USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress > Part 28
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QUEEN ANNE'S WAR WITH FRANCE AND SPAIN, 1702-13 .- In May, 1702, while the assembly was busy in the fortification of the harbor and in arming the colony, news was received of the declaration of war by Queen Anne upon France and Spain. This war, which continued for eleven years, is known in En- glish annals as the war for the Spanish succession ; in those of the colonies as Queen Anne's war. In July following the brig- antine "Greyhound," of one hundred tons, mounting twelve guns and manned with one hundred men and boys, was fitted ont at Newport and her command given to Captain William Wanton, with a four months' ernising commission and instrue- tions to keep within the banks of Newfoundland on the east and the thirtieth parallel of north latitude on the south, where the French and Spanish privateers were to be looked for.
Wanton was of a Quaker family which came to Rhode Island from Plymouth. He was himself a shipwright at Portsmouth and with his brother John became famous for privateering exploits. On his return in September from a cruise in the Gulf of St. Lawrence he brought into port three French ships, one a privateer of two hundred and sixty tons, carrying twenty guns and forty-eight men, another, a vessel of three hundred
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tons with sixteen guns and a third of one hundred and sixty tons mounting eight guns. They had cargoes of dried fish.
The sale of these prizes was the occasion of an attempt on the part of Dudley, the vice-admiral, to break up the admiral- ty court at Newport and substitute his own authority. It is not to be denied that there had been great abuses and irregu . larity in affairs of admiralty in Rhode Island. The queen's or- ders had annulled the colonial act of 1694. The authority of the judges appointed by the crown in 1697 had been disputed by the governor and his commission withheld. In 1699 the judge, Peleg Sanford, wrote the Earl of Bellomont that he had not up to that time been able to discharge his duty owing to the oppo- sition of the government which claimed admiralty authority, and that pirates and other suspected persons were countenanced and entertained and readily found bondsmen in the sums of two to three thousand pounds.
Sanford died in 1701 without, as far as can be ascertained, having exercised his official functions. But the judges in ad- miralty held their power to be not only to govern the adminis- tration of prizes but to issue commissions to privateers. Dud- ley denied the validity of Wanton's commission and the entire subject was referred to the queen. Colonel Nathaniel Byfield was appointed by Dudley to the vacancy made by the death of Sanford, but the same opposition was made to his authority as to that of his predecessor. The authority of Dudley as vice- admiral had been established by the orders of the queen in council in 1703. which expressly declared that there was no ad- miralty jurisdiction in the charter of Rhode Island.
In 1705 the brigantine " Charles," a private man of war, sent ont from Newport under Captain John Halsey, with the gov- ernor's commission, returned with a valuable Spanish prize taken in the West Indies. Judge Byfield refused to condemn the prize on the ground that the commission was not valid. The affair caused great commotion until Dudley wrote to By- field, advising condemnation in order to save the cargo which would else be embezzled or lost. It had already been dis- charged. The vessel was condemned and strange to say the general assembly was convened to lay a tax of five hundred pounds, out of which one hundred and seventy was to go to the lord high admiral's tenths, due him from the colony for prize moneys.
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The question seems to have been whether the issue of com- missions or letters of marque was a privilege of the judge or a chartered right of the governor. In point of fact, being tanta- mount to a declaration of hostilities, it was a prerogative of the crown. These proceedings must have dampened the ardor of the privateers who wonldl ill brook the nice questioning of an independent authority into their proceedings, and we hear no more of them during this war. But Captain Wanton again dis- tinguished himself in 1706 in the capture of French privateers which hung about the coast. Judge Sheffield, of Newport, in his interesting paper on this subject, says that while no records now exist to show the number that sailed ont, "Fort Ann was built from the queen's tenths of the prizes during the war." To this purpose the colony devoted the proceeds of the " money, gold plate and goods" forfeited by one Monday, accused of piracy in 1699, and there were taxes laid also for the same. Peace being declared, the venturesome seafaring men men and the en- terprising traders turned their attention to the coast of Africa and the slave trade, an account of which elsewhere appears.
