The American Navy

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The American Books

THE AMERICAN COLLEGE BY ISAAC SHARPLESS THE INDIAN TO-DAY BY CHARLES A. EASTMAN COST OF LIVING BY FABIAN FRANKLIN THE AMERICAN NAVY BY REAR-ADMIRAL FRENCH E. CHADWICK, U. S. N. MUNICIPAL FREEDOM BY OSWALD RYAN AMERICAN LITERATURE BY LEON KELLNER (TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY JULIA FRANKLIN) SOCIALISM IN AMERICA BY JOHN MACY AMERICAN IDEALS BY CLAYTON S. COOPER THE UNIVERSITY MOVEMENT BY IRA REMSEN THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BY WALTER S. HINCHMAN THE FEDERAL RESERVE BY H. PARKER WILLIS

(_For more extended notice of the series, see the last pages of this book._)

_The American Books_

The American Navy

By Rear-Admiral French E. Chadwick (_U. S. N., Retired_)

[Illustration]

Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1915

_Copyright, 1915, by_ DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian_

To My Comrades Of The Navy Past, Present, And Future

Biographical Note

Rear-Admiral French Ensor Chadwick was born at Morgantown, W. Va., February 29, 1844. He was appointed to the U. S. Naval Academy from West Virginia (then part of Virginia) in 1861, and graduated in November, 1864. In the summer of 1864 he was attached to the _Marblehead_ in pursuit of the Confederate steamers _Florida_ and _Tallahassee_. After the Civil War he served successively in a number of vessels, and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander in 1869; was instructor at the Naval Academy; on sea service, and on lighthouse duty (1870-1882); Naval Attaché at the American Embassy in London (1882-1889); commanded the _Yorktown_ (1889-1891); was Chief Intelligence Officer (1892-1893); and Chief of the Bureau of Equipment (1893-1897).

During the war with Spain he was Admiral Sampson’s Chief of Staff, and also commanded the flagship _New York_. He participated in all the more important engagements in the Atlantic during the war; was advanced five numbers in rank for conspicuous conduct in battle, and was presented with a sword of honor by citizens of his native state.

From 1900 to 1903 he was President of the Naval War College at Newport; was promoted Rear-Admiral October 11, 1903, and in 1904 became commander-in-chief of the South Atlantic squadron. He retired February 28, 1906.

Rear-Admiral Chadwick is one of the most influential friends of the United States navy; he has written extensively on diplomatic and naval topics, and is the author of “Causes of the Civil War” in the “American Nation Series.” He is also much interested in problems of municipal government, is a member of the Newport Representative Council, a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, corresponding member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, member of the American Historical Association, etc.

Introduction

The navy in all countries has ever been, and, as far as we can now judge, ever will be, a preëminent instrument of government. It was through her navy that Greece destroyed the power of Persia; Rome that of Carthage; the allies at Lepanto that of the Turks; England that of Holland and later that of France in America; the navy of France, in turn, caused the relinquishment of Great Britain’s sovereignty over the thirteen colonies which formed the United States, and a generation later it was the British navy which made the efforts of the great Napoleon the “baseless fabric of a vision.”

Coming to days within the ken of many still living, the navy was the power which made possible the preservation of the Union in our great Civil War by the cutting off of the Southern Confederacy from its means of support by sea and reducing its forces thereby to practical inanition. For had the Confederacy had free access to the sea and control of the Mississippi River, no armies of the North could have conquered well-supplied armies of the South. So, too, the control of the sea decided the outcome of the Spanish War. When Sampson’s fleet destroyed Spain’s only battle squadron off Santiago de Cuba, Spain could no longer reinforce her army in Cuba, and surrender was a necessity. Even as this is written Germany’s every sea outlet is closed by the British fleet, so superior in number to the German, and German commerce on the sea is for the time entirely swept away, leaving Great Britain for the moment navally and commercially supreme upon the ocean. As one attempts to look into the future the vastness of the possible changes startles the imagination, but in it all is ever present the power that goes with the ubiquitous warship, from whose threat no port of the world is free. Military power fades to insignificance, through its narrow limits of mobility, when compared with the meaning of a great fleet. The present sketch of history is to show what the warship has done for us.

The American Navy

Chapter I

When Great Britain attempted to reduce to obedience the rebellious colonies which were to form the United States of America she was dealing with a people who in the North at least had long been conversant with the building and sailing of ships. A New England built ship entered the Thames in 1638, only eighteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts. The New England men, with a sterile coast, with limitless fishing grounds and unsurpassed harbors, turned as naturally to the sea for livelihood as did the South, more kindly treated by nature, to agriculture. In 1670 it was estimated that two thirds of the British shipping was employed in the American trade. The Dutch, who had been great carriers on the sea, were excluded from this trade by the navigation laws of the period. Scotland was not admitted to the trade of the American plantations until her union with England in 1707, and Ireland not until 1780, while in 1670 nothing could be imported into the American colonies but what was laden in England in English-built ships. But while none of their products could be carried anywhere (except to other of the plantations) till they were first landed in England, the ships built in America were reckoned as English, and this fact gave great impetus to American shipbuilding. American shipping prospered amazingly. But while thus prospering, it was the attempted repression of our commerce afloat and ashore (which included such things as forbidding the exportation of hats, restricting the manufacture of iron, and forbidding commerce with the foreign-owned islands of the West Indies) which did much more to develop the idea of independence than did the Stamp Act. But the net result of conditions was to foster shipping, and our competition had so increased by 1725 that in that year “the shipwrights of the river Thames came up to Whitehall with a complaint that their business had declined and their workmen emigrated because the plantations furnished England with ships.”

On the register of the underwriters at Lloyd’s for 1775, comprehending the shipping of the three preceding years, there were 3,908 British-built vessels of 605,545 tons, and 2,311 of American build with a tonnage of 373,618 tons. The average size of the ship of the time was about 400 tons displacement. One 100 feet in length and 26 to 28 feet broad was a good-sized ship. They were but cockle boats in comparison with the vast ships of to-day, many of which are full a hundred times 400 tons displacement.

The foregoing will show that when there came a time to dispute the sea with Great Britain there was no difficulty in supplying the ships, and the many ironworks which had been established, particularly in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, despite Great Britain’s restrictions, could furnish guns in the manufacture of which our foundries were adepts before the war.

The larger men-of-war of the period were greater in size than the largest merchantmen. The greater ships-of-the-line (by which expression is meant those which could take their place in the line of battle, the formation of which was in a single extended column) varied from 4,000 to 3,000 tons displacement. The larger of these, which carried guns on three main decks and some light guns on the upper deck, to the number altogether of 100, or even 120, were 180 to 190 feet on the gun deck, with about 53 feet beam. The most usual size, however, was the “74,” carrying nominally that number of guns, but usually six or eight more, on two main decks (and thus known as a two-decker). This class was about 168 feet long on the gun deck and 47 feet broad. Below this class there were many ships of sixty, fifty, or even forty-four guns, with two gun decks. Such, for a long period, formed part of the line of battle.

The frigates had but one covered gun deck. They varied in length from 115 to 130 feet on the gun deck, and were from 32 to 36 feet beam, roughly a fourth of their length. They formed no part of a line of battle, their duty when accompanying a fleet being to remain clear of the line and repeat the admiral’s signals. There was also a small class of ship called a sloop-of-war, which carried guns on only the upper, or spar, deck as it came to be called. These vessels were ship-rigged; that is, they had three masts with square sails on each. They were usually about 100 feet long and about 27 feet beam.

The three-deckers, or 100-gun ships, carried about 900 men; the 74’s about 600; the frigates about 160. The guns of the period were of course all smooth-bores and muzzle-loaders. In the large ships, the heavier guns, usually 32-pounders, were carried on the lower gun decks to give stability to the ship; 18’s or 24’s were carried on the middle deck, 9’s and 12’s on the upper, 9’s and 6’s on the quarter deck, which was the part of the upper deck aft of the mainmast, and on the forecastle, which was the part of the upper deck forward of the foremast; the space between the two was called the waist. The larger frigates usually carried 18’s on the gun deck; the smaller, 12’s or 9’s. The sloops carried 9’s or 6’s. The greatest range of even the heavier guns was but little over 2,000 yards, as the ports rarely allowed more than 8° or 9° elevation. Such guns were but toys compared with modern ordnance, but they were common alike to all nations, and all were thus on the same footing.

An immense difference between that day and this was in the motive power which then and for two and a half generations later consisted of lofty wooden masts, reaching skyward in the greater ships about 200 feet, crossed by “yards,” the larger of which were about 100 feet long, the former supported by a great mass of rigging known as shrouds and stays, the latter moved by “braces” and the sails worked by a maze of running rigging. All this, of course, was subject to being shot away, and ships were thus frequently completely dismasted or disabled in action. The same result was often, too, produced by a gale of wind, it being no uncommon thing for a fleet to be thus completely incapacitated for the continuance of a voyage.

Weeks or fortnights were spent in a voyage now done in days. Of certainty as to time of reaching port, there was none. And amid all there was the danger from enemies, legal or piratical, for the world was only slowly ridding itself of the latter; and from the inherent dangers of the sea itself to the clumsy ships which slowly worked their way across it. How great these last were, through the ignorance at that time of the law of storms, may be known by the fate of a great fleet which in 1782 left the West Indies under Admiral Graves, with ten line-of-battle ships convoying nearly a hundred merchantmen. Among the former were six of the prizes taken in Rodney’s great naval battle of April 12, 1782. Caught in a fierce gale southeast of Nova Scotia, five of the battleships foundered with nearly all on board. One of those which went down with every soul was the _Ville de Paris_, which had been the flagship of the unfortunate Count de Grasse. The total loss of men was estimated at 3,500.

Such was the setting of the period which saw the birth of the first American navy, which was to have an existence of but eight short years, to be succeeded, however, nine years after (1794) by the modest beginnings which have grown into the great fleet of to-day, and whose history is one of uninterrupted success and honor.

Chapter II

In September, 1744, there met at Philadelphia, then our foremost city, representatives of each of the thirteen colonies, called together on account of the increasing difficulties which had arisen with the mother country. These difficulties arose mainly from the tendency of parliament to govern the colonies as it would, say, any county of England. This right the Americans denied. They were good subjects of the King, but they objected to parliamentary rule. The underlying idea which governed the action of the Americans was thus that of a federalism which only in these latter days has laid hold in any considerable degree of the minds of the English, who now debate the possibility of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa becoming states of a federation somewhat akin to our own. But at the time of the outbreak of our Revolution there was no widespread idea of separation. It was, however, in the air, and by some openly advocated. Had there been a complete renouncement of the right of parliament to make laws governing the colonies there would, for the time at least, have been a reconciliation. It was upon this principle we divided. Thus the war began.

There was at this time on our coast a British naval force of four ships of from seventy to fifty guns (these at Boston), and twenty from twenty to six guns distributed from New Hampshire to Florida. The whole was a very moderate force considering the long-standing discontent and the difficulties of the existing situation. The British navy, in which, as in the administration of every other department of the British public service of the period, inefficiency and dishonesty reigned to an almost unbelievable degree, had been allowed to run down sadly after the Seven Years’ War which ended in 1763. The total number of ships was but 270 and the number of seamen but 18,000. Before the war closed the ships were to number 468, of which 174 were ships-of-the-line (carrying from sixty to one hundred guns), and the seamen were to number 110,000.

The situation of the United States was much akin to that of the Southern Confederacy. Its resources were too meagre to carry on a war without the importation of much that was necessary to keep an army in efficiency. Thus the true plan of England was a strict blockade and the reduction to inanition of our forces, such as we ourselves carried on against the South in our Civil War. This action was advocated strongly by Viscount Barrington, the Secretary for War, who urged that the navy only should be employed, and that the ships should take possession of all our ports and establish a complete blockade. Fortunately for the revolutionists, his advice was not heeded.

On April 19, 1775, at Concord and Lexington, the long-prepared fagots of revolution were lighted into flame. Two months later, June 17th, came Bunker Hill and the immediate assembling near Boston (where lay almost the whole of the British force in America) of a multitude of country people ill-provided with everything that goes to make the efficiency of an army but high determination and spirit. By a stroke of prescience which would seem a providence, Washington was appointed the commander-in-chief.

* * * * *

There had been fights afloat between the Americans and the British some years before the actual outbreak of the Revolution. In 1769 the sloop _Liberty_, employed in revenue protection, had been seized and burned by the people of Newport, Rhode Island; in 1772 a schooner, the _Gaspee_, used for similar service in Narragansett Bay and which had grounded while in chase of a suspected vessel near Providence, was boarded by a party of men who burned her, and but a month after the first fights ashore occurred there were attacks with some loss of life upon an armed schooner and barges which attempted the seizure of livestock on the islands of Boston Bay. The lively fights at Machias in June, 1775, in which the inhabitants had captured the sloop _Unity_ and another which had been sent to Machias for lumber and which were under the escort of an armed tender, the _Margaretta_, were, however, the first of the actual War of the Revolution. They are proud recollections of local history and have caused the name of the town to appear on the navy list as that of a small cruiser of to-day. On August 9, 1775, the _Falcon_, sloop-of-war under Captain Linzee, pursued into Gloucester harbor two schooners bound from the West Indies; one he seized, and the other succeeding in getting into the harbor was attacked by boats from the _Falcon_. The militia and inhabitants gathered, and the action which came on and which lasted several hours resulted in the capture of thirty-five of the _Falcon’s_ men who had come into the harbor in the captured schooner and in their own boats, both schooners remaining in the hands of the Americans.

To Washington himself was due the first organized force of the Americans in the Revolution upon the sea. Throughout his career he recognized the importance of its control, and immediately on his arrival at Cambridge to take the command of the American army then collected before Boston, he began to look into the question of a naval force, with a view to capturing the enemy’s supplies. Such capture would not only be a deprivation to the British forces, but a much needed aid to the Americans who needed everything which goes to support an army, excepting food, which the surrounding country supplied for the moment plentifully enough. But arms, both small and great, clothing, ammunition, and tentage were imperatively needed. Such in quantities were on the ocean on their way to America for the British army, and the first need was to bring them into American hands. Washington thus established a little navy of his own, with a prize court necessary to pass upon the propriety of the capture and commissioners to take charge of captured material. He continued such efforts even after the transfer of the army to New York, and did not cease from them until the Continental Congress took the subject in hand.

