frigate Chesapeake, that was to
be sent out under Capt. Charles Gordon to the Mediterranean, where she
was to take the place of the Constitution. She was to carry Commodore
James Barron with her (his real title was captain), and he was to command
at the Mediterranean station.

Capt Henry Whitby. R.N.
The Chesapeake was partly fitted out at Washington, and then she
dropped down to Norfolk to complete her preparations for sea, and ship
enough men to fill her crew. While she was still lying at Washington seven
men applied at the recruiting station in Norfolk, who said they were

American citizens—who made oath to that statement, in fact, and were
permitted to sign as members of the crew of the Chesapeake, and they were
sent on to join the ship then at Washington. Soon after this it appeared that
three of the men had deserted from the British warship Melampus and four
from the Halifax. Just how the fact that they were deserters became known
is not definitely stated, but from the details given and from the manifest ill-
temper of the British officers in the doings that followed, it is reasonable to
suppose that at least one of these seven men met some of the British officers
on shore, and feeling safe under the American flag, ventured to reply, in
disrespectful manner, to remarks made by the officers. There is, indeed, no
doubt the officers were defied and, so, deeply offended.
In those days one Erskine represented the British government at
Washington. He tried to have the seven deserters returned to the ships from
which they came. Now, in spite of the fact that the British officers were in
those days diligently engaged in kidnapping American-born sailors from
American ships, the American Navy Department had issued strict orders to
the recruiting officers “to enlist no British subjects known to be such.” And,
further, it must be said that there was no law authorizing an American
commander to deliver up deserters from foreign navies when found in
American ships. Nevertheless, an investigation was made as to the
antecedents of the seven men, and then it was discovered that the British
officials were wholly unable to prove that any one of them was a British
subject. More important still, it was proved that instead of having
voluntarily shipped in the British navy, the three men who had deserted
from the Melampus had been kidnapped from an American merchant ship in
the Bay of Biscay. Two of them were natives of Maryland, and one,
although born in South America, had come to Massachusetts when a child
and had there become a lawful citizen of the United States. The names of
the three were William Ware, Daniel Martin, and John Strachan, and all
were colored. As to the four from the Halifax, it was not proved where they
were born except as they swore they were of American birth, but very likely
three of them were of English birth, for they deserted the Chesapeake and
disappeared. The fourth appears in history both as Jenkin Ratford and as
John Wilson. He was a white man and, unfortunately for himself, he
remained on the ship.

Because the three men were definitely proved to be American citizens,
and because there was nothing to disprove Ratford’s oath that he too was
one, the Navy Department refused to surrender the men, and the diplomatic
correspondence was closed. The American authorities having received no
protest after the decision was rendered, supposed that the matter was
dropped altogether.
And that was a very grave error on the part of the American authorities.
For so great was the arrogance of the British naval officers, and so strong
was their contempt for the American government and people, that they
determined to take the men by force from the deck of the Chesapeake as
soon as she had passed out to sea, and an order was issued by Admiral
Berkeley commanding any British captain who found the Chesapeake at sea
to board her, whether she would permit it or not, and take the men.
Naturally that order was kept secret, and Captains Barron and Gordon
(Barron, by the fact of his rank, was the responsible official) had no idea
that any real ill feeling existed, let alone that any intention to assault the
ship was meditated. There was, indeed, some grumbling by British officers
at Norfolk, and the officers of the Chesapeake heard of it, but there was not
enough in it to excite their suspicions.
And so the 22d day of June, 1807, arrived, and the Chesapeake was,
after a most remarkable fashion, ready for sea. She set her pennant, got up
her anchor, and with her decks littered with baggage, chicken coops—what
not—and her rammers, wads, matches, and powder-horns stowed no one
knew where, she sailed away.
Meantime, while yet the Chesapeake’s anchor had not been gotten, the
crew of the big British fifty-gun ship Leopard had made sail and gone to sea
slowly—so slowly that she kept the Chesapeake constantly in sight.
At 3 o’clock in the afternoon the Leopard brought to near the
Chesapeake and hailed her, saying that the officers and crew wished to send
letters by her to friends in Europe. It was a common practice for warships as
well as merchantmen to carry letters in that fashion, and the Chesapeake
backed her mainyards and waited for the boat from the Leopard. When the
boat came, a British lieutenant climbed to the deck of the Chesapeake, and
then, instead of producing a package of letters, he drew forth a written
demand from his captain for the return of the sailors alleged to be British

