USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 3 > Part 5
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Several very creditable actions were fought during the war by vessels belonging to the State navy, the most tragic being that between the State frigate Protector and the British 32-gun ship Admiral Duff. According to the log book of the Protector: "June 9, 1780. At 7 a. m. saw a ship to the westward. We stood for her under English colors, the ship standing athaught of us, under English colors. Appeared to be a large ship. At 11 came alongside her. Hailed her. She answered from Jamaica. I shifted my colors and gave her a broadside; she soon returned us another. The action was very heavy for three glasses when she took fire and blew up. Got out our boats to save the men, took 55 of them. The greatest part of them
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wounded with our shot and burned when the ship blew up. She was called the Admiral Duff of 32 guns, commanded by Richard Strang from Eustasia, laden with sugar and tobacco. We lost in the action one man and five wounded. Had several shot in our Hull."
October 26, 1776, the Massachusetts navy was placed under the administration of a Board of War, appointed by the General Court, consisting of nine men, "empowered to Order and Direct the Operations of the Force in the Pay of this State, both by sea and land." This board entered on its duties in November, 1776, and was dissolved in February, 1781.
Although the Massachusetts navy was built for the defence of the coast towns and the protection of vessels entering and leaving port, it was soon found that the type of vessel of which the State navy was composed was not fit for the purpose for which it was designed; and by 1777 the State navy was chiefly employed in cruising as com- merce destroyers, a service that might well have been left to the private armed vessels of Massachusetts. The State navy, however, while too lightly armed to combat British cruisers, did help keep in check the many privateers sailing from New York and is credited with seventy prizes captured during the war.
PENOBSCOT EXPEDITION (1779)
June 17, 1779, a body of British troops, under command of Brigadier General McLein, landed at a point on the coast of Maine, then known as Penobscot, now as Castine, for the purpose of establishing and fortifying a post from which they might annoy the commerce of the United States of America. News of this incursion reached Boston within a week of the landing and, June 25, 1779, the General Court ordered a force of 1000 men to be raised to dislodge the enemy at Penobscot. Brigadier General Lovell was named commander of the expedition and Lieu- tenant Paul Revere was ordered to join in charge of the ordnance. July 1, 1779, the Council ordered the Board of War to provide transports for the troops, and the State vessels were ordered to be made ready and their crews to
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be filled by impressment if necessary. Partly by offer and partly by consent yielded to an importunity which admitted neither deliberation nor denial, the State obtained for the expedition the service of twelve of the finest priva- teer vessels that Massachusetts could furnish.
The fleet as finally organized consisted of 19 armed vessels and 21 transports. The State contributed its whole navy to the expedition, comprising at this time the brigs Hazard, Active and Tyrannicide, of 14 guns each. The Continental vessels on the expedition were the Warren, Diligent and Providence, the largest being the Warren, of 32 guns; and her commander, Dudley Saltonstall, was appointed com- modore of the fleet. After the usual delays consequent on a combined land and water expedition, the fleet, armed with 224 guns and carrying over 2000 men, sailed July 19, and six days later was off Penobscot.
News of the coming of the expedition reached Penobscot, July 18, and found the British ill prepared to stand the siege. The earthworks, with which they were fortifying the place, were so low in places, that, according to an English statement, a soldier with a musket under each arm could have jumped over them; and, except for the quality of their troops, they were at a great disadvantage.
The day after the arrival of the expedition, under cover of the guns of the fleet, the American land forces (mostly untrained militia, aided by marines from the armed vessels) were landed, and for a time their operations were spirited and effective, Commodore Saltonstall, however, despite the appeals of General Lovell, refused to attack and destroy the few British armed vessels which were hamper- ing the siege. August 8, the Board of War sent to Penob- scot a supply of provisions and 500 gallons of rum for the troops, and at the same time ordered General Lovell to make an immediate attack or a prompt retreat. But neither the order nor the rum could stimulate the torpidity of our forces on land or sea.