The beginning of Washington’s fleet was the schooner _Hannah_, which sailed under Captain Nicholas Broughton from Beverly, Massachusetts, on September 5, 1775, and returned two days later with a prize. Naturally many of the improvised army assembled at Cambridge, which was mainly made up of New Englanders, were men of the sea, and thus soon there were eight small vessels, officered and manned from the army in service. The administration of this improvised navy was not an easy task. Washington, writing to the President of the Congress on December 4, 1775, says: “The plague, trouble, and vexation I have had with the crews of all the armed vessels is inexpressible. I do not believe there is on earth a more disorderly set.” Successes came, however, and with these greater contentment among the crews. Captain John Manley was particularly successful, especially in the capture of the brigantine _Nancy_, which carried ordnance stores of the highest value to our poorly equipped army. The inventory of her cargo gives, among other things, 2,000 muskets, thirty-one tons of musket shot, 3,000 round shot, a considerable quantity of powder, and a thirteen-inch mortar, which was promptly mounted in Cambridge and called the “Congress.”

The British evacuated Boston through want of food, on March 17, 1776, going first to Halifax and thence to New York. Washington had already transferred his army thither and continued his navy, such as it was, until he himself retreated from New York as the result of the unfortunate battle of Long Island.

Rhode Island had, however, taken action toward a sea force several months before Washington had formed his little fleet. The Rhode Island Assembly had, on June 15, 1775, two days before the battle of Bunker Hill, ordered the chartering of two sloops and had appointed Abraham Whipple to the chief command. Whipple was prompt to act, for on the same day he captured the tender to the frigate _Rose_, the first prize of the war. His evident courage and vigor caused his appointment later as captain in the regular navy which was soon to come.

Rhode Island has also the honor of being the first state to take action toward the establishment of a national navy. Her delegates were instructed on August 26, 1775, to bring the question of a fleet before Congress. This was done on October 3d. The subject received an almost immediate impetus through the arrival of information of two brigs which had left England for Quebec with arms, powder, and stores. A committee of three was proposed to prepare a plan to intercept these, but the idea met with strong opposition as being initiatory to a Continental navy, as in fact it was. It was declared by some opposed to be the “most wild, visionary, mad project that had ever been imagined. It was an infant taking a mad bull by the horns, ... it would ruin the character and morals of our seamen; it would make them selfish, piratical, mercenary, bent wholly upon plunder.” Much of such criticism of the project might have been spared. Our seamen had been living through an age of privateering, and one in which the latter often recked but too little of legal capture, and they had too long been accustomed to the general system of illicit commerce with the islands of the West Indies belonging to France and Spain to have their morals upset by fighting for their country. The better sense prevailed and the three men who had urged most strongly the proposed action were, on October 5, 1775, appointed a committee to report a scheme of action. These were John Adams of Massachusetts, John Langdon of New Hampshire, and Silas Deane of Connecticut.

The immediate advice of the committee which was to instruct Washington to procure two cruisers in Massachusetts, one to carry ten, and the other fourteen, guns, for the purpose of intercepting the two brigs mentioned, was soon changed in a report of October 30, 1775, advising to add two more vessels, one to mount not more than twenty, the other not more than thirty-six, guns, to be employed “for the protection and defence of the United Colonies.” The question of the capture of special ships had been dropped; the subject had become national.

On December 14, 1775, the “Naval Committee” was replaced by a committee of thirteen chosen by ballot. The membership was remarkably like that of some naval committees of later times. Scarcely any on it were really conversant with matters of the sea, but it held one man, Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, whose energy, resource, and ability caused Congress to put in his sole control, before the war ended, all the affairs of the navy. Agents were employed to superintend construction, and prize agents were appointed. On November 6, 1776, Paul Jones wrote in his usual vigorous way to Robert Morris, declaring the necessity of a Board of Admiralty, and on October 28, 1779, one was established. Two of the members were to be members of Congress; the other three, called commissioners, were to be men possessing knowledge of naval matters. The Marine Committee then came to an end, but the navy boards at Philadelphia and Boston, each of “three persons well-skilled in maritime affairs,” appointed by Congress “to execute the business of the navy under the direction of the Marine Committee,” in what became known as the Middle and Eastern districts, and the navy agents were retained under this reorganization. The Board of Admiralty, however, never materialized. On February 7, 1781, Congress resolved that naval affairs should be under a single person, to be called the Secretary of Marine. The office was never filled. Naval matters had, as just said, gradually drifted into the efficient hands of the Superintendent of Finance, Robert Morris, and there they remained until the navy of the Revolution disappeared in the sale of the last ship, the _Alliance_, in August, 1785. The fact is that naval affairs in the Revolution suffered equally with those of the army through the ineptitude and inefficiency of a Congress which was rather a board of advice than a government, even when the Articles of Confederation were adopted, which was not finally done until March 2, 1781.

On November 2, 1775, $100,000 was voted for ships, and the committee was authorized to select officers and seamen. On November 10th were authorized two battalions of marines. The first intention was to take them from the army, but Washington objecting to such weakening of his force, they were to be raised independently and, with a curious misunderstanding of their use, it was provided that they should be “such as are good seamen.” Rules for the government of the navy were passed November 28th, and the offices of Captain, Lieutenant, Master, Master’s Mate, Surgeon, Chaplain, and Warrant Officer established. The monthly pay of captain was $32; of able seaman $6.67, later raised to $8. A prize court was established. The rules, naturally, were taken from those of the British service, and throughout the whole existence of our navy there has run a strong similarity, until of late years when there have been many changes in the nomenclature of the ratings of the enlisted men. Both services had the “Banyan day,” when no meat was served,[1] though in the American navy this soon ceased to be an actuality. Such phrases as “Chips” (the carpenter) and “Jimmy Legs” (the master-at-arms) were among the many common to both services; but one, “Jack-of-the-Dust” (an adjunct of the paymaster’s department), which is to-day a rating in the American navy, is no longer a part of British ratings.

On December 13, 1775, Congress authorized the building of thirteen frigates, and next day, December 14th, a committee of thirteen was chosen by ballot to superintend their construction and equipment; five of these were to be of 32 guns; five of 28; and three of 24. The _Raleigh_, of 32 guns, was built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire; the _Hancock_, 32, and _Boston_, 24, at Salisbury and Newburyport, Massachusetts; the _Warren_, 32, and _Providence_, 28, at Providence, Rhode Island; the _Trumbull_, 28, at Chatham, on the Connecticut River; the _Montgomery_, 24, and _Congress_, 28, at Poughkeepsie, New York; the _Randolph_, 32, _Washington_, 32, _Effingham_, 28, and _Delaware_, 24, at Philadelphia; the _Virginia_, 28, at Baltimore. Six of these--the _Montgomery_, _Congress_, _Washington_, _Effingham_, _Delaware_, and _Virginia_--never got to sea, all being destroyed to prevent capture except the _Virginia_ which, having grounded and lost her rudder in the Chesapeake, was taken by a British force in the bay.

These ships were to cost on the average but $66,666, and the whole were expected to be ready by March, 1776. They varied from 121 to 132 feet in length on the gun deck, with a breadth of from 32.6 to 34.5½. Their armament was that of the frigates of the day: 12-pounders on the main deck and 6-pounders on the quarter deck and forecastle. All should have been ready by the time named, for the _Raleigh_ was launched at Portsmouth but two months after her keel was laid. But ill-luck pursued them throughout, and particularly in that the free life and greater gains of the privateersman made it almost impossible to get crews.

Thus the four ships the purchase of which was authorized on October 30, 1775, were the first of our navy. These were the _Alfred_, of 24 guns; _Columbus_, 20; _Andrew Doria_, 14, and the _Cabot_, 16.

Such was the beginning of the Continental navy which was to have a life of but ten years. A few words will complete our story of naval construction. On November 20, 1776, Congress resolved to build “immediately” a 74 in New Hampshire; a 74 and a 36 in Massachusetts; a 74, a brig, 18, and a packet boat in Pennsylvania; two frigates, 36 each, in Virginia; and two frigates, 36 each, in Maryland. But in July, 1777, on account of the high cost of wages and material, Congress authorized stopping work on such as the committee might judge proper, and the final result was the completion and getting to sea of but three: the _Alliance_, 36, the _General Gates_, 18, both built in Massachusetts, and the _Saratoga_, 16, in Pennsylvania. Only one 74 was built. This was the _America_, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and she was not launched until the war had practically ended.

During the early part of 1776 there were built on Lake Champlain, under the direction of Benedict Arnold, two schooners with eight 6 and 4 pounders; a sloop with ten guns of like calibre; a cutter with one 12, one 9, and two 6; one galley with two 18-pounders and eight 12, and two others of nearly equal armament; eight gondolas with three 8 and 9 pounders, and two other small craft. These, as will be seen later, were to fight a memorable action.

Chapter III

The ships put afloat by Congress and which may be taken as the regular navy of the Revolution were, however, strongly supplemented by the navies of the states (except New Jersey and Delaware), and by the multitude of privateers which cruised under both state and Continental commissions. Massachusetts led in the number of state ships; but South Carolina in size and importance. Massachusetts had sixteen vessels, the only one of any size being the _Protector_, a ship carrying 26 light guns. All the others carried but from ten to twenty. This “navy” made about seventy captures during the war. But the state made one most unfortunate venture, the Penobscot Expedition, to be mentioned later. New Hampshire had one small ship, the _Hampden_, of 22 guns; Georgia, four galleys (vessels propelled by both sails and oars). Connecticut had a navy of ten vessels, the largest of which were the _Oliver Cromwell_, of 18 guns, and the _Defence_, of 14. All had disappeared by loss or capture by July, 1779, after having made some thirty captures. There was, however, throughout the war great activity in Long Island Sound where there was a warfare of boats against the illicit traffic carried on to supply the British at New York. As always, greed frequently overcame patriotism, and smuggling in both directions was rife throughout the war.

The situation of New York, with its one port in possession of the enemy, precluded anything of a patriot naval force except a few galleys on the Hudson. Pennsylvania, however, had in 1777 a total of fifty-one vessels on the Delaware, the only important one in size being the small purchased ship _Montgomery_; all the others were but armed boats of the type known as galleys. In 1777 there were in the state naval service (which was administered by a board of six, later of ten) a total of about 700 officers and men. The activities of this force were confined to the Delaware River and Bay, and when the British army was transferred to Philadelphia in 1777 these activities were very active indeed, including the burning of a British line-of-battle ship, the _Augusta_, 64, and the sloop-of-war _Merlin_, 18, which had grounded. All these vessels were finally driven up the Delaware by an overpowering force, except the _Montgomery_ and several smaller craft, which had to be burned to escape capture. What remained after the British evacuation of Philadelphia in 1778, when the French fleet had appeared on our coast under the alliance just made with France, were sold in December of that year. This remainder consisted of ten galleys, nine armed boats, the brig _Convention_, the sloops _Speedwell_, _Sally_, _Industry_, and _Black Duck_, and the schooner _Lydia_.[2]

Maryland in 1776 invested in a ship called the _Defence_ carrying twenty-two 6-pounders, the largest vessel of her coming small navy; two schooners and seven row galleys formed the remainder. All except two galleys and a schooner were sold in 1779, but British success in the South renewed depredations in the Chesapeake, and four large barges to carry twenty-five men each and 9 and 18 pounders and a schooner to carry ten 4-pounders were ordered. In 1782, depredations continuing, a ship and four additional barges were ordered, and in November of that year such vessels fought a severe and most gallant action with an overpowering British force of the same character, the _Protector_, which bore the brunt of the action on the American side, losing fifty-four killed and wounded out of her crew of sixty-five. “Except when used for commercial purposes, Maryland’s vessels rarely passed outside the capes at the mouth of the Chesapeake.” Virginia entered upon the question of a navy with enthusiasm and a number of vessels were authorized; the two frigates voted were, however, never built. Actual construction was confined to galleys and schooners; the number first and last, though very considerable, is indefinite. The state established a navy yard on the Chickahominy, operated a ropewalk, and established naval magazines. The whole force practically disappeared during the raid by Phillips and Arnold when on April 27, 1780, a few miles below Richmond, six ships, eight brigs, five sloops, two schooners, and several smaller vessels and the ropewalk at Warwick were destroyed; twelve were captured which had escaped destruction, and but one vessel remained in the Virginia navy, the armed boat _Liberty_. A small force later, in 1782, was gathered which operated in the Chesapeake (within which the Virginia force remained almost entirely during the war) until peace in 1783.

Almost foremost in naval activity and expenditure was South Carolina. The state owned in all some fifteen vessels, of which the most important was the _Bricole_, purchased in France, and mounting forty-four 24’s and 18’s, though pierced for sixty. She, with nearly all the other ships of the state, was sunk as an obstacle to the British in the siege ending in the surrender of May 11, 1780. She was the largest American ship of the Revolution in actual service. There survived the _Indian_, “rented” by Alexander Gillon, who had been commissioned as commodore and sent abroad to raise some £71,000 with which to build three frigates. The only result was the renting of the _Indian_, which had been built by Congress in Holland, but which, to prevent international complications, had been sold to the King of France and by him given to the Chevalier Luxembourg. The _Indian_ was renamed the _South Carolina_ and given an armament of twenty-eight 32’s and twelve 12’s, an unusually heavy battery. It was not until August, 1781, that she got to sea, cruised for a time in the North Sea, but arrived at Havana on January 12, 1782, with five valuable prizes. She formed one of a combined American and Spanish expedition in May to the Bahamas, which was successful. On May 28th she arrived at Philadelphia, where an agent of Luxembourg caused the removal of Gillon and the appointment of a Captain Joyner; she refitted and left for sea in December. Scarcely outside the Capes of the Delaware, she was chased by a British squadron and taken after a two hours’ fight. Luxembourg demanded under the contract an indemnity of 300,000 livres (francs). This Gillon denied, claiming his removal to be a breach of contract. The claims were unsettled until December, 1874, when the state of South Carolina paid $28,894 to the heirs of Luxembourg as a final settlement. South Carolina is still prosecuting her claims against the United States for a reimbursement of her expenditures for this ship.[3]

The efforts at a state navy of North Carolina, Georgia, and Rhode Island were of too moderate a character to need much comment. That of the first consisted of three brigantines in 1778 and the addition of a small ship, the _Caswell_, in 1778. By June, 1779, all had disappeared by sale or (in the case of the _Caswell_) by sinking at Ocracoke. Georgia had but four galleys. But two sloops and two galleys were the extent of Rhode Island’s navy, though it was this state, as mentioned, which took the first steps toward naval defence.

Of vastly greater importance than the state navies were the privateers, a service congenial to the New England seamen from every point of view. There was “more money in it”; there was the absence of a strict and irksome discipline, and the cruises were short. The great number of privateers fitting out made it a matter of extreme difficulty to find men for the ships of the regular service, which thus not infrequently had to lie idle and unemployed. Had a tithe of the effort expended upon privateers been expended upon the building and equipment of a navy, it is not unfair to say that the general results would probably have been much better. But privateering had already been a much-indulged-in occupation. The Seven Years’ War had ended only in 1763, and during this period many American privateers were afloat. The slave trade also was a favorite New England occupation, and piracy itself at the period was not altogether disreputable if applied only to those “natural enemies,” the French and Spanish. Nearly all the officers of the new Continental navy had their first war training in privateers, and very frequently during the Revolution officers took a hand at privateering in the moments of enforced leisure when there was no naval ship to which they could be assigned.