subjects. With this demand he also presented a copy of the circular issued
by his admiral which ordered any British ship falling in with the
Chesapeake to take the so-called deserters from her by force if necessary.
Captain Barron was very much surprised, but he refused to deliver up the
men.
Meantime the Leopard had worked into the most advantageous position
for attacking the Chesapeake, and with her ports open, cannon out, and
matches lighted, she awaited the issue of the demand.
The lieutenant returned to his ship. Captain Humphreys of the Leopard
mounted the rail and shouted:
“Commodore Barron must be aware that the orders of the admiral must
be obeyed.”
No reply was made to this, and the words were repeated. A shot was
fired across the bows of the Chesapeake. Another one was fired in like
manner, and then a whole broadside was discharged directly at the
American ship.
Being wholly unprepared for action, the Chesapeake could make no
reply, and for twelve minutes (some accounts say fifteen) she lay there
helpless while the British seamen worked their guns. Her masts, rigging,
and sails were shot to pieces. Three men were killed and eighteen wounded,
Captain Barron being among the wounded.

CAPTN. SALUSBURY PRYCE HUMPHREYS.
R.N.
It was deliberate, cold-blooded murder, done to compel three American
citizens to return to the slavery on a British ship into which they had been
kidnapped. And it succeeded in its object.

Being, as said, wholly unprepared, no defence was made, and when
Captain Barron saw that his crew were being killed uselessly, he hauled
down his flag. Lieut. William H. Allen, on the Chesapeake, did manage to
fire one gun by means of a coal carried in his bare hands from the galley
fire, and the ball hulled the Leopard, but the flag was already down to the
rail, and it was done only as a matter of honor.
So the crew of the Chesapeake were mustered on deck, the triumphant
lieutenant returned, the four “deserters” were bundled over the rail into the
British boat, and the Chesapeake was left, with her dead and wounded, to
work her riddled sails in the course back to Norfolk.
The Leopard sailed on. The unfortunate Jenkin Ratford was hanged at
the fore yardarm, and the three who were acknowledged to be kidnapped
American citizens were sentenced to receive 500 lashes from the cat.
And what does the uninformed reader suppose the political leaders of
the American republic did about it? They tore the Eagle from the American
coat-of-arms and substituted the Porcupine—they asked the British
government to disavow the act of Admiral Berkeley, and they ordered the
building of 188 more gunboats for harbor defence!

Taking Deserters from the Chesapeake.

APPENDIX TO VOLUME I
PAY OF NAVAL SEAMEN IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE NAVY AS A NATIONAL
ORGANIZATION.

Commander-in-chief, $125 a month. Officers of a ship of twenty guns
and upward: captain, $60; lieutenant, $30; master, $30; surgeon, $25;
chaplain, $20; midshipman, $12; gunner, $15; seaman, $8.
Officers of a ship of ten to twenty guns: captain, $48; lieutenant, $24;
master, $24; surgeon, $21.66; midshipman, $12; gunner, $13; seaman, $8.
The pay of the following was the same in any class of cruisers: armorer,
$15; sailmaker, $12; yeoman, $9; quartermaster, $9; quarter-gunner, $8;
coxswain, $9; cook, $12.
Commanders were allowed $4 and $5 a week for rations, and
lieutenants, captains of marines, surgeons, and chaplains, $4.
Prize money coming to the officers and seamen of the Continental navy
was divided in shares: captains, 6; first lieutenant, 5; second lieutenant, 4;
surgeon, 4; master, 3; steward, 2; mate, 1½; gunner, 1½; boatswain, 1½;
gunner’s mate, 1½; sergeant, 1½; privates, 1.
Maclay notes that the first system of uniforms was adopted for the
Continental navy on the 5th of September, 1776, when the Marine
Committee decided that the uniform for the officers of the navy should be
as follows: Captains, a coat of blue cloth with red lapels, slashed cuffs, a
stand-up collar, flat yellow buttons, blue breeches, and a red waistcoat with
yellow lace. The uniform for lieutenants consisted of a blue coat with red
lapels, a round cuff faced, a stand-up collar, yellow buttons, blue breeches,
and a plain red waistcoat. Masters were to have a blue coat with lapels,
round cuffs, blue breeches, and a red waistcoat; while midshipmen had a
blue coat with lapels, a round cuff faced with red, a stand-up collar, with red
at the buttons and buttonholes, blue breeches, and a red waistcoat. The
marines were to have a green coat faced with white, round cuffs, slashed

sleeves and pockets, with buttons around the cuff, a silver epaulet on the
right shoulder, skirts turned back, buttons to suit the facings, white
waistcoat and breeches edged with green, black gaiters and garters. The
men were to have green shirts “if they can be procured.”