Meanwhile a British fleet, consisting of one line-of-battle ship and several frigates, had been organized at New York for the relief of the British garrison at Penobscot. The fleet sailed August 3, 1779, and after the slow passage
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of eleven days was off the Penobscot River. The appearance of the British fleet in the offing was decisive. The guns on land were spiked and the troops embarked on the transports; while the armed vessels were drawn up in a crescent across the river as if to cover the transports in their retreat. No resistance was attempted, hardly a gun was fired. As the British ships approached, the Ameri- can armed vessels fled, passing the transports in a wild rush up the river. The only ships captured by the British were the Hunter and the Hampden; the other vessels being set on fire and abandoned by their crews who escaped into the woods.
The total cost of the expedition as calculated by the Massachusetts Board of War was £1,739,175. February 22, 1781, Congress voted $2,000,000 to partially reimburse Massachusetts for expenses incurred in the Penobscot Ex- pedition. January 26, 1782, the Council voted to pay the Penobscot claims, partly in cash and partly in notes. Each of the vessels chartered by the State was valued before sailing and the value set on the private armed vessels varied from £100,000 to £140,000, paper. As the vessels were valued in the depreciated currency of 1779 the State settled on the basis of one dollar in specie for fifteen in paper money. The owners of the Hector, the highest valued privateer in the expedition, received £11,317, the others in proportion. Taking into consideration the fact that privateering was unprofitable after 1779, probably the merchants of Massachusetts eventually gained, rather than lost, by the destruction of their privateers at Penobscot.
PRIZE COURTS (1775 - 1776)
November 1, 1775, William Bartlett of Beverly was ap- pointed prize agent in Massachusetts for the United Colo- nies, with instructions to libel all prizes in his jurisdiction, and, after legal condemnation, sell them at auction, and distribute the proceeds. On the same date (November 1), the General Court of Massachusetts passed an act "For Encouraging the Fixing out of Armed vessels to Defend the Sea Coast of America and for Erecting a Court to Try
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and Condemn all Vessels that shall be found infesting the same." Three admiralty districts were established; the southern, covering all the counties south of Boston, with its court at Plymouth ; the middle, including Suffolk, Mid- dlesex and Essex Counties, with its court at Ipswich; and the Eastern Coast, with its court at North Yarmouth, Me. At a later date, Dartmouth, Boston, Salem, Newburyport and Wiscasset were added as places where courts could be held. December 12, 1775, Timothy Pickering, Jr., was appointed judge of the middle district, by far the most important ; and the first sitting of the court was held March 16, 1776.
One of the vessels condemned at this sitting of the court was the prize brig, Hannah; and at the request of Robert Morris she was bid in for Continental account. The Hannah, renamed Despatch, was given letter of marque papers and placed under command of Stephen Cleveland of Salem, with orders to proceed to Nantz and Paris; deliver despatches to our Commissioners at the latter city, and bring back arms and ammunition. The Despatch was one of the first letter of marque vessels sailing from Massa- chusetts to a foreign port.
The purchase of the Hannah was the last official act of Captain Bartlett. And April 25, 1776, he was succeeded by John Bradford as agent for the United Colonies.
PRIVATEERS AND NAVAL SUPPLIES (1775 - 1779)
The act passed by the General Court, November 1, 1775, empowered the Council to commission with letters of marque and reprisal any person or persons within the Colony, to fit out and equip at their own expense for the defence of America any vessel, and general authority to take all vessels of the enemy. The master of the private armed vessel was required to give a bond as principal, with two good names as securities, in order to satisfy any claim that might be made for illegal capture. Bonds were also required that the crews of any vessels captured should be brought as prisoners into the State, and not, as was often done, set free on some worthless prize. But prison-
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ers were dangerous and expensive freight to carry, and the bonds were often evaded.
The first privateers sailing from Massachusetts were small craft taken from the merchant service and not well adapted for the work in which they were engaged. Some were sloops, many were schooners, but the favorite rig was the brigantine. The latter carried a large spanker with a square sail, instead of a gaff-topsail, on the main- mast. After 1777 many of our large privateers were ship rigged and built for the purpose for which they were to be used. The officers of a privateer received the same titles, wore a similar uniform, and sailed under the same flag as in the Continental Navy; but only the larger privateers carried marines.