Congress authorized privateering on March 23, 1776, and a list printed by the Library of Congress shows the number and kind of vessels furnished with letters of marque by the Continental Congress. This gives a total of such of 1,697. Of these there were ships 301; brigs and brigantines, 541; schooners and sloops, 751; boats and galleys, 104. These are accredited to the several states as follows: New Hampshire, 43; Massachusetts, 626; Rhode Island, 15; Connecticut, 218; New York, 1; New Jersey, 4; Pennsylvania, 500; Maryland, 225; Virginia, 64; South Carolina, 1. Distributed by years there were afloat in 1776, 34; 1777, 69; 1778, 129; 1779, 209; 1780, 301; 1781, 550; 1783, 22. These altogether carried 14,872 guns and 58,400 men. It is, of course, almost a certainty that many of these vessels were duplicated in this list, but such duplication is more than offset by the issuance of letters of marque by the several states and in France and the West Indies which, according to an excellent authority, would carry the number to over 2,000, with 18,000 guns and 70,000 men. “Judging from the scanty information at hand concerning British privateering, it is probable that their vessels engaged in this form of warfare were considerably less numerous but decidedly superior in force to the Americans; the latter seem to have carried on an average between eight and nine guns and less than thirty-five men; the British about seventeen guns and seventy-five or more men.”[4]

The value of the captures of the privateers was about $18,000,000; that of the captures of the navy, which had thirty-one ships afloat in 1776, thirty-four in 1777, and but seven in 1782, was, proportioned to the number of ships employed, much greater, being some $6,000,000. Altogether (i. e., by both services) some 800 vessels were captured. Our own losses were also very great, but not nearly so great as those of Britain. About 16,000 prisoners were taken afloat, only 6,000 less than those taken by the army.

By July, 1776, the British fleet in the vicinity of New York, where the attack was about to take place on the American army assembled on Long Island near Brooklyn, which resulted in our defeat and the occupancy of New York for the remainder of the war, consisted of nine ships of from 50 to 64 guns; three of 44; twenty-seven of from 28 to 32; fourteen of 20; eleven of 14 to 18; sixteen of from 8 to 10--a total of eighty ships of war. This fleet was under the command of Richard Viscount Howe, whose brother, General Howe, was commander-in-chief of the army of 34,614 men, of whom 13,167 were of the 29,867 Hessians hired for the war by Great Britain. These two brothers were for some two years to conduct the British main operations in America. One, the admiral, was an officer of great ability and rose to high distinction; the General was handicapped by a slothful and unenterprising disposition with a character marred by an extreme looseness in moral conduct. His want of enterprise may have been due in part to the attitude of the Whig party in England, to which he was attached, and which was opposed in general to the use of force against America. In any case, his qualities were such that they went a long way toward the establishment of American independence.

In addition to Howe’s fleet there were, under Commodore Sir Peter Parker, two 50-gun ships, four of 28, two of 20, and three of 8 guns. These were to be employed against Charleston, South Carolina.

On Lake Champlain the British were to have during 1776 a ship of eighteen 12-pounders, a schooner of fourteen 6-pounders; another of 12; three “Radeaux” (flat-bottomed craft), one carrying six 24-pounders, one six 12-pounders, and one two howitzers. There were also a gondola (with oars) carrying seven 9-pounders, and twenty gunboats, each with a brass field piece of from 24 to 9 pounds.

The naval force here mentioned was at times reinforced by accessions of line-of-battle ships, as many as twenty-one being at times available. The British, however, with an unwise conception of the true strategy of the situation, were constantly diverting these to the West Indies, which, during our Revolution, after war was declared by France and Spain, was the great field of naval action. It is within bounds to say that they lost the United States for the sake of the West India Islands.

Chapter IV

It was not until February, 1776, that what may be termed a strictly naval event took form in the sailing of the little fleet in command of Commodore Esek Hopkins, under orders which were sufficiently explicit in primary meaning, viz.: to proceed to Chesapeake Bay and destroy the powerful flotilla which the royal governor of Virginia had gathered together and with which he was harassing the Chesapeake shores. Hopkins was then to proceed to the Carolinas and act in like manner against the enemy’s forces, after which he was to go to Rhode Island. A final phrase, however, left a loophole for other action: “if bad winds or stormy weather” or any other accident should prevent, he was to use his own judgment.

Hopkins flew his broad-pennant in the _Alfred_, in which also was then hoisted by the hands of Lieutenant John Paul Jones a Continental flag which bore a rattlesnake and a motto, “Don’t tread on me,” on a yellow ground. The exact date of this incident is unknown. The other vessels of the squadron were the ship _Columbus_, 20; the brig _Andrew Doria_, 14; brig _Cabot_, 14; brig _Providence_, 12; sloop _Hornet_, 10; schooner _Wasp_, 8; schooner _Fly_, 8. The number of men was about 880.

Hopkins, instead of going to the Chesapeake, directed his course, on the plea of bad weather, to New Providence in the Bahamas, where there were considerable stores of powder and cannon of which the newly formed Continental army was in utmost need. Though blamed later by enemies, Hopkins took the wiser course. His advent there on March 3d was a complete surprise: 250 men were landed and possession taken of the little town and forts without resistance. Two weeks was spent in getting aboard the guns, of which there were seventy-one, from 9 to 32 pounders. There were also fifteen brass mortars and twenty-four barrels of powder. The governor, unfortunately, had succeeded in sending away 150 of the latter. The guns, however, were an extremely important prize, and to carry these and other public property seized, a sloop was impressed. Hopkins sailed north on March 17th, carrying the governor, lieutenant-governor, and another official. By this time Newport, Rhode Island, was occupied by a British force, and New London was selected instead as a port of return. When off Block Island the British man-of-war _Glasgow_, of 20 guns and 150 men, was sighted, and a running action took place, in which the _Glasgow_, though much injured, escaped into Newport. The explanation of the American commander was that the firing must bring aid from Newport to the _Glasgow’s_ rescue, and in fact two vessels in the harbor did get under way to go out. The force in Newport, however, which was only the small frigate _Rose_, of 20 guns, the _Nautilus_ and _Swan_, of 16 each, and several tenders, was no more than an equal match for our own. As far as one can read into this event, there was not the energy shown by our people which should have been. Giving up the action, the American squadron reached New London with all its prize intact. The Commodore’s practical disobedience of orders was fully condoned by Congress, and he received a letter of congratulation from President John Hancock.

The British squadron, suffering a good deal from fire from batteries on shore, had left Newport on April 5th, and Hopkins entered Narragansett Bay, going to Providence on April 25th. So many of his men had sickened on the cruise from the poor food, bad water, and want of general hygiene aboard ship at that period, that he had landed 200 at New London. He now found it impossible to get men. Some soldiers who had been temporarily lent from the army were demanded back by Washington, and there ensued a painful period for the unhappy Commodore. Great complaints of ill-treatment went to Congress. Hopkins’ manners to his officers were severely criticised, and the whole ended in an official inquiry which included his disobedience of orders, his allowing the _Glasgow_ to escape, and his inactivity since his return. He was not entirely cleared on the first two charges, but the prevalent sickness among his men and the impossibility of getting new crews on account of the active fitting out of privateers were certainly sufficient to exonerate him from the third. Notwithstanding, and although he was energetically defended by John Adams, he received a formal censure from Congress, but was allowed for the moment to retain his command. In regard to the question of roughness toward his subordinates which was involved in the charges, it must be considered that all officers of the period had entered the Continental service from the rough life of the merchantman of the time; many had served in privateers; the officers of the British navy itself were themselves not altogether lamblike, if we are to believe Smollet, who had personal experience as a surgeon’s mate. It was in many ways a rough age afloat and ashore and in every society, and such charges as were brought against Hopkins cannot justly be judged from our present standpoint. Certainly John Paul Jones, his first lieutenant, wrote him at this time a kindly and sympathetic letter regarding this trial. Though Hopkins remained yet some time in the service, it was not for long. His enemies, and apparently they were not few, again brought charges against him. As a result, Congress on March 26, 1777, resolved that he be suspended from his command, and on January 2, 1778, he was dismissed from the service. That the service suffered thereby can hardly be said, as he was now sixty years old, an old age for that period, and was scarcely equal to the exercise of vigorous command, but the fact remains that he met unduly harsh treatment.

Hopkins’s squadron was now broken up, though the several ships had remained under his general orders until his dismissal. They cruised chiefly “down East” off New England and Nova Scotia, making a number of prizes, one of which, the _Mellish_, taken by the _Alfred_, now commanded by Jones, carried a cargo of soldiers’ clothing for Burgoyne’s army of 13,000 men now in Canada, intended to proceed by Lake Champlain to New York and thus occupy a line which would separate New England entirely from the rest of the country.

A considerable fleet chiefly of gunboats had, as mentioned, been built by the British for service on Lake Champlain. The offset to this, by the building of a flotilla under Arnold, has also already been noted. The building of this little fleet was to change history.

The British naval preparations were so delayed that it was not until October, 1776 (on the 11th and 13th), that the two forces came together, with the result, after a most gallant contest, of a defeat to the Americans, who retreated up the lake, destroying all their vessels but one galley, a sloop, and two small schooners, and the galley _Washington_, which last was captured. The gallantry of the American force is all the more to be commended as it was one gathered from raw material, most of which was unaccustomed to work of the kind it was called upon to do; the British, on the other hand, were all men-of-war’s men “detached from his Majesty’s ships and vessels in the river St. Lawrence to serve on Lake Champlain,” to the number of 670.

As the Americans were about 700, the forces were almost equal in numbers. It was far otherwise in strength, the British in numbers of vessels, in size, and in armament far outclassing the Americans. They were in numbers 29 to 15, and the ship _Inflexible_ alone, which carried eighteen 12-pounders, was able to look after a large proportion of the American squadron. The American loss was over eighty; that of the British did not exceed forty. The former had lost all, but to good purpose, for this little fleet had delayed the advance southward of Burgoyne’s army another year, thus giving time to prepare resistance, and what perhaps was equally to the purpose, so far as the fortunes of America were concerned, affording time to General Howe to carry out, in July, 1777, his views as to the necessity of occupying Philadelphia; for had Burgoyne, as proposed, started from Canada in the summer of 1776, Howe, with his whole large army would have been at New York within easy support of this movement of so vital moment to the British. As it was, in 1777, the forces were widely separated, and Burgoyne, instead of being aided as he had expected, went to his destruction. Thus “Never,” says Clowes in the great history of “The Royal Navy,” speaking of this action, “had any force, big or small, lived to better purpose or died more gloriously.” “That the war spread from America to Europe, from the English Channel to the Baltic, from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean, from the West Indies to the Mississippi, and ultimately involved the remote waters of Hindostan, is traceable, through Saratoga, to the rude flotilla which in 1776 anticipated its enemy in the possession of Lake Champlain.”

It was as just mentioned when Burgoyne most needed support in his advance south the next year (1777) that, Sir William Howe (the British commander-in-chief in America) embarked 14,000 men, and escorted by the fleet under command of his brother, Lord Howe, sailed from Sandy Hook, the expedition numbering 280 ships, including the transports and men-of-war. Eight thousand men were left at New York under Sir Henry Clinton. Howe’s objective was Philadelphia. His first intention was to go up the Delaware, but obstructions in the river being reported by one of the naval captains, he changed to the very roundabout way of the Chesapeake Bay. He was not able to land his troops at the head of the bay until August 25th. He defeated Washington at the battle of the Brandywine on September 11th, and on the 26th occupied Philadelphia.

The General’s brother, Lord Howe, in command of the fleet, was a good month returning from the head of the Chesapeake round to and up the Delaware as far as Chester, where he arrived on October 6th, so slow and uncertain were the movements of sailing ships in those days. A small squadron had been sent in advance to clear the channel. This move on the part of the British to occupy the river was necessary to keep up the supplies of their army. In this fleet there were eleven vessels, two of which were 64’s, one 50, and three frigates of 28 to 44 guns. The total of their armament was 364 guns, 74 of which were 24-pounders, with somewhat over 2,000 men. To resist this powerful force there were in the river the new Continental frigate _Delaware_, of twenty-four 12-pounders; the brig _Andrew Doria_, of fourteen 6-pounders; and the sloop _Hornet_, with twelve 9-pounders; besides six smaller vessels carrying from four to ten 9-pounders, and twelve galleys with one gun each, of 18, 24, or 32 pounds. These were assisted by the whole of the Pennsylvania navy, which consisted of the ship _Montgomery_, of fourteen 14-pounders, and thirty-eight small craft carrying fifty-one guns varying from 4 to 18 pounders. The total armament was 175 guns. The combined Continental and state fleets were under the command of Commodore John Hazelwood of the latter. To support these there were Fort Mifflin on an island, with also two small batteries on the mainland, just below the mouth of the Schuylkill and two miles from League Island on the Pennsylvania side, and opposite, on the New Jersey shore, at Red Bank, Fort Mercer; a battery opposite Hog Island, and three and a half miles below this, another. Obstructions of heavy timbers, shod at their points with iron, were placed opposite this last battery and in the channel near Fort Mifflin.

The Delaware River has a somewhat tortuous, and in places a narrow, channel. Its defensive advantages are thus very strong, and the Americans had a fair chance of success. The most powerful of the naval defence was lost in the beginning by the grounding of the _Delaware_ near a British battery on the city front.

Notwithstanding, the Americans made a fine defence of more than six weeks. It was not until November 10th that the British succeeded in clearing the river to Philadelphia and then with heavy loss in men and in ships, two of which, a ship-of-the-line and a sloop-of-war, were burned. Later, in May, 1778, they invaded the river above Philadelphia. The frigates _Washington_ and _Effingham_, nearly ready for sea, had to be burned, and besides these a ship of 18 guns, and brigs, schooners, and small craft, some fifty-four in all, destroyed; a sad ending to a long and gallant struggle.

It was in the Delaware that in December, 1777, David Bushnell made a second trial of his torpedoes (the first having been in the Hudson). He used kegs of powder fitted with a detonating fuse, which should have succeeded. No damage was done through, as Bushnell claims, bad management. The British fleet was alarmed enough, however, to justify Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of American Independence, in producing the well-known poem of the “Battle of the Kegs,” once a favorite with our fathers.