INDEX

Abby Bradford, merchant-ship, capture of, by the Sumter, iv. 412;
captured by the frigate Powhatan, 413.
Abellino, Yankee privateer, captures prizes in the Mediterranean, iii. 343.
Acasta, British gun-boat, attacks the Constitution, iii. 260.
Acquia Creek, Potomac River, capture of Confederate forts at, iv. 66, 81–
83.
Active, British brig, captured by the Hazard, i. 206.
Adams, American frigate, changed to a corvette, iii. 54;
Captain Charles Morris in command of, 57;
on the coast of Africa, 58;
chased by the Tigris, 59;
scurvy on board, 60;
runs on a rock, 61;
attacked on the Penobscot, 62;
burned, ib.
Adams, Captain H. A., disloyal conduct of, iv. 117.
Adams, John, member of first Marine Committee, i. 36.
Adams, Samuel, and the Boston tea-party, i. 12.
Adelaide, Federal transport, iv. 100.
Adeline, American brig, recaptured from the British, ii. 74.
Admiral Duff, British privateer, blown up by the Protector, i. 207.
Adriana, American brigantine, Ambassador to Holland sails on, iv. 153.
Adventure, British ship, burned by Paul Jones, i. 78.
Africa, British ship-of-the-line, ii. 55.
Africa, making the coast of, safe for American traders, iii. 340–358.
Aiken, Southern revenue cutter, converted into the Confederate privateer
Petrel, iv. 93.

Alabama, Confederate privateer, off Galveston, iv. 357;
known as No. 290, 430;
Captain Semmes appointed to command, 431;
cruises off the Azores, Martinique, Galveston, Cape Town, and the East
Indies, 432–436;
encounters the Kearsarge at Cherbourg, 436;
comparison of their armaments, 437;
the fight, 438–441;
prizes taken by, 447.
Alabama claims, iv. 430.
Albatross, Federal gun-boat, passes the batteries of Port Hudson, iv. 358.
Albemarle, Confederate ironclad ram, iv. 456;
laid up at Plymouth, N.C., 457;
blown up by Lieutenant Cushing, 461.
Albemarle Sound, N.C., a Confederate privateer resort, iv. 94.
Albert Adams, Federal merchant-ship, captured by the Sumter, iv. 415.
Alden, Captain James, iv. 386.
Alden, Commander James, iv. 314.
Alert, British corvette, surrenders to the Essex, ii. 42;
attempt to rescue from Porter, 43, 44.
Alert, British cutter, captures the Lexington, i. 119, 120.
Alexander, Captain Charles, i. 66.
Alexandria, British frigate, ii. 359.
Alexandria, Red River, Admiral Porter’s squadrons arrive at, iv. 370.
Alfred, American flagship, sent to France, i. 130;
captured, 132, 133.
Algerian fleet sent after Yankee merchantmen, iii. 341.
Algerian Navy, strength of the, iii. 344.
Algerian pirates encouraged by England, i. 308, 309.
Algiers, Africa, tribute paid to by the United States, iii. 339;
by England, 340.
Algiers, Dey of, ransom paid to, i. 309, 310;
treatment of Americans by, iii. 340, 341.
Algiers, harbor defences of, iii. 345.

Allen, American gun-boat, iii. 141.
Allen, Captain William Henry, ii. 360;
carries the American Minister to France, 361;
sails into the English Channel, ib.;
captures a wine ship from Portugal, 362, 363;
encounters the Pelican, 362–364;
his ship surrendered, 367;
dies in Mill Prison Hospital, 371.
Allen, Lieutenant William Howard, takes charge of the ship, ii. 364;
continues the fight, 367;
killed in an engagement with pirates, iii. 333.
Alliance, American frigate, detailed to carry Lafayette home, i. 232;
fouls the Bonhomme Richard, 234;
takes a valuable prize, 236;
fires into the Bonhomme Richard, 254;
flight of Paul Jones on the, 275;
cruises on the French coast, 297;
narrow escape of, 298;
sails from Havana with specie, ib.;
attacked by the Sybille, 299;
sold, 303.
Alligator, American tender, surrendered to the British, iii. 235.
Alligator, American schooner, defeats an attack at Cole’s Island, ii. 419.
Alvarado, Mexican port, Commodore Conner attempts to take, iii. 410;
captured by Lieutenant Charles G. Hunter, 428.
Alwyn, John C., Lieutenant in the Java fight, mortally wounded, ii. 166,
171, 172.
American citizens in foreign countries, iii. 385, 386.
American commerce, English policy toward, i. 306, 307, 384;
protected by Portugal, 307;
menace to, iv. 412.
American cruisers in British waters, i. 112–133.
American flag, first salute given to, i. 69;
designed, 134;
first hoisted, 135;