The cannon used on all our armed vessels was the long gun as distinguished from the carronade; and, as the latter did not come into use on British naval ships until 1779, it was only from a British prize that a carronade could have been obtained. The large American privateers carried six- and nine-pound cannon and the latter seems to have been the largest calibre used on the private armed vessels. During the whole war the lack of sufficient ordnance was a drawback to both Army and Navy operations. The cannon acquired by the seizure of Crown Point and Ticon- deroga and the capture of British ordnance vessels in 1775 helped, but it was due to secret assistance given by France and Spain that we were able to equip our Army and Navy in 1776-77. During these years we received from France 30,- 000 stand of arms, 30,000 uniforms, 250 cannon and a quan- tity of military stores. In 1777 vessels were built in French shipyards to be delivered in America, some of them so sharp "It would cut you to look at them."
Sometime in 1776 a French engineer, named Lewis de Maresquelle, arrived in Boston and offered to furnish the State with one cannon every twenty-four hours, the State to supply machinery and materials and he to build the furnaces. The offer was accepted and he was given a com- mission as colonel and appointed inspector of foundries. Cannon were cast at Springfield, Bridgewater and other Massachusetts towns, and by Paul Revere at his foundry
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in Boston. Cannon balls in large numbers were made from bog iron, of which there were many deposits in Massachu- setts.
August 4, 1775, Washington writes to Congress from Cambridge : "Our situation in the article powder is much more alarming than I had the most distant idea of. We have but 32 barrels." January 6, 1776, the Massachusetts Council, in order to encourage the manufacture of powder in the Colony, agreed to furnish Samuel Phillips at his mill in Andover sulphur and saltpetre at cost and give him a bonus of eightpence a pound on all powder manufactured. Powder was also obtained from France, Bermuda and the great neutral port of St. Eustasius; being shipped from the latter port in tea chests and rice barrels, falsely labeled. All private armed vessels were required to petition the General Court for the amount of powder deemed neces- sary for the cruise ; and the Council fixed the price and the amount they could have. Owing to its high cost and scar- city, the use of powder on our armed vessels was limited to actual conflict.
CREWS AND PRIZE MONEY (1775 - 1781)
Although the War of the Revolution found Massachu- setts ill-prepared in many ways for the contest, in one re- spect at least she stood preeminent-in the quality of the officers and men available to man our armed vessels. Pri- vateering was no new or untried field for the mariners of Massachusetts; there were still men in the colony who had taken part in the famous expedition against Louisburg, when Sir William Pepperrell with 2000 Massachusetts militia, aided by a British fleet, captured the strongest fortified place in America. Less than twenty years had passed since the Seven Years War in which Massachusetts had done her part. Now a generation of younger men stood ready to take up the work.
The mariners of our coast towns disliked service on the land and enjoyed sea life. The more rigid discipline and somewhat languid management of the State navy did not appeal to them; but life on a privateer with a chance for adventure and quick fortune suited them exactly. Trained
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in the rough school of the whale and cod fisheries, they yielded (except, perhaps, in foreign ports) that prompt obedi- ence to their officers which their sea life had shown them to be necessary. Knowing the West Indies almost as their own coast, somewhat familiar with the registered trade with Europe, accustomed to the use of firearms, they also possessed all the dogged courage of their English progeni- tors, joined to a quickness of intellect and adaptability which the English sailor lacked. The mariners of Massa- chusetts offered such material for warfare on the sea as no other nation could furnish.
How large a share of the prize money, earned on the cruise of a privateer or voyage of a letter of marque, went to the officers and crew, depended on what share went to the owners; and this was by no means uniform. The owners of the privateer Revenge took one-quarter of the prize money; the owners of Rambler two-thirds; and there were cases where the division was two-fifths to the owners and three-fifths to the officers and crew. Whatever the proportion taken by the owners, the distribution of the balance was usually one share to each mariner, one and a half to two shares to each petty officer, three shares to the second and third lieutenants, to the first lieutenant four shares. The captain received eight shares.