WAR WITH SPAIN, 1739 ; SPAIN AND FRANCE, 1744 .- Informa- tion reaching Rhode Island in the course of the summer of probable hostilities between England and Spain. the colony began instantly to prepare for their share of the plunder which lay near at hand. Newport was now a port of some consequence, her seafaring men were just the material needed for officers and men in this kind of warfare, and her merchants were able to put their vessels into commission as fast as they could be manned. In Angust, before the English government issued the declaration of war, the king's warrant to commission privateers reached Rhode Island. The assembly at once ordered that Godfrey Malbone, John Brown and George Wanton should be loaned the colonys' small arms and ammunition of all calibre.
War was declared in England in October and further pre- parations made by the colony ; beacons were ordered along the coast and a sloop not exceeding one hundred and fifteen tons, to be constructed for the colony's use and put under command of Colonel John Cranston for the first crnise. In July, word being brought in that a French schooner was off the coast ou illicit trade, the "Tartar," as the sloop was called, went ont after her and brought her into port, where
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she was condemned by the judge of vice-admiralty. The "Tartar" carried twelve carriage guns, twelve swivel guns and had a large deck room. In October she was dismantled and taken out of commission till the assembly should meet.
In 1741 the Newport merchants sent ont five vessels, the "St. Andrews," " Revenge," "Wentworth." " Victory" and "Tri- ton," manned together by four hundred men. In 1742 five ves- sels went out, of which four were new ; in 1743 seven, of which six were new.
In 1744 new troubles arose in England. Charles Edward, the pretender, set up his standard and France declared war in his favor. In March war against France was proclaimed in England and in June the rumor came down the coast from the fishing banks even before the proclamation was received. The colony strengthened its defenses and doubled its number of vessels. The " Tartar" was at once put in commission, armed and sent to cruise between Martha's Vineyard and Long Island. The sol- liers on Block Island were ordered on board the sloop and en- listed at wages ranging from £25 per month to the captain to £8 per month to the men. The food allowance was to each man per week : seven pounds of bread, four pounds of beef, two pounds of pork, two quarts of peas or beans and one pound of butter ; and for every day each man half a pint of rum. The cruise, however, was to be undertaken as a coast guard only on condi- tion of the colony of Connecticut fitting ont a sloop to act in conjunction with it.
The king's declaration of war against France arrived in An- gust. In the spring of the next year (1745) men were pressed into the service, "transient sea-faring men, persons who have no certain place of abode and such as have no visible honest means of getting their living." The "Tartar" was placed un- der command of Captain Daniel Fones and attached to the ex- pedition against Cape Breton for an indefinite time, and news coming in of the capture by Commodore Warren, of the " Vigi- lante," a large French man-of-war, the colony offered a bounty of $17, old tenor, to all who should enlist; strict orders were is- sued to prevent any seamen leaving the island and to impress forty men for the "Vigilante."
The "Tartar," while acting with the Connecticut sloop as convoy to the troop transports to Cape Breton fell in with the French frigate " Renommée" of thirty-six guns and received
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some damage, but was fortunately not pursued, the French ship having despatches on board. The " Tartar" did good service, dispersing a French fleet which was transporting troops from Annapolis to Louisburg. In October the " Tartar" was ordered home. Two of the guns carried by her on this memorable ex- pedition now show their grim muzzles at the foot of the Parade in Newport.
At the close of this year a great disaster befell the colony in the loss of two large privateer ships built and fitted out for a cruise on the Spanish main by Colonel Godfrey Malbone. Manned by four hundred men they went on the day set for them by the horoscope, as was usual, Friday the 24th of De- cember, 1745, in a violent snow storm which rose to a hurricane and blew for two days. The vessels were never heard from and two hundred Newport families were left withont their heads.
In May, 1746, the " Tartar" was again fitted ont to guard the coast from Martha's Vineyard to Sandy Hook in company with the Connecticut sloop, and in the next month was again ordered to accompany the new expedition for the invasion of Canada. In October Captain Fones received orders to join to intercept Admiral Lestrok who was on his way to Nova Scotia with infor- mation of the presence of a powerful French fleet in the Canadian waters. It is evident that the "Tartar " was a vessel of uncom- mon speed. In the spring of 1748 she was again sent to cruise along the coast under the command of Captain James Holmes. The first day out he captured a schooner off Point Judith, laden with sugar from Hispaniola to a northern port. The vessel claimed to be a flag of trice. A committee of the assembly found the captain guilty of imprudence in sending her in but he was not relieved of his command. On the news of the peace being signed at Aix-la-chapelle (April 19th, 1748) the " Tartar" was taken out of commission but not dismantled, and ordered to lay at anchor in the road. A sale at anction closed the career of this adventurous vessel.