first saluted by a foreign power, 138;
protected by Portugal, 307;
a shield for an infamous traffic, iii. 361;
a Chinese assault on, 380.
American frontier in 1812, ii. 262.
American Navy, first existence of, i. 1;
founders of, 37;
first ships of, in commission, 39–43;
resolutions of Congress founding it, 41;
first officers and first ships of, 39–43;
origin of the, 1–47;
first cruise of the, 48–62;
first squadron poorly manned and inefficient, 49–53;
along shore in 1776, 63–83;
mismanagement in, 159;
at the time of the Declaration of Independence, 300;
building a new navy, 303;
strength of, at commencement of hostilities with France, 315;
almost extinct, 396;
reduced to a peace footing, 398;
discreditable lack of, ii. 26;
increase of, 356;
development of, from 1815 to 1859, iv. 1–9;
personnel of the, in 1859, 24–26;
number of men who took part with the Southern States, 27;
value of men from Northern ports and the Great Lakes, 36;
a nautical curiosity shop, 37;
ferryboats as naval ships, ib.;
first great naval expedition of the War of the Rebellion, 168;
modern, sketch of, 523–554;
in 1885, condition of, 523.
American prisoners in England, i. 122;
in Tripoli, 345, 358.
American seamen, impressment of, ii. 18;
courage and skill of, 357.
American sea-power in 1812, ii. 21.

American shipping and French cruisers, i. 314.
American squadron, career of the first, i. 60.
Ammen, Captain Daniel, at Port Royal, iv. 163;
Commander of the Patapsco, 480.
Amphitrite, American pilot-boat, attacks a French privateer, ii. 34.
Amy, American bark, Blackford, at Rio Janeiro, iv. 548.
Anacostia, Federal screw steamer, at Acquia Creek, iv. 81.
Anarchy in the West Indies and along the Spanish Main, iii. 325.
Andrea Doria, brig of first American Navy, i. 39;
in the first naval battle of the Revolution, 58;
ordered to sea, 64;
fight with brig Racehorse, 68, 69;
burned, 70.
Andrews, Major W. S. G., Commander of Fort Hatteras, iv. 107.
Anglo-Saxon aggressiveness, iii. 391.
Anglo-Saxon cheer, the, ii. 308.
Angostura, Venezuela, Commodore Perry arrives at, iii. 329.
Anthracite coal used by blockade-runners, iv. 55.
Antonio, Cape, Captain Kearny of the Enterprise captures pirates near, iii.
331.
Aquidaban, Brazilian rebel monitor, iv. 548.
Arbuthnot, Captain James, captured by the Wasp, iii. 93–96.
Arcade, Federal merchant-ship, captured by Confederate cruiser Sumter, iv.
415.
Archer, captured by Captain Read of the Tacony, iv. 424.
Argus, American sloop, ii. 360;
carries the American Minister to France, 361;
cruises in the English Channel, ib.;
too successful for her safety, 362;
encounters Pelican, 362, 363;
her sails become unmanageable, 364;
surrenders, 367;
contemporary view of the battle, 369;
taken by a prize crew to Plymouth, 371.