It was often necessary for a married or improvident seaman, signing for a cruise on a private armed vessel, to make some provision for his family or creditors; and this he could do by selling his prospective share of the prize money, which was negotiable and commanded a high or low price according to the reputation of the vessel, the skill of the captain or the necessities of the seller. The spirit of gambling, always rife in times of war or inflated currency, made these shares an attractive speculation and they were divided like lottery tickets-which indeed they were-into halves, quarters and eighths and floated on the market. The following is a type of such a sale :
"Beverly, 1776. Hiram Brookhouse, in consideration of $16 paid in hand and a further consideration of $24 at the end of the cruise of sloop Revenge, Captain Benjamin Dean, sells one half his share of prize money and gives order on the
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Agent." One Waters seems to have dealt quite extensively in this kind of speculation and at times paid as high as $100 for a quarter of a share.
PRIZES (1775 - 1776)
During the year 1775 most of the prizes taken by our privateers were unarmed craft, and captured off our coast or in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; but during 1776 our privateers extended their operations and from the British provinces on the north to the West Indies in the south, they took heavy toll. They crossed the Atlantic and in- fested the coasts of France, England and Spain, sending some of their prizes into French and Spanish ports. France, not yet ready for a war with England, refused to allow our prizes to be tried in her admiralty courts or sold in France, but remained blind to the fact that they were sold, in the offings of her harbors, to French merchants who reaped a rich harvest by the transaction.
Spain, despite British protests, gave our armed vessels all the rights of neutrals and Bilbao became the favorite foreign port for American privateers. The privateer Hawk, on her return to this country in the autumn of 1776, reported that when she left Bilbao there were 18 American private armed vessels in that port. Before the war the merchants of Massachusetts had carried on an extensive trade with Spain and at Bilbao the officers and men of our armed vessels found old friends and associates. At Bilbao, too, were agents for some of our large privateer- ing firms, who attended to repairs on the vessels, adjusted any legal complications, and, when authorized, advanced a certain amount of prize money to the officers and crews of our armed vessels. The privateersmen liked the wines and brandies of Spain, they found the society of the Span- ish senoritas agreeable and, if they lingered a little too long in port or carried their revels a little too far, still, they were welcome visitors at Bilbao and the city authorities did not object.
Although most of our private armed vessels in 1776 were lightly armed and their powder defective, yet few of the British merchant vessels were armed at all and their fleets
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were insufficiently guarded. It was from the Quebec and Jamaica fleets that our richest prizes were taken. These fleets once located, a cloud of American privateers would follow in their wake ("dogging them," it was called), captur- ing laggards, now and then dashing in and cutting out a prize, and always hoping for a storm which might scatter the fleet and give our privateers rich pickings.
The first privateer sailing from Beverly, the Retaliation, was fortunate enough to fall in with the Jamaica fleet and capture four rich prizes, the largest of which, the St. Lucie of 300 tons, carried 500 hogsheads of sugar and 20 punch- eons of rum besides other cargo. Other privateers were equally fortunate and, January 3, 1777, the General Court granted permission to export sugar to the amount of 12 hogsheads for every 100 tons the vessel registered; the embargo on provisions to the contrary notwithstanding.
Taken as a whole, America had cause to be satisfied with the results of its warfare on the sea during 1776. We had captured 350 vessels from the British, of which 44 were recaptured, 18 released and 5 burned. From March 10, 1776, to the end of the year, the British captured 140 American vessels. It must be remembered that the British merchant ships as a rule were larger and more richly laden than those we lost.
LETTERS OF MARQUE (1777 - 1781)
The year 1777 opened gloomily for the inhabitants of Massachusetts. "Food is getting scarce and money scarcer," writes George Williams to Colonel Pickering. The fishing industry, the basis of all exports from Massa- chusetts, was almost ruined and the sole hope of our coast towns lay in commerce and privateering. The scarcity of food, while in a sense real, was due more to the difficulty of transportation than to the absence of food in the country. There was rice in the Carolinas and flour in Maryland and Virginia, but the only way to obtain it was by sea and British cruisers made the voyage a dangerous one. Except for the very important item of flour, our Massachusetts coast towns were not so badly off for food as George Williams painted ; the sea still furnished an inexhaustible supply of small
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fish; oysters and clams could be had for the gathering; shad and salmon ran in our rivers; cattle, sheep and hogs still grazed on our meadows-but there was an actual dearth of flour, rice and coffee.