The _Randolph_, _Hancock_, _Raleigh_, and _Boston_ were the only frigates at sea in this year. The _Hancock_, Captain Manley, was captured July 7th, on this her first cruise, by a British forty-four; the _Raleigh_, under Captain John Barry, during an action with two British ships, one of which was of 50 guns, ran on a rocky islet near Penobscot Bay, September 27, 1778. Her crew escaped ashore, but the ship, though an effort had been made to burn her, was hauled off by the British. Both the captured ships were taken into the British service. The _Randolph_, which had been one of the earliest of the new frigates to get to sea, had, in the period of her sea service, been actively cruising in our southern waters under the command of Captain Biddle, and was ordered to France in October, 1777. She remained there but a short time owing to the protests of the British ambassador against our ships remaining in French ports, and returned to Charleston, whence she had sailed. Here a squadron was organized with four other small vessels of the South Carolina navy, which went to sea February 12, 1778, and cruised in the vicinity of the Windward Islands. On March 7th was met the _Yarmouth_, 64. Biddle gallantly engaged the ship twice his force, but the _Randolph_ after an action of about fifteen minutes blew up. Only four men were saved, and these were picked up five days after the explosion, on a piece of wreckage, by the _Yarmouth_, which meanwhile had been actively cruising. The incident is certainly among the most extraordinary of happenings even on the sea, so prolific in adventures. Three hundred and eleven men were lost besides officers. The loss of Captain Biddle, one of the most promising of our sea officers, was specially deplored.

Chapter V

Silas Deane had been the first American agent abroad, reaching Europe in July, 1776. Franklin and Arthur Lee arrived in France in December of that year, the former in the brig _Reprisal_, which was the first American man-of-war to visit the eastern hemisphere. Seldom has there been a ship whose safety meant so much; for upon Franklin’s great social and political influence was to depend the aid of France, and upon this aid, American independence. The _Reprisal_ had taken several prizes which she had carried into Nantes, and the reception of these and the many to come later into French and Spanish ports caused strong protests from England to which these governments had to give heed. The commissioners were to purchase or hire eight line-of-battle ships as well as a frigate and two cutters, but their endeavors fell far short of such a program. Nevertheless, all things considered, aid in money, and particularly in much needed army stores, was forthcoming to a surprising degree, and the name of Beaumarchais in France and that of Gardoqui in Spain, who acted at Bilbao as Beaumarchais’s agent, deserve lasting remembrance by Americans. In 1778 Deane was replaced by John Adams, who, accompanied by his son, John Quincy, then eleven years old, sailed from Boston on February 15th in the frigate _Boston_, and reached Bordeaux on April 1st. Naval interests, after Deane’s recall, were taken over chiefly by Franklin.

The war had lasted three years, but now in this year of 1778 it was to take a new development. The immediate cause was the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga on October 17, 1777. The chain of causes was, as already mentioned, the resistance offered on Lake Champlain the previous year (1776) by the flotilla under Arnold, the transfer of the main part of the British force from New York to Philadelphia when it should have been employed to support Burgoyne, and the too leisurely movement of Clinton up the Hudson with a large portion of the 8,000 men left at New York. Clinton captured the forts at the Highlands, but he was too late to save Burgoyne, who surrendered the day after the British army burned Kingston. The surrender was a fitting nemesis for such an act. A greater strategic failure than was this campaign on the part of the British is not recorded in history, nor has there ever been one with more momentous consequences. It convinced the French Government, smarting under its loss of Canada in the treaty of 1763, that there was now a fair chance of American success, and on February 6, 1778, was signed the treaty of alliance which brought the ships the aid of which was so vital to our success. Two months later, April 13, 1778, Vice-Admiral Charles Henri Theodat d’Estaing du Saillans, generally known to us as the Count d’Estaing, sailed from Toulon with twelve battleships and five frigates. Two of these ships were of 80 guns, six of 74, three of 64, and one of 50. The naval story of our Revolution, though its greatest exploits in the cruise of Paul Jones and the capture of the _Serapis_ were yet to come, must, henceforward, be largely of French ships.

The French commander had one of the greatest chances in history. The British fleet was in the Delaware awaiting the preparation of the British army to return to New York from Philadelphia. Howe had but six 64’s, three 50’s, and six frigates. They had been a sure prey to the French had there been in command a man of greater energy. But d’Estaing had been transferred at the mature age of thirty-five from the army to the navy, the profession of all others which requires a life-long familiarity, and where the rigidity and formality of the army school of the period were wholly out of place. There have been rare exceptions to the general rule, Blake being a notable example, but d’Estaing was not one of these. He was, says a French writer, “detested from the first--the word is not too strong--by most of his officers.”[5]

Whether through bad luck or want of energy, he was more than a month (thirty-three days) in even reaching the Straits of Gibraltar, 700 miles from Toulon, thus making an average of but twenty-one miles a day.

A British frigate was noted by the French in passing Gibraltar, which “tranquilly and comfortably watched the French fleet defile by in three columns.” But this same ship followed for ninety leagues into the Atlantic, to make sure of the French course, and then hastened to England. It arrived there on June 5th, fifty-three days after d’Estaing had left Toulon and twenty after he had passed the Straits. This knowledge, however, was not necessary to British action. A force equal to d’Estaing’s and to be commanded by Vice-Admiral Byron had already been in preparation, though it had been hampered as much by poor dockyard administration and want of men as was d’Estaing by his own want of push.

It was not until July 7, 1778, that the French fleet anchored at the Capes of the Delaware. But the quarry had gotten away. The British army had left Philadelphia on June 18th on its march to Sandy Hook. The scores of transports carrying the army baggage and stores had started down the Delaware next day. They did not get clear of the Capes until June 28th, and, convoyed by the men-of-war, reached inside of Sandy Hook on June 30th. Never was greater opportunity lost. A little earlier and with Howe’s fleet captured, the fall of New York, practically undefended, was a certainty. But for d’Estaing’s want of push the war would have ended in 1778 instead of five years later.

Howe had heard of d’Estaing’s approach. He made admirable preparations to resist the entry of New York Bay. D’Estaing arrived off Sandy Hook, but though offering the large sum of 150,000 francs, pilots were unobtainable, probably by reason of fearing the vengeance of the British if they should be taken. On July 22d there was a fresh northeast wind and a spring (a highest) tide. There was ample water for any ship of his fleet, but d’Estaing and his officers were unacquainted with the region and did not dare to venture. “At eight o’clock,” wrote an eyewitness in the British fleet, “d’Estaing, with all his squadron, appeared under way. He kept working to windward as if to gain a proper position for crossing the bar by the time the tide should serve. The wind ... blew from the exact point from which he could attack us to the greatest advantage. The spring tides were at the highest.... We consequently expected the hottest fray that had been fought between the two nations. On our side all was at stake. Had the men-of-war been defeated, the fleet of transports and victualers must have been destroyed, and the army of course fallen with us. D’Estaing, however, had not spirit equal to the risk; at three o’clock we saw him bear off to the southward, and in a few hours he was out of sight.”[6]

Naturally Washington’s disappointment over d’Estaing’s failure was great. The great prize had been lost. He had, however, arranged with d’Estaing that should the latter not attack New York, he would go to Newport, Rhode Island, and assist General John Sullivan in attacking the British force of some 6,000, which, supported by six ships-of-war, held Newport.

D’Estaing anchored off Newport (outside the bay) on July 29, 1778. The next day Suffren, with two ships-of-the-line, went into the channel west of Conanicut Island, and two frigates and a sloop-of-war entered Sakonnet; whereupon the British burned the _Kingfisher_, of 16 guns, and some galleys stationed there. The British general, Sir Robert Pigot, withdrew 1,500 Hessians from Conanicut and concentrated his forces about the town. Goat Island, where is now the United States Torpedo Station and where for many years was a fort, was also occupied, as this commanded the main channel and the entrances to the inner harbor. On August 5th Suffren with his two ships went into the main channel near the north end of Conanicut, two others taking his former place. Captain John Brisbane, the senior British naval officer, now destroyed four frigates, the _Flora_, _Juno_, _Lark_, and _Orpheus_, of 32 guns each, and the corvette _Falcon_, of 16 guns, two being sunk at the south end of Goat Island. Five transports were sunk between Goat and Coasters’ Harbor Island, thus closing both entrances to the inner harbor. The guns, ammunition, and the thousand or so men of their crews went to strengthen the forces of the batteries.

It was not until August 8th that d’Estaing with the eight remaining ships-of-the-line ran the batteries and anchored between Coasters’ Harbor Island and Conanicut. He was now joined by the others except one which remained as a lookout in the West Channel. The long delay of ten days from the time of arrival had been at Sullivan’s request, who was not yet ready. Two thousand men had been sent by Washington under Lafayette, but the expected militia were slow to come in. Things now looked very black for the British, but the delay had been fatal.

D’Estaing on August 9th landed on Conanicut such of his thousand soldiers in the fleet as were fit for duty and some two thousand seamen, in readiness for the morrow’s attack as arranged. Scarcely were these landed when the lifting of the fog revealed the English fleet at anchor off Point Judith, seven miles southwest of Narragansett Bay. Though there were some thirty ships, there were but one 74, six 64’s, and five 50’s, a force wholly inadequate to meet d’Estaing’s. Howe, thus inferior, could not have ventured into the bay, but his presence caused d’Estaing to lose his judgment. The latter had begun to get his ships into position for defence, in the prevailing calm, but next morning when the wind came out from the northeast, fair for leaving port, but making it impossible for Howe to come in even had his force allowed, d’Estaing in over haste cut his hemp cables and went to sea. Howe, unable to meet him, did the same, and now the day and part of the next were spent in maneuvering for position in face of a rising storm. The wind had gradually increased and finally blew with such force as to make action impossible. Next day (August 12th) it developed into an “August storm,” a West India hurricane, which had taken its usual course up our coast, scattering both fleets and inflicting heavy damage, particularly upon the French, whose flagship, the _Languedoc_, completely dismasted and with tiller broken, came near being taken on the 13th by a much weaker but wholly manageable British 50-gun ship, the _Renown_. Only night saved her. D’Estaing, with several ships under jury masts, anchored east of Cape May and gradually collected his damaged fleet. He was seen here by Howe, who had now but two of his ships in company. By August 20th d’Estaing was again off Newport, but only to hold a council of war at which were present Sullivan and Lafayette. D’Estaing was willing to remain two days if the American officers would guarantee the surrender of Newport in that time. This they could not do, and the fleet left for Boston, which was mentioned in the admiral’s orders as the place in which he was to refit in case of need. It is of no use to dwell upon the bitter feeling aroused among the Americans, who felt that the British army at Newport was, with the aid of the fleet, in their power. In all fairness, however, the failure was really due to Sullivan’s own delay, which changed completely naval conditions. The siege was raised; the great effort had gone for nothing but the destruction of a few unimportant British ships. The British fleet, now heavily reinforced by the thirteen powerful ships under Byron which had left England in June, had command of the sea.

D’Estaing spent two months refitting at Boston, and then following the letter of his orders, left on November 4, 1778, for the West Indies, where he was much more fortunate, but where we cannot follow him. His departure left our coast open to invasion at every point, and thus Savannah was occupied in December by a strong British force; it was the beginning of the Southern invasion which was to cost us dear.

Pressed by our people, d’Estaing in the summer of 1779, though he had received orders to return with his own particular squadron to France, determined to attempt to dislodge the British at Savannah. He thus left Santo Domingo with twenty ships-of-the-line and seven frigates, and anchored, on August 31, 1779, off Tybee at the mouth of the Savannah River, on which, eighteen miles from the sea, is Savannah, then but a small village. Troops were landed by the French, an attack made, and an expedition, expected to be completed in eight days, extended to two months. It ended in disaster; gale after gale crippled the French fleet here on an unprotected coast, until on October 28th it was wholly dispersed. The flagship was driven to sea with the loss of both her only remaining anchors, and it was not until well into December that the main portions came together again in the West Indies. D’Estaing himself, however, was driven so far to sea that he determined to return alone to France. This he did, fortunately meeting the _Provence_ which gave him an anchor, and reached Brest on December 7, 1779.

He returned, having accomplished nothing in aid of the United States itself, however fortunate in the West Indies. He was severely judged by naval officers of his service. One, however, need not go to the extent of Captain La Clocheterie, whom the Vicomte de Charlus (who kept a journal when crossing the Atlantic with Rochambeau’s expedition next year) reports as saying: “He was a coward and a man of no talent.” His failure is found rather in the _mot_ of a really great French sailor, Suffren: “If he had only been as much of a seaman as he was brave----”

The whole conduct of d’Estaing’s campaign illustrates what superior strength at sea might accomplish but, in this case, did not. If he had, in going to America, pressed westward, even to the extent of towing his slow sailers, he would have made one of the great successes of history, and have ended the war in America. Failing this, he could, at once on his arrival, have forced the surrender of Newport, upon which he had but to close his hand and the place, with its 7,000 soldiers and sailors, and the bay would have been in possession of the allies. His fault, militarily considered, was in acceding to Sullivan’s request for delay. Reading into the psychics of the question, this request had its basis in Sullivan’s desire to make as good a showing as possible in the combined operations, and not from actual necessity, as the powerful French fleet in itself commanded the situation, and d’Estaing’s compliance came from a natural desire to meet the wishes of the American commander. But on neither side was it war. His leaving the bay at the crisis of events was an unfortunate want of judgment. His later action was but part of the ill-judged strategy of the time which ended in the fall of Charleston and the British occupancy of the whole South, its wholesale devastation and well-nigh subjugation.

But neither side, British nor French, could understand how completely the whole was a question of naval domination. Washington saw, but he was powerless to do more than proclaim again and again the truth, until finally in 1781 he was listened to, the result of which was one of the decisive triumphs of all time.

Chapter VI

The new treaty with France was to bring into special prominence one of the most remarkable characters of his time, John Paul Jones. On October 10, 1776, he had been made the eighteenth captain on a list of twenty-four then established. He considered himself ill-treated, and justly so, as having been first on the list of lieutenants he should have been placed higher. His animadversions on the subject, in a letter to Robert Morris, are worth quoting. It showed along with some very just criticisms that he had a high and fitting estimate of his duties as a sea officer, and of the demands of his calling. He said:

“I cannot but lament that so little delicacy hath been observed in the appointment and promotion of officers in the sea service, many of whom are not only grossly illiterate, but want even the capacity of commanding merchant vessels. I was lately on a court-martial where a captain of marines made his mark and where the president could not read the oath which he attempted to administer without spelling and making blunders. As the sea officers are so subject to be seen by foreigners, what conclusions must they draw of Americans in general, from characters so rude and contracted? In my judgment the abilities of sea officers ought to be as far superior to the abilities of officers in the army as the nature of a sea service is more complicated and admits of a greater number of cases than can possibly happen on the land; therefore the discipline by sea ought to be the more perfect and regular, were it compatible with short enlistments.”[7]

On June 14, 1777, Jones was assigned to the command of the little cruiser _Ranger_, just completed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On the same day Congress established the Stars and Stripes as the national flag, and it is said, and is probable, that Jones was the first to hoist this flag on a man-of-war. His ship was but 116 feet overall and 28 feet broad. She mounted eighteen 6-pounders.