Argus, American frigate, captures six prizes, ii. 151.
Argus, American cruiser, in the attack on Tripoli, i. 374.
Ariadne, British man-of-war, captures the Alfred, i. 132, 133.
Ariel, American schooner, ii. 292.
Arkansas, Confederate ram, skirmish in the Yazoo River, iv. 342, 343;
machinery gets out of order, 343;
attacks Farragut’s squadron, 344.
Arkansas Post, naval force sent to help capture, iv. 351.
Armada, British liner, chases the Wasp, iii. 92.
Armament and construction of gun-boats, iv. 246.
Armament of battle-ships from 1812 to 1859, iv. 24.
Armor-plated ships, first use of, iv. 9, 10.
Armstrong, Commodore James, surrenders Pensacola Navy Yard to
Confederates, iv. 112;
suspended for five years, 113.
Arnold, Benedict, invades Canada, i. 84;
builds a fleet, 89;
fight on Lake Champlain, 92–94;
character of, as a fighter, 105.
Arsenals established in New York State, ii. 264.
Asp, American ship, ii. 352.
Atalanta, British brig, surrenders to the Alliance, i. 298.
Atalanta, British ship, captured by the Wasp, iii. 100.
Atalanta, British frigate, ii. 16.
Atlanta, formerly the Fingal, Confederate ironclad, iv. 488;
surrenders to the Weehawken, 489.
Atlanta, United States cruiser, iv. 533.
Atlantic, British letter-of-marque whaler, captured by Porter, iii. 9.
See Essex, Jr.
Audience, an intensely interested, iii. 152.
Augusta, Federal ship, in Port Royal squadron, iv. 172.
Augusta, armed merchantman, attacked by the Confederate ironclad
Palmetto State, iv. 474.

Aulick, Captain James, sent to Japan in 1851, iii. 443;
recalled on false charges, ib.
Avon, British brig-sloop, captured by the Wasp (3), iii. 93–96.
Aylwin, American gun-boat, iii. 141.

Bache, Lieutenant G. M., iv. 369.
Badajos, rapacity of English veterans in the streets of, iii. 134.
Bahama, British merchant-ship, officers and crew of the Alabama taken in
the, to Terceira, iv. 431.
Bahama Islands, a resort for contraband traders in the Civil War, iv. 48.
Bahia, Brazil, Captain Bainbridge paroles his prisoners at, ii. 167, 175.
Bailey, Lieutenant-colonel Joseph, saves Admiral Porter’s squadron, iv.
371–376;
receives thanks of Congress, 376.
Bailey, Captain Theodorus, at New Orleans, iv. 316;
commands first division of Farragut’s squadron, 324;
sent ashore to deliver Farragut’s letter, 338.
Bainbridge, Captain William, i. 316;
surrenders to the French frigate Insurgent, ib.;
Captain of the Voluntaire refuses to accept his sword, ib.;
deceives the French officer, 317;
sent to Tripoli in charge of the Essex, 335;
chases a Tripolitan corsair, 341;
loses his ship on a reef, 343;
court-martialed, 344;
a prisoner in Tripoli, 345;
communicates with American fleet, 346;
a shot penetrates his prison, 368;
remonstrates with the Navy Department of Madison’s administration, ii.
26;
cruising in Brazil, 152;
fight with the British frigate Java, 153–173;
wounded, 155;
conducts his ship while his wounds are being dressed, 156;
paroles 378 of the Java’s crew, 167;

blows up the Java, 173;
his dream realized, 172, 173;
his character illustrated, 177;
insulted at Barcelona, iii. 311–313.
Bainbridge, Midshipman Joseph, his duel with the Secretary of Sir
Alexander Ball, iii. 307–311;
captures a Carthaginian privateer, iii. 65;
attacked and captured by the Orpheus and Shelburne, 65, 66.
Baker, Captain Thomas H., iv. 89.
Baldwin, Lieutenant, i. 66.
Ball, Sir Alexander, iii. 307.
Ballard, American gun-boat, iii. 141.
Ballard, Midshipman Edward J., ii. 206.
Baltimore, American frigate, five men of the, impressed in the British
service, 401.
Bankhead, Captain J. P., at Port Royal, iv. 163.
Banks, General Nathaniel Prentiss, sent on expedition to Shreveport, La., iv.
368.
Banshee, the first steel blockade-runner, iv. 57.
Barbary pirates encouraged by England, i. 307;
war with, 333, 334.
Barclay, British whaler, captured by Porter, iii. 8.
Barclay, Captain Robert H., appears off Erie, ii. 289;
fond of festivities, 291;
misses the American fleet, 292;
opposes Perry, 296;
superiority of his ships, 298;
determines to meet Perry, 302;
awaits the American squadron, 306;
fires the first gun, 308;
surrenders, 324, 326;
loses a second arm in the battle, 330.
Barnard, Captain Tim, iii. 187;
captures nineteen prizes, ib.