Under these circumstances our Massachusetts merchants began to convert some of their privateers into letters of marque; and from this time on, until the close of the war, this type of commission was more frequently used. A letter of marque was a merchant vessel which usually cleared for some port with a cargo,-though she might sail in ballast,-but armed to resist aggression and authorized to capture any of the enemy's vessels that came in her way. The officers of a letter of marque re- ceived the same titles as in the merchant service. With the letter of marque the capture of prizes was incidental, with the privateer it was the business of the cruise. It was within the option of the owner whether his vessel sailed under one commission or the other, but the letter of marque was usually lighter armed, carried a smaller crew, and could be run more cheaply than a privateer. At a later period of the war the distinction between the two classes of vessels became less marked.
MASSACHUSETTS COMMERCE DURING THE WAR (1775-1781)
During the War of the Revolution, commerce between the United Colonies and neutral nations, though carried on under great difficulties, by no means ceased. Theoreti- cally there was an embargo on all vessels in Massachusetts ports except those engaged in fishing, but permission to sail with specified articles of export was usually granted on petition to the Council. The exports from Massachusetts were limited to lumber in its various forms, dry and pickled fish and re-exports from the cargoes of captured vessels. Provisions, except fish, were too much needed for home consumption to be used for export, and even dried fish was at times scarce. The Council, therefore, vacillated between the fear of high prices and destitution at home, and the necessity of allowing some articles for export in order to obtain supplies of another character. Under these circum- stances commerce was carried on in three ways: first, by un-
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armed merchant vessels; second, by armed vessels provided with letters of marque. The third method was by vessels owned or chartered by the State; and while not an economical success, it did enable the State to obtain articles not otherwise procurable.
The first method was carried on by small vessels and was practically limited to coasting and West India voyages. The second was the usual method and carried the bulk of our commerce.
The official State trade had one advantage, that against it no embargo held. If sulphur or saltpetre was needed for powder, blankets for the troops, or rice for rations, the State had only to dispatch one of its own vessels and, barring the accidents of war and sea, the desired object was obtained. March 22, 1778, George Williams writes to Colonel Pickering : "State expects a brig from France with clothing; another brig in about two weeks, also two large ships bringing salt and blankets; one brig gone to Bilbao for salt and cordage and a brig and ship to France."
The voyage of the State sloop Republic, chronicled in the archives of Massachusetts, illustrates the lack of effi- ciency in public, as compared with private, control. The Republic, under command of Allen Hallett, was furnished with letter of marque papers and sailed from Boston for Port Royal in the autumn of 1777 with a cargo of fish and lumber. On arrival at Port Royal, November 25, 1777, Captain Hallet writes to the Naval Board : "The fish being old and not well packed turned out so bad that I had to make an allowance of four livres. The mackerel were spoiled and I was glad to get them out of the ship. The salmon were good but unsalable here. The ox bows and yokes are little used by the French. After ballasting with rum and molasses I have employed the rest of the money in coffee."
Under their letter of marque commissions our vessels traded with France, Spain, and their colonial possessions : at times picking up their cargoes at the Carolinas, where rice was always obtainable, or loading at Virginia with tobacco, bringing back to this country, salt, sugar, naval stores, clothing and brandy. Prior to its capture by the
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COMMERCE DURING THE WAR
British, the free neutral port of St. Eustasius was a source of supply and market for America. During the year 1779, our exports to that island included 12,000 hogsheads of tobacco, a large amount of indigo and fish, rice and other products.
Another branch of trade carried on from Massachusetts seems to have been an evasion of the embargo. Lumber and fish were the only available exports and lumber was a bulky and unprofitable cargo while fish commanded a ready sale. Consequently, merchants would load their vessels with small amounts of lumber and complete the cargo with dry and pickled fish. They would then obtain from the packers, or the Committee of Correspondence of the town from which they were to sail, a certificate that the cod were small burnt fish, by no means fit for consump- tion in this country. Armed with this certificate, the owners of the vessels would petition the Council for per- mission to sail for some port in the West Indies, and the Council would grant the petition. Owing to the scarcity and high price of salt there undoubtedly was a more than normal amount of imperfectly cured cod in the colony, but there were too many petitions of this kind to make this a sufficient explanation.
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