The Newport privateers were busy in these years. In 1745, fifteen vessels, some of large size, were sent out. In 1746 two more were commissioned ; in 1747, ten ; in 1748, three. Some of them had eventful histories. In 1746 the "Defiance" and " Duke of Marlborough " captured a vessel and sold her crew of twenty-two Spaniards in the northern colonies. But in turn
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the nineteen of the crew of the " Defiance " were taken by the Spaniards and held at Havana for the release of the enslaved men. The Rhode Island assembly looked up the slaves and re- turned them by a flag of truce. In 1647 the French at Martin- ique sent out a vessel of fourteen guns and a hundred and forty men to capture Captain Dennis, a man famous for his ex- ploits ; but after an action of four hours the Frenchman struck his flag and was taken as a prize into the English island of St. Kitts. Sheffield, in his interesting monograph on this subject, gives the names of sixty-five privateers commissioned or re- commissioned at Newport during the Spanish-French war, 1741 -48, and of seventy-seven prizes, a part only of those brought in during the same period.
THE OLD FRENCH WAR-SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1754-61 .- It was soon found that the high contracting powers to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1448, which closed the war of the Spanish succession, could not agree upon the boundary lines of their respective possessions in America. In 1754 the contest be- gan on the land, and in January, 1755, the assembly of Rhode Island, summoned for the purpose, made arrange- ments for raising troops, but it was some time before New- port privateers took a hand in the war. The Newport cap- tains were Inlly employed in the slave trade and perhaps sometimes combined the two classes of adventure. In 1759, nearly one fifth of the adult male population were engaged on board of private armed ships. It is rather amusing to find that Captain Joseph Wanton, who commanded the snow "King of Prussia," which was captured on the west coast of Africa, de- clares himself in his deposition of protest against the act of prize, that he was one of the " people called Quakers and con- scientiously scrupulons about taking an oath." More than fifty Newport vessels met the same fortune between 1758 and 1762, and among others the "Fox," which Captain Dennis took out on a cruise to the Spanish main but was never again heard from.
For the better despatch of the business the adjudication of prizes threw on the admiralty, the colony applied for the ap- pointment of a judge of vice-admiralty, and John Andrews was appointed by the admiralty commissioners in 1758. Mr. Shef- field's list gives seventy privateers newly commissioned or sent out a second time from Newport between 1753 and 1762, and of
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fifty-two vessels, part of the prizes brought in. Mr. Sheffield names as the merchants engaged in this business, the Malbones, Godfrey and Evan; John and Peleg Brown ; John Bannister, William Mumford, Daniel Ayrault, Jr., Jomm and Nathaniel Coddington, William and Joseph Wanton, Solomon Townsend, Isaac and Napthall Hart (Jews) ; and among the famous cap- tains, Benjamin Wickham, Charles Davidson, James Allen, Esek Hopkins, William Jackson Barfield, Charles Dyer, John Dennis, Simeon Potter, Benjamin Cranston, William Hopkins, Robert Morris, Peter Marshall, Thomas Conklin and others. Another of these captains, Abraham Whipple, is said to have taken twenty-three prizes in one cruise in 1759 and 1760. These privateersmen were not over particular as to the nationality of their enemy or the flag which was carried, and were as ready for a rich Spanish prize as though there were war with that country. An order of council was issued on the subject in Octo- ber, 1756, and in 1757 William Pitt, then secretary, warned the Rhode Island government of the determination of the king to stop the " scandalous disorders which, if not stopped, would in- volve him in odions disputes with all the neutral powers of Europe." Nor does it seem that the privateersmen were over- serupulous at home, as a law was passed in the same year fining every master who should take away a slave, the sum of £500. Their great success in this time of adventure came from the rule adopted since the capture of Spanish galleons at Porte Bello that the sailors had a share and a very considerable share of the prize money. The declaration of war against Spain in 1761 gave a new impulse to hostilities at sea and the West In- dia waters again swarmed with privateers which swept French and Spanish commerce from the seas. Martinique, and soon after Havana, fell into English power. The peace of Paris closed the war in 1763.