Barney, Captain Joshua, sketch of, i. 209–215;
has command of the clipper-schooner Rossie, ii. 245;
captures by, 246–248;
commands a fleet in Chesapeake Bay in 1813, 403;
attacked by the British on the Patuxent River, 403–409;
Captain Samuel Miller and Colonel Wadsworth sent to his assistance,
409, 410;
moves up the Patuxent River, 413;
burns his fleet, 414;
wounded, 416.
Barney, Major William B., acts as aid to his father, ii. 406;
in command of cutter Scorpion, 408.
Barossa, British frigate, ii. 395.
Barreaut, Captain, chases American ships, i. 316;
recalled by Captain St. Laurent, 317–319.
Barriers on the Mississippi to prevent Farragut’s advance, iv. 320;
broken down by the Itasca, 323.
Barron, Captain James, sent to Tripoli in charge of the President, i. 335;
with Stephen Decatur, iii. 318–322;
restored to active service, 323.
Barron, Captain Samuel, sent to Tripoli in charge of the Philadelphia, i.
335.
Barron, Flag Officer Samuel, captured at Fort Hatteras, iv. 106.
Barry, Captain John, i. 39;
commands American brig Lexington, 63;
cruises off Virginia capes, 64;
encounters British tender Edward, 64;
sinks the Effingham, 188;
captures and destroys the schooner Alert, 189, 190;
appointed to the Raleigh, ib.;
chases the Unicorn, 191;
loses the Raleigh, 194.
Bashaw of Tripoli, treachery of, i. 335, 336;
refuses to make a treaty, 340;
agrees to give up prisoners, 378.

Bassett, Lieutenant F. S., opinion of Commodore Hopkins, i. 61.
Batteaux, travelling in, ii. 263.
Battle of Bunker Hill, i. 26;
Champlain, 92–111;
of Fort Pillow, iv. 298;
of Grand Gulf, 367;
of Lake Erie, ii. 309–325;
of Lexington, i. 14;
of Memphis, iv. 298–307;
of New Orleans (in the Civil War), 326–340;
of Pittsburg Landing, 284.
Baton Rouge surrenders to Captain Craven of the Brooklyn, iv. 340.
Baudara de Sangare, a private vessel, captured by the Shark, iii. 332.
Baury, Lieutenant Frederick, iii. 81.
Bay Point. See Fort Beauregard.
Bazely, Lieutenant John, captures the Lexington, i. 119, 120.
Beagle, American ship, captures Cape Cruz, iii. 334.
Beaufort, Confederate gun-boat, takes crew off the Congress after she
surrenders to the Merrimac, iv. 208.
Beauregard, Confederate ram, attacks the Queen of the West at Fort Pillow,
iv. 301;
rammed and sunk by the Monarch, 302.
Bell, Henry H., iv. 314.
Belligerent ships, rules and orders regarding, issued by British Government,
iv. 411.
Belligerents, rights of, iv. 86.
Belmont, on the Mississippi, battle at, iv. 251;
the Confederates compel Grant to retreat, 252.
Belvidera, British frigate, encounters the President, ii. 29;
escapes, 32.
Ben. Dunning, Federal merchant-ship, captured by Confederate cruiser
Sumter, iv. 415.
Benham, Admiral A. E. K.,
prompt action of, at Rio Janeiro, iv. 548.

Bentham, Commander George, attacks the General Armstrong in the harbor
of Fayal, iii. 187–199;
sets fire to the Armstrong, 200.
Benton snag-boat, converted by Eads into an armored vessel, iv. 246–249.
Benton, Porter’s flagship before Vicksburg, iv. 363.
Benton, Federal gun-boat, Lieutenant-commander J. A. Greer, iv. 369.
Berceau, French frigate, fights with the Boston, i. 328;
returned to France, 330.
Beresford, Captain John Poer, recaptures the Frolic from the Wasp, ii. 118.
Berkeley, British minister at Washington, recalled and promoted, ii. 2.
Bermudas a basis for contraband trade during the Civil War, iv. 48.
Betsey, British bark, captured by Captain Alexander, i. 66.
Biddle, Captain Nicholas, i. 64;
commands the Randolph, 160;
attacks the Yarmouth, 162.
Biddle, James, Lieutenant on the Wasp (No. 2), ii. 111;
leads the boarders, ib.;
hauls down the flag of the Frolic, 112;
appointed to command the Hornet, iii. 272;
commands the Macedonian, 331;
sent to the Pacific Coast, 401;
sent to Japan to negotiate a treaty of peace, 440.
Bienville, Federal ship, in Port Royal squadron, iv. 172.
Black Hawk, Federal gun-boat, iv. 369.
Black Prince, purchased by Naval Committee, i. 39.
Black Rock, near Buffalo, Lieutenant Elliott establishes a navy yard at, ii.
273.
Black Snake, British gun-boat, iii. 126.
Blake, Captain H. C., iv. 432.
Blakely, Master-commandant Johnston, ii. 375;
fights with the Reindeer and the Avon, iii. 85–96;
captures the Atalanta, 100;
lost with his ship, 103.
Blockade-runner, legal status of, iv. 57, 58.