The delay in fitting out is not to the credit of the energy of those charged with providing the ship’s equipment. The sails were not ready until late in October. With a crew of about one hundred and forty, “nearly all full-blooded Yankees,” she sailed on November 1st, for France, carrying dispatches from Congress and taking two prizes on the way. Jones arrived at Nantes on December 2, 1777.

He had a long wait in France before he again got to sea, but his frequent consultations with our commissioners, his always excellent advice in naval matters, and his general activity were worth the delay. It was not until April 10th that he got to sea, starting on his famous cruise in the Irish Sea during which he took a number of prizes, among them the _Drake_, a sloop-of-war carrying twenty 6-pounders. He landed at Whitehaven, Scotland, and burned a ship, one of many which he had hoped to destroy in this port, and made the famous descent upon Lord Selkirk’s estate, where his men carried off the family silver. But Jones had a mutinous crew, thirsting for booty, and his concession of plunder was a case of _force majeure_. He later redeemed the silver, giving to the crew several hundred pounds as its valuation as prize, and returned it to the family. Jones had had much difficulty with both officers and crew, partially no doubt through his own roughness (mentioned in Fanning’s narrative) toward the former, and particularly through the peculiar ideas of liberty prevalent, which sometimes went so far as to claim that the movements of the ship should be put to a vote.

Jones having arrived at Brest in May, 1778, with his prize, the _Drake_, sought a larger command. He had to wait a year for it. After many strivings, one was found in the _Duc de Duras_, a fourteen-year-old East Indiaman, which was bought, fitted as a man-of-war, and renamed the _Bonhomme Richard_ in compliment to Franklin as being the nearest approach in French to the “Poor Richard” of the famous almanac. The ship was far from meeting requirements, being slow and weakly built, so that she finally carried twenty-eight 12 and 9 pounders instead of 18’s on the gun deck, eight 6’s on the forecastle, and on the after part of the lower deck six 18’s, forty-two guns in all. She was provided with a mixed crew of Americans, French, English, a few Scandinavians, and eighty-three Irish and Scotch, Jones himself being of the latter by birth. Of the first there were in the beginning but seventy-nine, chiefly exchanged prisoners. Later, owing to mutinous conduct of the British element, many of these were discharged and replaced by forty-three newly arrived Americans just released from prison, and thirty Portuguese. The total was 227 officers and seamen, besides 130 French soldiers placed aboard to serve as marines.

Jones’s ideas were large: they included the fitting out of a large French squadron to act in concert and carrying a considerable number of troops to make an attack upon the English coast. This, however, fell through, and a squadron was organized of the _Bonhomme Richard_, 42; the _Alliance_, 32; the _Pallas_, 32; the _Cerf_, cutter, 18, and the _Vengeance_, brigantine, of 12 guns.

The _Alliance_ had arrived at Brest, twenty-three days from Boston, carrying Lafayette, on February 6, 1779. She had an unreliable crew, with many English and Irish, and a still more unreliable captain, Landais, who had been an officer in the French navy. He had been appointed a captain in the American service on the recommendation of Silas Deane, who seemed to have a faculty for making errors of the kind. Landais was to give much and continuous trouble.

The squadron did not finally get off until August 14, 1779. Its orders, prepared by Franklin, with the advice of Sartine, the French Minister of Marine, were to cruise to the north of the British islands and after six weeks to go into the Texel, Holland. There were varying incidents of capture of prizes, designs to attack Leith, insubordinations of the French captains, etc., but on September 23d, when a convoy of forty vessels accompanied by two men-of-war was discovered off Flamborough Head, a prominent point a few miles south of Scarborough, England, Jones’s moment had come.

It was not until seven o’clock in the evening that the _Bonhomme Richard_ came within gunshot of the larger ship which turned out to be the _Serapis_, Captain Richard Pearson, of 50 guns, 18 of which were 18-pounders. She carried 320 men. There then ensued the most remarkable duel in naval history. Jones was left unsupported by his accompanying subordinates, and he went into action short sixteen of his best men and a lieutenant, Lunt, who had been sent to secure a prize. The story of this remarkable battle must of necessity here be short; the full details must be sought elsewhere. But short as it must be, there is enough of it, however baldly told, to stir the blood.

Jones closed with his antagonist early in the action, and as they came in contact the two ships were lashed together by Jones, the stern of the _Serapis_ being at the bow of the _Bonhomme Richard_. The latter’s main deck battery of 12-pounders was silenced, two of the old six 18-pounders on the lower deck had burst, killing nearly all the guns’ crews. Only three 9-pounders on the quarter deck could be used, and one of these had to be shifted from the off side. The guns of the _Serapis_ were still active, but her upper deck had been cleared by the musketry fire from the tops of the _Bonhomme Richard_. The latter’s prisoners (some 200) were released without orders, and in their fright that the ship was sinking, willingly worked the pumps; both ships were frequently afire. The men in the _Bonhomme Richard’s_ tops crawled along the yards into the tops of the _Serapis_ and dropped hand grenades whenever any one appeared on deck; these grenades, at times going down the hatches and exploding on the lower deck, finally brought about an explosion of cartridges below which ran from gun to gun. This went far toward determining the battle. Meantime the erratic Landais fired three broad-sides, chiefly to the damage of the _Bonhomme Richard_, as the shot holes were found in the latter’s unengaged side. There can be little question that he hoped this ship would surrender when, with his own unharmed, he would capture both. Jones’s doggedness won the day: at half-past ten Captain Pearson, influenced no doubt somewhat by the presence of the _Alliance_, surrendered. He stated that an incomplete list of his killed and wounded were forty-nine of the former and sixty-eight of the latter, or more than a third of the whole 320. Jones estimated his loss at about 150, without stating the proportions.

While this action was going on, the _Pallas_, 30, Captain Cottineau, had engaged and taken the _Countess of Scarborough_, of 20 guns. The Baltic fleet under convoy was not attacked, as it should have been by the _Alliance_ or the _Vengeance_, a curious instance of inertia and incapacity or worse, so long as neither chose to take part in the main action.

Both the _Serapis_ and _Bonhomme Richard_ were terribly mauled. The latter’s rudder, stern frame, and transoms were cut away, and the sides between the ports were at points driven in. It was ten next morning before the fires could be extinguished. On examination it was decided that it would be impossible to keep the ship afloat if rough weather should come on (which in fact was the case), and during the night and next morning the wounded were removed. The men who had been brought from the _Pallas_ to work the pumps were taken off the evening of the 25th (two days after the battle). Says Jones:

“They did not abandon her until after nine o’clock; the water was then up to the lower deck, and a little after ten I saw with unexpressible grief the last of the _Bonhomme Richard_. No lives were lost with the ship, but it was impossible to save the stores of any sort whatever. I lost even the best part of my clothes, books and papers; and several of my officers lost all their clothes and effects.”

The masts of the _Serapis_ fell soon after the surrender, and jury masts were rigged from spars furnished by the _Alliance_, all the spare spars of the _Serapis_ being too badly cut by shot. On September 26th she was able to steer for Holland in company with the rest of the squadron, and on October 3d entered the Texel after some demur on the part of the Dutch. Though Jones’s instructions gave the Texel as the port to be made at the end of his six weeks’ cruise, his own wish was to go into Dunkirk and thus be under the shelter of an ally. The other captains adhered to the letter of the instructions, and Jones felt obliged to yield. Much trouble would have been saved had his views prevailed. As an offset, however, to such disabilities as arose from the inability of Jones to dispose of the _Serapis_, the anger of the British Government against the Dutch as to the reception of the squadron in Dutch waters went far to bringing later the declaration of war by England against Holland. Jones was allowed to land his sick and wounded, who were cared for on an island in the bay, as were the prisoners, numbering 537, sufficient to release by exchange all the American seamen who were prisoners in England.

For Jones’s further history, his having to put all his ships but the _Alliance_ under the French flag to avoid the difficulties raised by Great Britain with Holland; his going in the _Alliance_ to Lorient, France; the arrival there and sale of the _Serapis_; the charges against Landais; his short cruise in the _Alliance_; his unjust treatment by Arthur Lee, by which Landais regained command of the _Alliance_; Lee’s embarkation in the _Alliance_ for America and the necessity during the voyage of depriving Landais of the command on account of evident insanity; the dismissal of Landais from the service; Jones’s arrival in command of the _Ariel_ at Philadelphia, February 18, 1781, after more than three years’ absence, and his reception of the thanks of Congress; his appointment to the command of the new line-of-battle ship _America_ which he lost through its presentation to France; his return to Europe, and the rest of his adventurous career must be read in the many books devoted to the history of his life, not the least interesting part of which is to be found in Fanning’s graphic narrative. He will always stand out boldly as one of the most fearless spirits of the sea, and had he lived in the Napoleonic epoch he would have been met by Napoleon as a kindred soul who might have saved him the great misfortune of Trafalgar, which so changed the history of Europe and the world.

Chapter VII

The activity of American privateers as well as Continental ships in British waters during 1777-1779 was very great, that of the _Reprisal_, _Lexington_, _Dolphin_, and _Revenge_ (the first two, Continental brigs) being particularly notable.

France was at this period (1777) made a basis for the fitting out of Continental vessels and privateers, and for the supply of men in a way which would be far from possible to-day. Captain Lambert Wickes of the Continental brig _Reprisal_ and Gustavus Conyngham of the Continental lugger _Surprise_ and cutter _Revenge_, both of which latter were bought and fitted out by our commissioners in France, were two of those most active and prominent in the operations on the British coast. Their names have come down to this day as specially brave and adventurous men. The former had cruised very successfully on our own coast and in the West Indies in 1776, and had been the first, as mentioned, to carry a ship of the regular navy to Europe, December, 1776, though privateers had preceded him. Two prizes taken into Nantes caused strong protests from Great Britain. The treaty of Utrecht, 1713, expressly closed the ports of either power to the enemies of the other, so that the British case had a very sound basis. Vergennes unquestionably, before our alliance, had to hold a course favoring the Americans which was full of difficulties. The details of the diplomacy of the moment cannot be entered upon. Suffice that the _Reprisal_ refitted went to sea early in 1777, and brought in five prizes to add to Vergennes’s difficulties. The British Ambassador, Stormont, demanded their release. He was answered that both captor and captured had been ordered to leave port and were probably already at sea, to which Stormont was later able to make reply that the _Reprisal_ was undergoing repairs at Lorient, and that the five prizes had been sold. The questions were bandied to and fro between the American commissioners, the French Minister, and the British Ambassador, with the result that the _Reprisal_ received orders not to cruise near the French coast, but apparently the prizes remained in the hands of the purchasers. On May 28th Wickes sailed in the _Reprisal_ from St. Nazaire with the Continental brig _Lexington_, Captain Henry Johnson, and the cutter _Dolphin_, Captain Nicholson, all under Wickes as senior officer, for a cruise through the Irish Channel. They were back in St. Malo on June 27th, having captured twenty prizes, of which three were released and seven sunk. In July the commissioners were obliged to give orders that the _Reprisal_ and _Lexington_ should return directly to America, for which the _Dolphin_ had already sailed as a packet, and to cruise no longer in Europe. They left in September; when only two days out the _Lexington_ was captured. The _Reprisal_ was lost on the Newfoundland Banks, but one man being saved. The loss of her enterprising captain was keenly felt and deplored.

Gustavus Conyngham had been selected to command the lugger _Surprise_ fitting at Dunkirk, and was given one of the commissions, of which a number had been sent out in blank signed by Hancock, President of Congress, and dated March 1, 1777. He got to sea by May and, returning almost at once with two prizes, was, on the demand of the British Ambassador, with most of his crew, put in prison. His vessel was seized and the prizes released. His commission was taken from him and not returned. Released, he was at once put in command of a newly purchased cutter, the _Revenge_, with a crew of 106 men. He was given a new commission which was dated May 2, 1777. He cruised off the coast of Spain with remarkable success and then went to the West Indies. He was reported to have captured, by the time of his arrival there, sixty vessels, twenty-seven of which had been sent into port and thirty-three sunk or burned. After cruising successfully in the West Indies he arrived at Philadelphia on February 21, 1779. The _Revenge_ was sold, but the purchaser fitted her out as a privateer with Conyngham in command, using his Continental commission, dated May 2, 1777; this nearly caused Conyngham to lose his life, for he was captured by a British frigate in April, taken to New York, confined in irons, and was sent to England under an accusation of piracy in that his cruise and captures in the _Revenge_ early in 1777 had been before the date of this commission. In November, 1779, he escaped from Mill prison, where he had been confined. His active career, however, was ended.[8]

In 1779 occurred one of the great naval disasters of the war. Some 800 British troops convoyed by ships-of-war had in June taken possession of Penobscot Bay to establish there some of the many loyalists who had gone to Halifax, their chief refuge during the war. Maine was then a part of Massachusetts, and it was this state which took on the burden of dislodging the enemy. The Navy Board at Boston lent the _Warren_, 32; the _Providence_ (sloop), 14; and the _Diligent_, 12. These and three state brigantines, of 14 or 16 guns each, and thirteen privateers (insured by the state) made up the naval part. In all they mounted 324 guns and were manned by over 2,000 men. Captain Dudley Saltonstall was in chief command. There were about 1,000 militia commanded by General Solomon Lovell. This carefully prepared effort was a complete failure through the incompetency and want of push of Saltonstall. Arriving in the bay on July 25, 1779, the attack on three British vessels present and on the fort which was now ready was so dilatory and ineffective that at length, on August 13th, a British fleet which had had time to come from New York appeared and drove the American vessels up the river, where all except two, which were captured, were burned. The American loss was 474 men. The remainder had to find their way back with great hardship through the Maine woods. This humiliating affair cost Massachusetts a debt estimated at $7,000,000.

The year 1779, however, had been the most brilliant of the war for the small American navy. The exploits of John Paul Jones, of Gustavus Conyngham and Lambert Wickes in European waters made an undying page of history; nor should those of our small frigates, the _Queen of France_, _Deane_ (later the _Hague_), _Warren_, _Boston_, and _Ranger_ on our own coasts as well as of the swarms of privateers in this year (289 of which were commissioned by Congress alone) and whose sweeping captures of the enemy’s commerce went so far to supply the needs of our ever-dwindling army, be forgotten.