RHODE ISLAND PRIVATEERS IN THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1775-83 .- The beginning of hostilities in 1775 found Rhode Island ready for her favorite service and, on the le- galizing of privateering by act of congress, measures were imme- diately taken for an active part in this branch of offensive war. A prize court was established at Newport and a judge appointed. Arnold, in his history of Rhode Island says that "no less than sixteen vessels, heavily armed and well manned, were sent out be- fore October, 1776, by this colony alone," but Sheffield gives a list
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of fifty-seven vessels newly commissioned or sent ont a second time from Newport in the course of the year 1776, of seventeen in 1777, of seventeen in 1778, of thirty-eight in 1779. of thirteen in 1780, of nine in 1781, of twenty-six in 1782 and of seventeen in 1783; in the seven years of one hundred and seventeen. The list does not contain all the names as the governor issued near- ly two hundred commissions. He gives also a list of prizes sent into Rhode Island : forty in 1776, four in 1777, eight in 1778, nine in 1779, seven in 1780, nine in 1781, twenty-five in 1782; in all one hundred and two ; but no doubt many were taken into other American ports and condemned. And this work was not only important but in every way commendable. It was not a simple depredation on the commerce of individuals bnt the regular interception and cutting off of transports which brought provisions and amimition, under convoy of men-of-war, to sup- ply the British posts on the coast from Halifax to New York and Charleston; a different story from that of the bloody excur- sions on the Spanish main in the old wars.
The old captains and the old vessels again appear. Esek Ilopkins, who commanded a privateer in the French war, was put in charge of a fleet of continental vessels as commodore. The " Revenge " and the "Defiance" went out again under new commanders. Captain Abraham Whipple, who made his fame in 1759-60, is said at one time in the revolution to have taken prizes to the amount of over one million dollars. Snch was the popularity of this class of service that it was at the be- ginning of the war proposed to lay an embargo at all the ports, on outgoing vessels, until the quotas for land service should be filled. In February, 1783, news of the preliminaries of peace having been signed reaching Philadelphia, congress issued orders " to recall all armed vessels from the United States."
STAMP ACT. NON IMPORTATION AGREEMENT, 1763-74. - The Seven Years' War prosecuted by Pitt without stint of men or treasure left England in assured possession of the greater part of the dominions of the House of Bourbon in America, but with a public (English) debt doubled and amounting, at the time of the signature of the peace of Paris in February, 1763, to one hundred and forty millions of pounds sterling.
The British ministry now turned its attention to the regula- tion of American affairs and an enforcement of the acts of trade and navigation which had been somewhat relaxed during the
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progress of hostilities. In April, 1763, Shelburne, president of the board of commissioners of trade and plantations, notified the government of Rhode Island of the new regulations for the manner of their correspondence and issued instructions which were confirmed in September by his successor in office, the Earl of Hillsborough.
A new minister was now at the head of affairs. The incom- petent Lord Bute resigned in April and George Grenville united in himself the offices of chancellor of the exchequer and first lord of the treasury. A man of rontine and order in admin- istration, Grenville was neither a sagacious politician nor a wise statesman. This was shown in his first dealings with American affairs. On the 11th of October Hillsborough ad- dressed' to the Rhode Island government instructions for the stringent enforcement of the revenne laws and enjoined it in the strictest manner to make suppression of the prohibited trade with foreign nations. The London enstom house commis- sioned John Robinson, at Newport, as collector and surveyor for Rhode Island, and Temple, the surveyor-general at Boston, appointed William Taylor as comptroller of customs for the port of Newport, and in October the Earl of Colville placed his Majesty's ship " Squirrel" on the station at Newport " for the encouragement of fair trade by the prevention of smuggling."