Blockade-runners, chiefly in the hands of the British, iv. 48;
reckless loading of, 61;
profits of, 63, 64.
Blockading the Southern ports, iv. 28–30;
no force available to blockade at the beginning of the war, 32;
lack of ships and men, 34;
Congress slow to appreciate the need of a navy, 35.
“Blood is thicker than water,” iii. 381, 382.
Blythe, Captain Samuel, attacks the Enterprise, ii. 375;
killed, 379;
buried at Portland, 385.
Board of Admiralty, i. 158.
Boggs, Commander Charles S., iv. 314.
Bolton, American bomb-brig, i. 56.
Bonhomme Richard, American ship, i. 227;
origin of the name, 228;
fitted out by Jones, 229;
mixed crew of, 230;
Richard Dale as master’s mate on, ib.;
the Alliance runs foul of, 234;
accident to, 235;
meets the Serapis, 243;
fight with the Serapis, 245–259;
comparative strength of the two ships, 265;
after the surrender, 269–272;
sinking of the ship, 272.
Bonita, American schooner, in attack on Alvarado, iii. 410.
Bonne Citoyenne, British war-ship, blockaded in the harbor of Bahia, ii.
179;
cowardice of Captain Greene, 180.
Borer, American gun-boat, iii. 141.
Boston, American frigate, i. 286, 287.
Boston, American ship, fights the Berceau, Captain Senez, i. 328, 329.
Boston Port Bill, i. 13.

Boston, tea destroyed in harbor of, i. 13;
press-gang riots in, 395.
Boston, United States cruiser, iv. 533.
Boutelle, Mr., of the Federal Coast Survey, replaces the buoys at Port
Royal, iv. 171.
Bowling Green, Kentucky, Confederate position at, untenable after
surrender of Fort Henry, iv. 266.
Boxer, British brig, attacks the Enterprise, ii. 375;
surrenders, 379;
crew of, 382;
decision of the British court on the loss of the, 384.
Bragg, Confederate ship, captured at Fort Pillow, iv. 302.
Breckenridge, General, attacks the Federal forces at Baton Rouge, iv. 344.
Breese, Lieutenant-commander K. R., iv. 369.
Breeze, Chaplain, on the Lawrence in the battle of Lake Erie, ii. 317.
British Government, attitude of the, toward African pirates, iii. 340.
British grab at the Valley of the Mississippi, iii. 229, 230.
British merchants and the American war, i. 112.
British Navy in American waters, i. 195.
British waters, rights of belligerents in, iv. 411.
Brock, Sir Isaac, his view of the English possession of America, ii. 279.
Broke, British gun-boat, iii. 143.
Broke, Captain Philip Vere, Commodore British squadron, ii. 55;
challenges Lawrence of the Chesapeake to fight, “ship to ship,” ii. 203,
204;
boards the Chesapeake, 214;
is wounded, 217;
becomes delirious, 221, 225;
made a baronet, 226;
death of, 229.
Brooke, Lieutenant John M., assigned to assist in designing an ironclad, iv.
184.
Brooklyn, screw sloop, iv. 314.
Brooklyn, Federal gun-boat, iv. 386.