* * * * *

American affairs were now (at the beginning of 1780) at their lowest ebb. The struggle had lasted nearly five years. It was with difficulty that an army, nominally of 6,000 men, could be kept together. The men were “half-starved, imperfectly clothed, riotous, and robbing the country people ... from sheer necessity. Desertion was continual, from one to two hundred men a month going over to the enemy.... Only a miracle, thought Washington, could keep America from the humiliation of seeing her cause upheld solely by foreign arms. Throughout the land there was a weariness of war, a desire for peace at any price.”[9]

At least a third of our population is estimated to have been loyalist, and another third lukewarm. At several periods there were more loyalists in the British service than in our own. Nor was this situation wholly confined to the army, for in 1779 there were fitted out at New York one hundred and twenty-one privateers in British employ, thirty-four of which carried from twenty to thirty-six guns. The whole were manned by between 9,000 and 10,000 men.

The navy was reduced almost as much as the army. The _Boston_, _Providence_, _Ranger_, and _Queen of France_ had arrived at Charleston on December 23, 1779. The first three fell into the hands of the enemy on the surrender of Charleston on May 11, 1780, and became part of the British navy, the fourth along with the South Carolina ships _Bricole_, 44; the _Truite_, 26; _General Moultrie_, 20, and _Notre Dame_, 16, had been sunk in the river, as also two small French ships-of-war _L’Aventure_ and _Polacre_. There thus remained in the latter part of 1780 but one of the original thirteen frigates, the _Trumbull_, which with the _Dean_, _Confederacy_, _Alliance_, and _Saratoga_ (the last a sloop-of-war), formed in this year the entire Continental navy in service. The _Deane_ (renamed the _Hague_) and the _Alliance_ were the only two of these to survive the year.

Chapter VIII

The now unopposed command of the sea by the British navy and the consequent invasion and overrunning of the South brought darkest gloom and despondency to the American cause.

It was well that Providence had given America Washington who, when all things seemed to fail, held firm and carried us to victory. Without him the nation could not have survived the throes of birth. Calm and undismayed, he made up for the inefficiency of Congress, the lethargy of the states, the discontent of all. Whatever our national shortcomings--past, present, or future--America can ever be proud of having produced this king of men, the greatest character in history. He was, in fact, the Revolution personified. The war was fought without even the semblance of a government, for even the “Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union” reported on July 12, 1776, by a committee appointed on June 10th (the same day as that on which the committee was appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence), were not agreed to by Congress until November 17, 1777, and a sufficient number of states under the conditions of these articles did not ratify the action of Congress until March 1, 1781. Thus nearly six years of war passed before we had anything approaching a confederacy, and even then, as Washington well said, it was “but a shade without a substance.” “The organized and carefully barricaded impotence of this scheme of government,” says an able authority, “is probably unequalled in history, with any nation surviving.” Congress could only “request” of the several states, and but too often these requests bore no fruit whatever. Attendance in Congress lagged, interest dwindled, and by 1780 but for Washington, so far as mortal can judge, the Revolution would have come to a dismal end.

But Washington’s time of cheer was at hand. From February, 1779, to March, 1780, Lafayette was in France and unceasing in his efforts in support of the American cause. It was chiefly due to his efforts that on May 2, 1780, seven line-of-battle ships and three frigates left Brest under the Chevalier de Ternay, convoying thirty-six transports carrying 5,027 troops, officers and men, under Lieutenant-General Count de Rochambeau. The enemy had, on October 25, 1779, withdrawn from Narragansett Bay to New York fearing an attack by d’Estaing’s great fleet after its operations against Savannah. The French fleet anchored at Newport on July 11th.

The death of de Ternay in December, due, in Lafayette’s judgment, to despondency caused by his hopeless view of things; the treason of Arnold which came to light in September; the blockade for most of the coming winter of the French squadron by, now, a superior British force; the arrival in the West Indies at the end of April, 1781, of the Count de Grasse with a powerful addition to the French fleet; the information that he expected to come on to the American coast; the pressing messages to him from Washington and Rochambeau to hasten his departure; the reply received on August 14th that he would sail on August 13th for the Chesapeake with 3,300 troops, artillery, and siege guns, and 1,200,000 livres (francs) in money, determined the move of the small allied armies to Virginia, where Cornwallis, now some months in that state, was finally to take up an entrenched position at Yorktown, his move from Portsmouth being completed on August 22d.

The American and French armies, after a whole year’s inaction, joined on July 6, 1781, taking position on a line from Dobbs’ Ferry to the Bronx. The Fates were surely with America. Everything conspired for the allies’ success; the position taken had convinced Clinton that New York was to be attacked; he pressed Cornwallis to send him every man he could spare, but Cornwallis could spare none. Rodney in the West Indies, misinformed as to De Grasse’s intentions, and thinking he was to take but half his fleet instead of the whole, detached but fourteen of his own command to go north under Sir Samuel Hood to reinforce Admiral Graves at New York. Rodney himself left for England on leave of absence, carrying four ships with him. The two vessels dispatched to Graves with information of British intentions never reached him. He was east with his squadron when one, arriving at New York, was sent on to him but was driven ashore on Long Island by a superior force and destroyed; the other and more important one, giving word of Hood’s departure, was captured. For this reason, though Graves returned to New York on August 16th, he still remained in the dark as to Hood’s movements. The whole was a marvel of good fortune for the Americans, while every move of De Grasse’s fleet and of the allied armies were to fit with the perfection of mechanism.

Hood left the West Indies on August 10th. On the 25th he looked into the Chesapeake and, finding nothing, went on to Sandy Hook, where he arrived August 28th. That same evening word was received that De Barras (who had arrived from France as the successor of De Ternay) had sailed from Newport with his whole division of eight of the line, four frigates, and eighteen transports. It was now known to the British general that the allied armies were on their way south and that De Grasse was bound for the Chesapeake. Graves, with five of the line and a 50-gun ship, all that could be got ready in the time, joined Hood off Sandy Hook on August 31st and started south. He had nineteen ships-of-the-line to De Grasse’s twenty-eight. But De Grasse was already inside the capes, which he had reached on August 30th, and was at anchor in Lynnhaven Bay, just within Cape Henry. He had at once landed his troops and had stationed cruisers in James River to prevent Cornwallis attempting to escape to North Carolina. His dispositions reduced his available ships to twenty-four of the line. At this moment Washington “was crossing the Delaware on his way south, with 6,000 regular troops, 2,000 American and 4,000 French, to join Lafayette,” who now, with the 3,300 French from the fleet, had 8,000 regulars and militia.

On September 5th Admiral Graves’s fleet was sighted by the French in the northeast. It was at first thought to be that of De Barras, but, on discovering the mistake, De Grasse took a course which risked all by getting under way and going outside the capes to fight a battle. To get twenty-four heavy sailing ships under way and attempt to get them in any formation in a reasonable time, even with the ebb tide which was running, was, with the wind north-northeast, a difficult operation. Several had to tack in order to clear Cape Henry, and by the time they reached the open sea the French ships must have been in very straggling condition. Graves failed to take advantage of such an opportunity. Instead of crowding sail, with a wind as fair as he could wish, and pressing down for the French, whom he might have attacked in detail, he formed a line heading out to sea, to fight a battle, partially under the old rule of parallel columns with each ship engaging her opposite, and partially under new ideas of tactics which Graves, just from England, had imbibed but which most of his captains had scarcely heard of.

The action began about four o’clock, signals were not understood, and, taken all in all, the handling of the British fleet was badly botched. Furthermore, Sir Samuel Hood, who commanded the rear division and was an officer of highest reputation, showed no initiative such as, in the circumstances, might have been expected, his division getting scarcely into gunshot. Thus at sunset, when the battle ceased, the British were in decidedly the worse plight, with a loss of 90 killed and 246 wounded, against about 200 killed and wounded of the French, and with several ships very severely injured, one, the _Terrible_, 74, so much so that she was in sinking condition, and five days later was burned. Though the two fleets were yet in sight of each other for four days, neither showed a wish to renew the action. On September 10th, when morning broke, the French were out of sight. Next day they reëntered the Chesapeake, capturing near the entrance two frigates sent by Graves to reconnoitre, one of which was the _Iris_ which had been the American _Hancock_. They found at anchor within the capes the division of Barras which the day before had arrived from Newport with the siege artillery intended for use at Yorktown. On the 13th the British fleet stood in for the capes and sighted the French at anchor. There was nothing to do but to return north. On the 19th it was again at Sandy Hook, and American independence was won.

Washington had not heard until September 5th of De Grasse’s arrival. “Standing on the river bank at Chester, he waved his hat in the air as the Comte de Rochambeau approached, and with many demonstrations of uncontrollable happiness he announced to him the good news.” Had he known that at that moment De Grasse was under way to go to sea and fight a battle, he would have been less joyous. For it was only the want of initiative on the part of the British admiral that saved the situation. For had the latter at any time in the six days which the French spent at sea himself entered the Chesapeake, he could have held the position, and De Grasse’s venture would have gone for nought. It is highly improbable that in such circumstances de Grasse would have shown such initiative as to attack New York. It is clear that neither admiral had a clear sense of the strategy involved, for De Grasse himself but a little later was again desirous of leaving the Chesapeake to seek the British fleet, and was only held by the most earnest remonstrances of Washington. As it was, the army was transported by September 26th to Williamsburg, and on October 19th Lord Cornwallis surrendered, thus, virtually, closing the war. De Grasse sailed November 4th to the West Indies and to ruin; for on April 12, 1782, he was signally defeated by Rodney and became a prisoner.

The French army was an aid to our success; the French navy was a necessity. The result completely filled the dictum of Washington, who foresaw by a hundred years that which is to-day an axiom and one particularly applicable to our own country: “In any operation and under all circumstances, a decisive naval superiority is to be considered a fundamental principle and the basis upon which every hope of success must ultimately depend.”[10] He would have made a great admiral, a career he narrowly escaped when it was proposed that he should go as midshipman under Admiral Vernon. The Fates fortunately decreed otherwise.

The operations of the Continental navy were now confined to very few ships. The _Alliance_, under Captain Barry, had left Boston February 11, 1781, carrying Colonel John Laurens and Thomas Paine. The former bore a letter which, addressed by Washington to Laurens, was to be shown Vergennes, putting strongly the necessity of money and ships, and giving the whole logic of the situation in the sentence: “Indeed, it is not to be conceived how [the British] could subsist a large force in this country if we had the command of the seas to interrupt the regular transmission of supplies from Europe.”

The _Alliance_ was unhappy in the character of her crew, which illustrated the exigencies to which we were now driven. A large number were British prisoners. These on the return voyage formed a conspiracy to carry the ship to Ireland, in the suppression of which Barry exhibited courage and qualities for command of a high order. On the way he captured two British cruisers, of 16 and 14 guns, the smaller of which was made a cartel to carry his prisoners, now about 250, into Halifax. The larger was retaken by a squadron near Cape Cod. The _Marquis de Lafayette_, a French privateer which had left France at the same time as the _Alliance_, with a valuable cargo of military stores, suffered the same fate.

The _Deane_, _Confederacy_, and _Saratoga_ cruised this year in the West Indies, with small fortune, which was turned into very bad, by the capture of the _Confederacy_ by a British squadron on April 15th. The _Trumbull_, at sea on her first cruise, with a mixed crew of wretched quality, was dismasted in a gale and was taken on August 8th by the _Iris_ and the _General Monk_, both of which were captured American ships taken into the British service, one, as just said, being the _Hancock_, and the latter a privateer, the _General Washington_. The _Iris_, as but just mentioned above, was taken by the French only a month later and the _General Monk_ on April 7th of the next year by the _Hyder Ally_, under Captain Joshua Barney, in one of the notable actions of the war.

Up to the peace signed September 3, 1783, privateering had continued active, 383 letters of marque being granted by Congress in 1782, but the Continental navy had practically disappeared. There were but five ships remaining: the frigates _Alliance_, _Hague_, and _Bourbon_ (the last not yet launched), and the ships _General Washington_ and _Duc de Lauzun_. Only the first two were in commission. Our only line-of-battle ship, the newly launched _America_, had been given to France to replace the _Magnifique_, wrecked coming into Boston harbor. The few ships mentioned gradually disappeared: the _Duc de Lauzun_ was sent to France as a transport and sold; the _Bourbon_, launched at Middletown, Connecticut, July 31, 1783, was advertised for sale two months later, as was the _Hague_ in August; the _General Washington_ was sold the next year. Sentiment preserved the _Alliance_ until August, 1785, when, with her sale, the Continental navy passed into history.

* * * * *

To recapitulate some data of the first chapter:

The British navy had at the beginning of the war 270 ships, of which 131 were of the line (from 100 to 60 guns), and but 18,000 seamen. At the end, January 20, 1783, there were 468 ships, of which 174 were of the line, and 110,000 seamen. They had lost (taken, destroyed, burned, foundered, or wrecked) 202 ships carrying 5,130 guns. The Continental and state navies had lost (taken, destroyed, burned, foundered, or wrecked) 39 ships, carrying 876 guns. The French had lost (in all the ways just mentioned) 72 ships, with 2,636 guns; the Spanish 24, with 960 guns; the Dutch 9, with 364 guns.

The British during the war lost 3,087 merchant vessels, taken by Americans, French, Dutch, and Spanish; 879 of these were retaken or ransomed. They lost 89 privateers, of which 14 were retaken or ransomed. They captured 1,135 merchantmen, of which only 27 were retaken or ransomed, and 216 privateers, of which only one was retaken.[11] The net result was heavily against them.

The navy of the Revolution, however insufficient and ineffective as an instrument of real war, served a good purpose. It kept up our communication with Europe; made many captures of material in ordnance, ammunition, and stores of utmost importance to our forces, and fought many gallant actions. But actions between small cruisers and captures of merchantmen are not the means which bring control of the sea. The action of greatest moment was that of the little flotilla on Lake Champlain in 1776, and this, even though defeated, was a main instrument in gaining the French alliance and thus our independence. It is the battleship, in that day known as the ship-of-the-line, which decides the question of command of the world’s highway and thus decides the outcome of war between powers separated by the ocean. The services of the small Continental navy thus from the very nature of things could effect comparatively little so long as the ship-of-the-line could go and come as it pleased. It was the French battleship in larger numbers than the English that completely changed the melancholy outlook of 1780 and 1781. In July of the latter year Rochambeau, in a letter to De Grasse urging him to come north, could use the words: “General Washington has but a handful of men.... This country has been driven to bay and all its resources are giving out at once.” He told but the painful fact. The presence of a dominating fleet gave us victory and independence; without it the Revolution would have failed. It took us a hundred years to realize the truth of the principle here stated, and we have yet to frame a policy in accord with its meaning.