Parliament met in November but as the winter session was taken up with the Wilkes proceedings, which involved questions of parliamentary privilege as well as of personal liberty, it was not until March that Grenville brought forward his measures of finance. By the re-arrangement of the debt the ingenions min- ister contrived to avoid levying new taxes, meeting the interest on contracts by a careful collection of the revenue at home which, by the stoppage of smuggling, increased four hundred thousand pounds sterling on the article of tea alone. This pol- icy Grenville determined to extend to the colonies, but as the result of this plan was uncertain, he sought a more direct rev- enne by a measure to tax the bills of credit which the colonies had issued as legal tender during the war. On the 5th of March, in pursuance of this policy, he introduced the project of drawing revenue from America by stamps and announced his intention of bringing in a bill at the next session of parliament. In the development of his plan Grenville challenged the oppo- sition to deny the right of parliament to tax America. No
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voice was raised in denial and the next day it was unanimously resolved that it was right and proper to impose certain stamp duties on the colonies. Grenville said in the course of his speech that he was not absolutely wedded to a stamp act if the colonies would provide some more satisfactory plan.
But for the indefatigable exertions of Americans in London and especially of William Allen, chief justice of Pennsylvania, the measure would have been brought in and passed immedi- ately. Parliament was prorogued on the 31st of June. Mean- while the very first threats of strict enforcement of the acts of trade had cansed a protest from Rhode Island. For thirty years the colony had been complaining of the unjust operations of the sugar act of George II, which was now expiring of its own limitation. This act, which levied a duty on sugar and molasses imported from any of the West India colonies into any of the North American colonies, would have been particularly onerons to Rhode Island if she had paid much regard to it. Now that English power was supreme on the American conti- nent, and there was prospect of a rigid enforcement, which would destroy the most valuable industry of the colony, the as- sembly prepared a remonstrance against a renewal of the act, which they sent to Joseph Sherwood, the agent of the colony at London, with instructions to secure the joining with him in the remonstrance of the agents of at least three of the northern col- onies to the lord commissioner. Moreover, the governor was re- quested to write to the board of trade independently of the re- monstrance.
New York was the first of the colonies to make protest against the assumption of the king and parliament to levy taxes upon them, and " claimed the exclusive right of taxing themselves" in a petition addressed to the king and parliament on the 18th of October, 1764. The same day the New York assembly raised a committee of correspondence to confer with the sev- eral assemblies or committees of assemblies in the colonies. One of the members of the committee visited Boston and obtained the adoption of a petition of the same general nature from the Massachusetts colony on the 22d of the same month.
In July the Rhode Island assembly met at Newport, took into consideration the general subject of the objectionable duties and particularly that on stamps, and raised a committee to con- fer and consult with any committees appointed by the other
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colonies, and directed it to report at the next session. This seems to have been the first committee of correspondence ap- pointed, and though no practical action was taken by it until after New York adopted its own remonstrance and dispatched its committee to secure co-operation elsewhere, Rhode Island has the honor of priority in the scheme which has been con- sidered as the forerunner of union. At the next session its com- mittee was again continued, the assembly having meanwhile received a letter from the Earl of Halifax, requesting a list of all instruments used in public transactions. In November the assembly adopted a petition to the king and at the same time ordered an address prepared by Hopkins, the governor, entitled "The Rights of the Colonies examined," which they ordered to be sent to the agent in London for publication in print.
The New York and Massachusetts petitions were laid before the privy council on the 11th of December, and the king was by it advised to send them to parliament. The king, how- ever, suppressed them. The Rhode Island protests were not presented, and Governor Hopkins' pamphlet reached London too late to warrant its publication. Parliament met on the 10th of January, 1765, and on the 7th of February, Mr. Grenville put the stamp bill on its passage, and it became an act by the king's signature on the 22d of March. Conway and Barre opposed it vehemently in the commons but without making much impression on that body, and the lords passed it without debate or protest.
Rhode Island was already in conflict with the revenue officers and his majesty's navy. Rear Admiral Colville, in the summer of 1764, sent ont four armed vessels from Halifax to cruise along the coast to raise men. The officer of one of them, the schooner "St. John," while with his vessel at Newport, learned of a brig unloading in a creek near Howland's ferry. When he reached the spot he found a cargo of sugars unloaded but the vessel gone. Manning a boat he sent it in pursuit and brought back the vessel, which he reloaded. He was arrested and compelled to find bail in Newport, and on his going to Boston to consult the surveyor-general on the subject, a mob at Newport endeavored to destroy the schooner, stoning the crew. The schooner attempting to get under protec- tion of the guns of the man-of-war "Squirrel," the mob went to the battery and fired upon the schooner, which
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