Brown, Lieutenant George, iv. 389.
Brown, Captain Isaac N., iv. 342;
skirmish with the Federal fleet in the Yazoo River, ib.;
attacks Farragut’s squadron, 344;
supports Breckenridge at Baton Rouge, ib.
Brown, Lieutenant James, ii. 217.
Browne, Lieutenant G. W., iv. 370.
Brownson, Captain Willard H., at Rio Janeiro, iv. 548;
on the coast of Mexico, 553.
Bruinsburg, Federal army crosses from, to Grand Gulf, iv. 364.
Bryant, Captain N. C., before Fort Pillow, iv. 290.
Buchanan, Flag Officer Franklin, iv. 188;
his difficulty in finding a crew, 195;
wounded, 210;
his report of the fight, ib.;
Confederate fleet of, at Mobile, 380;
sends the Tennessee into action, 399;
wounded, 402.
Budd, Lieutenant George, ii. 206, 218.
Bullock, Commander James D., supervises construction of the Alabama, iv.
430.
Bunker Hill, battle of, i. 26.
Bunker Hill, American privateer, ii. 394.
Burleton, Admiral Sir George, chases the Hornet, iii. 282.
Burnside, General A. E., sent to capture Roanoke Island, iv. 109.
Burrows, American gun-boat, iii. 141.
Burrows, Lieutenant William, appointed to command the Enterprise, ii.
375;
encounters the Boxer, 375–377;
is mortally wounded, 377;
receives the surrender of the Boxer, 379.
Bushnell, David, invents first American submarine torpedo boat, i. 164;
sketch of his life, 180–184.

Butler, General Benjamin F., sent to attack the forts on Hatteras Islands, iv.
100;
his report at, 107;
occupies New Orleans, 338, 339;
his plan for blowing up Fort Fisher, 508–510.
Byron, Captain of, chased by the President, ii. 29–32.

Cabot, brig of first American Navy, i. 39;
commanded by Captain Elisha Hinman, i. 66;
fired by her captain, 163.
Cairo, armor-plated Federal gun-boat, built by Eads, iv. 245;
Captain N. C. Bryant commands, 290;
runs by torpedoes in the Yazoo River expedition, iv. 350.
Calbreth, Peter, one of the capturers of the Margaretta, i. 17.
Caldwell, Lieutenant C. H. B., iv. 314;
breaks barriers across the Mississippi, 323.
Caleb Cushing, Federal revenue cutter, cut out and burnt by the Archer, iv.
424.
Caledonia, British brig, captured by Lieutenant Elliott, ii. 279.
California, a bone of contention between Americans and English, in 1842,
iii. 387, 388;
operations that insured the acquisition of, iii. 387, 388.
Canada invaded by American troops, i. 84;
annexation of, agitated in 1812, ii. 20;
invasions of, for resenting British aggressions, ii. 263.
Canning, British prime minister, diplomacy of, in regard to the Chesapeake
affair, ii. 1.
Canton, China, American fleet sent to, to protect American interests, iii.
380.
Cape Cruz, South America, a pirate resort captured by the Greyhound and
Beagle, iii. 334.
Carden, Captain John Surnam, i. 389;
cruel treatment of sailors, ib.;
cruises in the Azores, ii. 121;
falls in with the United States, 122;

fight with, 125–134;
Decatur refuses to receive his sword, 139.
Caribbean Sea a nest for pirates, iii. 326.
Carleton, Sir Guy, his supplies captured by Paul Jones, i. 79;
confidence of, 85;
his fleet at St. John’s, 87;
fight on Lake Champlain, 92–94.
Carleton, British schooner, ii. 100.
Carnation, British brig, attacks the General Armstrong in the neutral port of
Fayal, Azores, iii. 187–200.
Caroband Bank, South America, fight between the Hornet and Peacock
near, ii. 181.
Caroline, American schooner, attacks the British camp at Villeré’s
Plantation on the Mississippi, iii. 239;
is fired and abandoned, 240.
Carondelet, James B. Eads’s shipyard at, iv. 243.
Carondelet, armor-plated Federal gun-boat, built by Eads, iv. 245, 369;
goes aground outside Fort Henry, 265;
gets free, 266;
shells Fort Donelson, 268, 271;
disabled before Fort Donelson, 271;
gun bursts on, 272;
in Porter’s fleet before Vicksburg, 363.
Carronades, description and value of, ii. 36–38.
Carronades (short guns) out of use, iii. 141.
Carrying trade of the Mediterranean, England’s tribute to the Dey of Algiers
for, iii. 340;
after the War of 1812, ib.
Cassin, Lieutenant Stephen, iii. 139.
Castilian, English brig-sloop, iii. 93.
Catherine, British ship, captured by Lieutenant Downes, iii. 10.
Cat-o’-ninetails used to enforce orders on British ships, i. 389.
Catskill, Federal ironclad, iv. 480.
Cayuga, Federal screw gun-boat, iv. 314.