* * * * *

With the passing of the ships passed all semblance of naval organization. The Board of Admiralty had really consisted of Robert Morris only, and the Congress of the loosely bound Confederation was itself almost moribund. The United States found itself free, but it was the freedom of disorganization, an atrophy of government. The Revolution had been fought until March, 1781, without an established government. This is a remarkable fact. We had yet to wait four years from the peace for a real instrument of government, the Constitution of 1787. The adoption of this on September 13, 1787, was the true birthday of the Republic rather than the 4th of July, 1776. The Revolution of 1787 was quite as momentous as that of the war just ended.

The Principal Ships Of The Continental Navy

=============+=========+====+===============+============================= NAME | CLASS |GUNS| ORIGIN | END -------------+---------+----+---------------+----------------------------- Alfred |Ship | 24 |Purchased, |Captured, March 9, 1778, | | | November, | off Senegal, in company | | | 1775 | with the _Raleigh_, by | | | | an inferior force. | | | | Columbus |Ship | 20 |Purchased, |Chased ashore, March, 1778, | | | November, | on Point Judith, and | | | 1775 | burned. | | | | Andrew Doria |Brig | 14 |Purchased, |Destroyed, October 7, 1777, | | | November, | in Delaware River, to | | | 1775 | prevent capture by | | | | greatly superior force. | | | | Cabot |Brig | 14 |Purchased, |Chased ashore, Nova Scotia, | | | November, | March, 1777, by British | | | 1775 | frigate; was got off, and | | | | taken into British service. | | | | Providence |Sloop | 12 |Purchased |Destroyed, August, 1779, | | | early in | Penobscot Expedition, to | | | 1776 | prevent capture by greatly | | | | superior force. | | | | Lexington |Brig | 16 |Purchased in |Captured, September 19, 1777, | | | 1776 | by British cutter | | | | _Alert_, 10. | | | | Reprisal |Brig | 16 |Purchased in |Lost, October, 1777, banks of | | | 1776 | Newfoundland, on | | | | return from Europe. | | | | Raleigh |Frigate | 32 |Built at |Chased ashore, September, | | | Portsmouth, | 1778, by greatly superior | | | N. H., 1776 | force, on Maine coast; | | | | hauled off, and taken into | | | | British service. | | | | Hancock |Frigate | 32 |Built at |Captured, July, 1777, off | | | Salisbury, | Cape Sambro, by | | | Mass., 1776 | _Rainbow_, 44. | | | | Washington |Frigate | 32 |Built on the |Destroyed, May, 1778, in | | | Delaware, | Delaware River, to prevent | | | 1776 | capture, without getting to | | | | sea. | | | | Randolph |Frigate | 32 |Built on the |Blew up, March 17, 1778, in | | | Delaware, | action with Yarmouth, 64. | | | 1776 | | | | | Warren |Frigate | 28 |Built at |Destroyed, August, 1779, in | | | Providence, | Penobscot Bay Expedition. | | | 1776 | | | | | Providence |Frigate | 28 |Built at |Captured, May 11, 1780, on | | | Providence, | surrender of Charleston. | | | 1776 | | | | | Trumbull |Frigate | 28 |Built at |Captured, August 9, 1781, | | | Middletown, | by superior force. | | | Conn., 1776 | | | | | Congress |Frigate | 28 |Built at |Destroyed, October, 1777, in | | | Poughkeepsie,| Hudson, to prevent capture. | | | N. Y., 1776 | | | | | Virginia |Frigate | 28 |Built at |Captured, March 31, 1778, in | | | Baltimore, | Chesapeake, through | | | 1776 | grounding. | | | | Effingham |Frigate | 28 |Built on the |Destroyed, May, 1778, in the | | | Delaware, | Delaware, without getting | | | 1776 | to sea. | | | | Boston |Frigate | 24 |Built at |Captured, May 11, 1780, on | | | Newburyport, | surrender of Charleston. | | | 1776 | | | | | Montgomery |Frigate | 24 |Built at |Destroyed, October, 1777, | | | Poughkeepsie,| in Hudson, to prevent | | | N. Y., 1776 | capture; never got to sea. | | | | Delaware |Frigate | 24 |Built on the |Captured, September, 1777, at | | | Delaware, | Philadelphia, by General | | | 1776 | Howe. | | | | Ranger |Ship | 18 |Built at |Captured, May 11th, on | | | Portsmouth, | surrender of Charleston; a | | | N. H., 1777 | very successful ship. | | | | Confederacy |Frigate | 32 |Built at |Surrendered, April 15, 1781, | | | Norwich, | to British frigates | | | Conn., 1778 | _Roebuck_ and _Orpheus_. | | | | Pallas |Frigate | 32 |Purchased in |Later history unknown. | | | France, 1779 | | | | | General |Ship | 18 |Built 1778 |Sold. Gates | | | | | | | | Bonhomme |Frigate | 42 |Purchased in |Sunk, September 25, 1779, Richard | | | France, | after capturing the | | | Jan., 1779 | _Serapis_. | | | | Serapis |Frigate | 44 |Captured, |Sold at Lorient, France, | | | September | date unknown. | | | 23, 1779 | | | | | Deane |Frigate | 32 |Built in |Sold, August, 1783. (renamed, | | | France, 1777 | in 1782, | | | | the Hague) | | | | | | | | Queen of |Frigate | 28 |Built in |Sunk at Charleston, April, France | | | France, 1777 | 1780, as an obstruction to | | | | British fleet. | | | | Revenge |Cutter | 14 |Purchased in |Sold, March, 1779, after | | | France, 1777 | having great success as a | | | | cruiser; refitted as a | | | | privateer under same | | | | captain (Conyngham), and | | | | captured April, 1779. | | | | Saratoga |Cutter | 18 |Built 1777 |Lost, 1781, at sea, and never | | | | heard of. | | | | General |Cutter | 20 |Originally a |Captured by British and named Washington | | | privateer | _General Monk_; recaptured | | | | by Barney, in Hyder Ally, | | | | April 8, 1782; bought into | | | | the Continental service, | | | | resumed original name, and | | | | was sold in 1784. | | | | Duc de |Cutter | 20 |Purchased 1782 |Sold in France, 1783. Lauzun | | | | | | | | Bourbon |Frigate | 36 |Built at |Sold, September, 1783. | | | Middletown, | | | | Conn., | | | | 1782-1783 | | | | | America |Ship-of- | 74 |Laid down, |Presented to France by |the-line | | May, 1777; | Resolution of Congress of | | | launched, | September 3, 1782, to | | | November 5, | replace the _Magnifique_, | | | 1782 | wrecked, August 13, 1782, | | | | on Lovell’s Island, near | | | | Boston. | | | | Indian |Frigate | 40 |Built by |Sold to France to escape | | | Congress in | diplomatic complications; | | | Holland | hired to South Carolina; | | | | captured, December 19, | | | | 1782, by a British | | | | squadron. | | | | Alliance |Frigate | 32 |Built at |Sold, August, 1785. With this | | | Salisbury, | sale ended the navy of the | | | Mass., 1778 | Revolution. -------------+---------+----+---------------+-----------------------------

Chapter IX

Stretching along the southern shore of the Mediterranean some 1,800 miles, in the latitude, roughly speaking, of Cape Hatteras, are the regions known to our forefathers as Barbary. The westernmost was Morocco, then Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. The last three were nominally appanages of the Turkish Empire. Anciently there had been along these shores a high civilization. Carthage (now Tunis) had disputed with Rome the empire of the Mediterranean; she failed through Rome’s final dominancy at sea, and her power was utterly wrecked, as was the city itself. Rome ruled and built thriving cities throughout the coastline mentioned, the remains of which now mark but dimly the footsteps of civilization and history.

With the rise of Mohammedanism, the Arab power swept westward over the entire region. The antagonism of religion brought a continuous warfare between the European and African shores which developed into a piracy which lasted almost to our own days. A relic of the fear which Europe had for these bold corsairs, who captured vessels of all nations and carried crews and passengers into cruel slavery, is in the many towers of refuge still along the French and Italian rivieras, and the memory is yet in the Litany in the prayer-book of the Episcopal Church in England and America, where we pray for “all prisoners and captives.” Long after the writer entered our navy, the Saturday evening toast, after “Sweethearts and Wives,” was, “Here’s to the downfall of the barbarous Moor.” It was an echo of the epic period of the American navy. For we once did great things in Barbary, of which the average American to-day (and more’s the pity) is almost wholly ignorant. It is in its earlier phase a tale of national humiliation in which all Europe also had full share, but in which our navy had no part; its later phase in which the navy came into action is a very proud story.

The depredations of the Barbary powers were not confined to the Mediterranean, but extended into the North and Irish seas, many inhabitants being carried from these coasts into slavery. There were various efforts to punish these raiding powers in the seventeenth century by Dutch, French, and English, and as late as 1775 a great expedition was fitted out by Spain of nearly four hundred vessels, against Algiers, which, however, ended in disaster. This has special interest to us, as Joshua Barney, who was to act a conspicuous part in our naval annals, was impressed, with the Baltimore ship which he commanded, to assist in the transport of troops.

The Barbary vessels were in general large, narrow rowboats, carrying usually two masts, with the lateen sail of the Mediterranean for use in fair winds. The name “galley” was applied in Europe to the largest of such in ordinary use. There was, however, a much larger development in the galleasse, some few of which, used by the Neapolitans, carried 700 men, 300 of whom would be convicts at the oars. There was finally the galleon, the precursor of the frigate, which had masts and sails alone for propulsion. In the large galleys there might be as many as six men at an oar. It may be said that in general the development of the corsair ship followed slowly but fairly closely that of the ship of Europe, and in later years they had a number of the usual square-rigged vessels.[12]

The Christian slaves were employed not only in the galleys, but did all kinds of labor; the crew of our frigate _Philadelphia_, which in 1803 grounded near Tripoli and thus was captured, was employed in building one of the defences against our own ships, which took the name of the American fort. In the main, however, the captivity was humane and not oppressive.

The claim of the Barbary powers was expressed in a statement of their envoy while in London in 1786, to our minister, John Adams: “That Turkey, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco were the sovereigns of the Mediterranean; and that no nation could navigate that sea without a treaty of peace with them.”[13] Europe had practically accepted a situation of the most degrading kind; every nautical power paid tribute in money or presents and all had representatives among the Barbary slaves. Even as late as 1816, when the English finally acted, there were eighteen Englishmen among the slaves released by Lord Exmouth’s expedition.

But England’s attitude had not been one of honor. There was no time when she might not have ended the foul situation. Franklin could say in a letter on July 25, 1783, to our secretary of foreign affairs: “I think it not improbable that these rovers may be privately encouraged by the English to fall upon us and to prevent our interfering in the carrying trade; for I have in London heard it is a maxim among the merchants, that if there were no Algiers it would be worth England’s while to build one. I wonder, however, that the rest of Europe do not combine to destroy those nests and secure commerce from their future piracies.”[14] Three years later John Adams, our minister in London, was writing Secretary Jay (February 17, 1786): “There are not wanting persons in England who will find means to stimulate this African [the Tripolitan envoy] to stir up his countrymen against American vessels.”[15] British statesmanship, then as ever, was jealous of rival commerce on the seas. Lord Sheffield, in a pamphlet on American commerce, could say: “It will not be in the interest of any of the great maritime powers to protect [Americans] 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 the maritime powers is obvious.”

It is odd that at this period two men whose lives were of a sort that one would have supposed they would have advised each directly otherwise, exchanged characters. Thus while Thomas Jefferson, our minister to France, advised in 1785 force as the best protection, John Adams in England, influenced perhaps by his surroundings, advised following the usual plan of paying an annual tribute. Jefferson later, most unhappily for his country, was violently antagonistic to the establishment of a navy. Adams was, and always had been, quite the reverse. But he now felt that the country was too poor and too embarrassed by debt to use force. He wrote John Jay, Foreign Secretary, December 15, 1784: “As long as France, England, Holland, the Emperor, etc., will submit to be tributaries to these robbers and even encourage them, to what purpose should we make war upon them? The resolution might be heroic but would not be wise ... we cannot hurt them in the smallest degree.... Unless it were possible, then, to persuade the great maritime powers of Europe to unite in the suppression of these piracies, it would be very imprudent for us to entertain any thoughts of contending with them.”[16]

The two ministers had an extended correspondence, and though Adams said: “I will go all lengths with you in promoting a navy, whether it be applied to the Algerines or not,” he still doubted the economy of dealing with Barbary by force. Jefferson’s tone was now, for him, strangely combative. He wrote, August 20, 1785: “The question is whether their peace or war will be cheapest? But it is a question which should be addressed to our honor as well as our avarice, nor does it respect us as to these pirates only, but as to the nations of Europe. If we wish our commerce to be free and uninsulted, we must let these nations see that we have an energy which at present they disbelieve. The low opinion they entertain of our powers cannot fail to involve us soon in a naval war.”

Jefferson’s views involved an association which would furnish one or more cruisers each to act against piracy in the Mediterranean. It included Portugal, Naples, the two Sicilies, Venice, Malta, Denmark, and Sweden, an extremely difficult combination; but he doubted the good faith of others. In a letter to Monroe, August 11, 1786, he says: “I think every power in Europe would soon fall into it except France, England, and perhaps Spain and Holland. Of these there is only England who would give any real aid to the Algerines....” He added: “Were the honor and advantage of establishing such a confederacy out of the question, yet the necessity that the United States should have some marine force, and the happiness of this, as the ostensible cause of beginning it, would decide on its propriety. It will be said there is no money in the treasury. There never will be money in the treasury till the confederacy shows its teeth.... Every rational citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both.”[17]

This was Jefferson at his best. It is extraordinary that when the time came to really assert ourselves against the seizure of our seamen and property by other powers than those of Barbary, he should have so completely failed. But in any case, at the time he was proposing his floating confederacy, our inchoate system of government of the period, which required each state to be solicited by Congress for funds, would no doubt, as Adams thought, have made it impossible to provide the needed ships. Our vessels continued to be seized and their crews enslaved.

It would be unjust to the memory of John Adams, to whom the Continental navy chiefly owed its beginnings, and who was ever the vigorous supporter of the newer navy, not to record his life-long views as expressed to the House of Representatives in November, 1800: “I confidently believe that few persons can be found within the United States who do not admit that a navy, well-organized, must constitute the natural and efficient defence of this country against all foreign hostility.” To this he was consistent through the whole of his long life. In 1785 he was simply doubtful of the travesty of government which then existed and was to have two more years of its ineffective life.

In January, 1791, the United States, having now through its newly formed Constitution of 1787 crystallized into a real nationality, the Senate Committee on Mediterranean Trade agreed that our trade could “be protected but by a naval force, and that it will be proper to resort to the same as soon as the state of the public finances will admit.” But a year later the Senate was stating its “readiness to ratify treaties with Algiers providing for peace at a cost of forty thousand dollars at the outset and annual tribute of twenty-five thousand; and also for the ransom of the captives, then thirteen in number, for forty thousand.”

Fifty thousand dollars was appropriated to begin with, and Paul Jones was appointed consul at Algiers and as our envoy to make a peace. But Jones died at Paris, July 18, 1792. Thomas Barclay, our consul in Morocco, was appointed; he also died very shortly, and David Humphreys, our minister to Portugal, succeeded him. But the Dey of Algiers refused to receive him. The seizures continued, and in 1793 eleven vessels were captured and the crews enslaved. There were now in Algiers over a hundred American captives. The English consul, who of course was acting on orders from home, was blamed by Humphreys for the situation. Finally the House resolved on January 2, 1792, but only by a majority of two, that a naval force should be provided. A bill providing for six ships at a cost of $600,000 was finally passed with a proviso that if peace could be arranged with Algiers work on these should stop. There had been much opposition, many arguing “that we should follow the example of Europe by buying peace, or should hire a European navy to protect our trade; that a navy was a menace to liberty....” Madison opposed the bill, partly on the ground that a navy would lead to international complications, particularly with England, and this opinion was shared by others. The opposition was chiefly from the South, the New England members, who represented a constituency which was suffering from the depredations, naturally favored the action. The bill provided for four ships to carry forty-four guns and two to carry thirty-six each, with full complements, pay, and rations, and $688,888.82 was finally voted. The date of the approval of this bill, March 27, 1794, marks the establishment of the American navy. Joshua Humphreys of Philadelphia was the fortunate selection as naval architect. His view was that these ships should be the most powerful of their class afloat, and this was finally supported by General Knox, the Secretary of War, whose department was for some years to control the navy.

But notwithstanding this action, we continued the negotiation of a treaty with Algiers, Thomas Humphreys being authorized July 19, 1794, to spend $800,000 (the cost of two ships-of-the-line) to effect it. Washington was at this time President, and Jefferson Secretary of State. The treaty was concluded after much insulting conduct on the part of the Dey, on September 5, 1795, and only on the offer, as an additional present, of a 36-gun frigate. It was ratified by the Senate on March 6, 1796, and had “cost up to January, 1797, nearly a million dollars, including $525,000 for ransom of the captives, various presents, and miscellaneous expenses; this was exclusive of the annuity in naval stores valued at something over $21,000, according to the estimate, which afterward proved far too low.”[18] Truly weakness came high.

Notwithstanding the proviso of cessation of building in case a treaty should be made, Washington’s advice to continue the building of the ships was accepted by Congress, and in 1797 there were launched the _United States_, the _Constitution_, and _Constellation_, all to become famous in our country’s history. The last two are still afloat and their old age proudly cared for.

In his annual message of December, 1796, Washington urged a naval force as indispensable, saying: “To secure respect to a neutral flag requires a naval force, organized and ready to vindicate it from insult or aggression. This may even prevent the necessity of going to war by discouraging belligerent powers from committing such violations of the rights of the neutral party as may, first or last, leave no other option.”

The following, which illustrates the result of the meanness of spirit in Congress, is scarcely pleasant reading for an American to-day. Says the Portsmouth newspaper of January 20, 1798: “On Thursday morning, about sunrise, a gun was discharged from the _Crescent_ frigate as a signal for getting under way, and at 10 A.M. she cleared the harbor with a fine leading breeze. Our best wishes follow Captain Newman, his officers and men. May they arrive in safety at the place of their destination and present to the Dey of Algiers one of the finest specimens of naval architecture which was ever borne upon Piscataqua’s waters.

“Blow all ye winds that fill the prosperous sail, And hush’d in peace be every adverse gale.

“The _Crescent_ is a present from the United States to the Dey as a compensation for delay in not fulfilling our treaty stipulations in proper time[!]...

“The _Crescent_ has many valuable presents on board for the Dey, and when she sailed was supposed to be worth at least three hundred thousand dollars. Twenty-six barrels of dollars constituted a part of her cargo. It is worthy of remark that the captain, chief of the officers, and many of the privates of the _Crescent_ frigate have been prisoners at Algiers.”[19]

There must be few Americans who do not blush for the want of public spirit which in this ship was so concretely exhibited.

A treaty had been concluded with Tripoli in November, 1796, at a cost of nearly fifty-six thousand dollars, and one arranged with Tunis in August, 1797, at an estimated expense of one hundred and seven thousand dollars, but these estimates were much increased by our yielding to later demands. This treaty, finally concluded March 26, 1797, was ratified by our Senate on January 10, 1800. Its conclusion was due largely to the efforts of William Eaton, who had been appointed consul to Tunis in July, 1797. He held true views of the situation. “The United States set out wrongly and has proceeded so. Too many concessions have been made to Algiers. There is but one language which can be held to these people and this is _terror_.”

Eaton, born in Connecticut in 1764, was a Revolutionary soldier at sixteen, a graduate later of Dartmouth College, and in 1792 a captain in the army. He was a most interesting character whom it would have been well, on account of his bold and active spirit, to have put in entire control of our diplomatic affairs in Barbary. We shall hear of him later.

Chapter X

The depredations of the new French Republic had come to give an impetus to our new navy, and on April 27, 1798, $950,000 was appropriated for its increase, and a regular navy department created. Benjamin Stoddart, of Georgetown, in the District of Columbia, was the first secretary. War against France was formally declared, in so far as authorizing, on July 9, 1798, the capture of French ships, and authorizing the President to issue commissions for privateers. On the same day a marine corps of 881 of all ranks was established, to be commanded by a major. By July 16th the total force authorized then and previously was twelve frigates, twelve sloops-of-war from 20 to 24 guns, six smaller sloops, besides galleys and revenue cutters; a total of thirty.

The first ship to get to sea under the new organization was the _Ganges_, a purchased Indiaman, which sailed under command of Captain Richard Dale on May 22, 1798, on a coasting cruise with orders to capture all French cruisers on our coast with hostile intent. The _Constellation_, 38, Captain Truxton, and _Delaware_, 20, Captain Decatur, followed in June. The last made the first capture, a French privateer of 14 guns and 70 men. She was condemned and bought into the navy under the name of _Retaliation_, with Lieutenant Bainbridge in command. The _United States_, 44, Captain Barry, went to sea early in July, followed by the _Constitution_, 44, on the 20th, with four revenue brigs of from 10 to 14 guns each. There were at sea in all, in 1798, fifteen ships of the navy and eight revenue vessels, many of which latter were finally taken into the navy. It is worthy of note that one of these, the _Pickering_, was Preble’s first command.

All of these vessels except the _George Washington_, _Merrimack_, and _Ganges_, the _Montezuma_, _Baltimore_, and _Delaware_, and the _Herald_, _Richmond_, and _Retaliation_ were built by the Government.[20]

One of the first affairs of the new navy was a notable case of impressment of British seamen from the _Baltimore_, acting as convoy to a number of merchantmen. Meeting a powerful British squadron off Havana, Captain Phillips of the _Baltimore_ was informed by the British commodore of his intention to remove all British seamen from his ship. Phillips announced his intention of surrendering his ship rather than to submit to the outrage. Unfortunately there was a lawyer on board as passenger, and Phillips asked his judgment as to the legality of the British commander’s procedure. Had Phillips acted as he at first intended, viz.: to resist to the utmost, short of an engagement which would have been folly against three line-of-battle ships, he would have done well, but his legal friend found reasons for yielding, which was done. Five men were taken, and three ships of the convoy seized, for what actual reason Cooper, who gives this case in great detail, does not say. Phillips was handicapped by his inexperience as a naval officer, having been only just appointed into the navy from the merchant service. There were, too, dissentient opinions even among patriotic Americans of standing as to the justice of the British claims, many upholding the, then, British doctrine of inalienable allegiance. Even so considerable a person as Gouverneur Morris, one of the ablest men America has produced and of large diplomatic and political experience, maintained the view. It was the first of many cases which had so large a part in bringing on the War of 1812.

In November the _Retaliation_ was captured by a French squadron, and Bainbridge was a prisoner for the first, though not for the last, time in his career. By the good fortune of the release of his schooner as a cartel he was enabled to return home.

During 1799 we had twenty-eight vessels in active service. Most of the captains and many of the officers of lesser rank were men who had seen service during the Revolution, which, it must be remembered, had ended but sixteen years before; many of them of course were men with no experience of naval life, which differs from that of the merchant service much as does that of the raw militiaman from that of the seasoned soldier.

There was a squadron of ten ships under Commodore Barry, with his broad-pennant in the _United States_; a second of five under Captain Truxton in the _Constellation_; and a third of three under Captain Tingey. A number of French privateers were captured by each, but on February 8, 1799, the _Constellation_ sighted near the island of Nevis the French frigate _L’Insurgente_, of forty 12-pounders and 409 men, which, after a hot action of an hour, surrendered. The _Constellation_ carried 38 guns, those on her main deck being 24-pounders, and a crew of only 309. She was, however, distinctly superior in weight of gunfire. Among her midshipmen was David Porter of future fame, who was to be the father of an even more famous son. The _Insurgente_ was carried into St. Kitts under very difficult circumstances by Lieutenant Rodgers, later one of the navy’s worthies, and the progenitor of a famous family with now its sixth successive generation in the naval service.

It was now, in 1799, that Preble, promoted to be a captain and in command of the _Essex_, 32, carried the first American man-of-war east of the Cape of Good Hope. By the beginning of 1800 France was disposed to peace, and on November 3d the _United States_ sailed with the American envoys.

The victory of the _Constellation_ had warmed the American blood, and Congress in 1800 appropriated $2,482,593.90 for the naval service. This strictly naval war had now lasted a year and a half, and during 1800 we had thirty-five ships in the West Indies. Again the _Constellation_, and under the same captain, was the lucky ship. On February 1, 1800, she sighted off Guadaloupe a French frigate, _La Vengeance_, of 52 guns, which, deep with valuables which she was transporting to France, tried to avoid action. This, however, after a chase extending into the evening of the next day, was brought on, and lasted until 1:00 A.M. of the 3d, when the French frigate hauled by the wind. In the endeavor to follow, the _Constellation’s_ mainmast, every shroud of which had been shot away, went by the board despite the efforts to repair damages, carrying with it midshipman Jarvis and the topmen aloft, all but one of whom were lost. The _Constellation_ had fourteen men killed and twenty-five wounded, eleven of whom died later of their wounds. Her quarry got into Curaçao dismasted and in a sinking condition with fifty killed and one hundred and ten wounded. The engagement had lasted five hours within pistol shot.

These brilliant actions not only brought Truxton a gold medal from Congress and a great name, but greatly increased the popularity of the navy, service in which was now sought by the best young manhood of the country.

There were many other successes in this year which included the capture of nearly fifty privateers, for the detail of which there is no space; but one of these actions, the cutting out of a French privateer, the _Sandwich_, in Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo, is notable as being brilliantly carried out by Isaac Hull, the first lieutenant of the _Constitution_, and who, as captain of the same ship twelve years later, was to capture the _Guerrière_.

The only other capture of special note was that of the French cruiser _Le Berceau_, “a singularly fine vessel of her class,” by the _Boston_, on October 12, 1800, which was returned to France under the treaty of peace which had already been signed on September 30th.

The year involved some sea losses. The _Insurgente_, which had been taken into the service, sailed in July and was never again heard of; the _Pickering_ sailed in August to a like fate.

Chapter XI

The ending of the war with France was but to find, shortly, another on our hands, for which the former, however, was an admirable preparation at a minimum cost; for it had caused provision of the absolute essentials to meet the new emergency: ships, officers, and men. The lesson to be learned was, however, largely to be disregarded by those now to come into political power.

Fenimore Cooper began the seventeenth chapter of his classic history of the navy by some words of political wisdom which are applicable to this day, and apparently always will be: “Every form of government,” he says, “has evils peculiar to itself. In a democracy there exists a standing necessity for reducing everything to the average comprehension, the high intelligence of a nation usually conceding as much to its ignorance as it imparts. One of the worst consequences in a practical sense, of this compromise of knowledge, is to be found in the want of establishments that require foresight and liberality to be well managed, for the history of every democracy has shown that it has been deficient in the wisdom which is dependent on those expenditures that foster true economy, by anticipating evils and avoiding the waste of precipitation, want of system, and a want of knowledge.” In every epoch of difficulty--the French spoliations, the British impressments, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, our Civil War, and the Spanish War--this truth has been painfully apparent in the want of foresight and preparation of an adequate army and navy. It has cost us dear.

In 1801 came into power a new political school of which Jefferson was the great exponent. With strong French sympathies, he had not favored the naval war with France, and his party was bent upon naval economy. Thus an early act of his administration, which began March 4, 1801, was to carry into effect a law passed toward the close of the Congress which had just expired, it is true, but which had been elected under the new political inspiration. The law referred to empowered the President to sell all or any of the vessels of the navy with the exception of thirteen frigates, and obliged him to reduce the list of officers to nine captains, thirty-six lieutenants, and one hundred and fifty midshipmen. The selling of twenty of the smaller ships was not so great an evil in itself, as new ordnance was coming into use and small guns of light calibre, carrying balls from six to nine and twelve pounds, were being superseded by carronades--short guns with thin walls and very small charges. They were of two calibres, 32 and 24 pounders. The former with a powder charge of two pounds had a range of about 300 yards. It is evident that at long range the long gun with a much heavier charge had a great advantage. The carronade was only fit for close quarters. This change required vessels of much stouter build than the light sloops-of-war such as most of those sold were. But the mistake was that they were not replaced. The law of 1798 had authorized the building of six ships-of-the-line to carry 74 guns each. This was now unhappily suspended; an error bitterly to be repented.

It was a period of utmost world unrest when we were to be ground between the upper and nether millstones of Napoleonic authority and British arrogance. Depredations upon our commerce were constant, not only by Barbary corsairs but by highly civilized France and England which latter also for years impressed our seamen at will. It was a period when true statesmanship demanded a powerful naval force; when but a mere fraction of the losses by seizure of our merchant marine and of the cost of the War of 1812 would have built a fleet of ships-of-the-line and would have saved us both the spoliation and the war. But Jefferson, though he had taken the finer stand as to the Barbary outrages, seemed incapable of understanding that his views as to these were of universal application, and that they held good against Britain and France as well as against Algiers and Tripoli. He seemed obsessed with an enmity to any naval