USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I > Part 57
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REINFORCEMENTS FOR BRITISH-The arrival of reinforcements, ships and soldiers, from New York within a few days after the battle of Rhode Island increased the British army at Newport to more than 10,000. Instead of making the attack on Providence that Sullivan anticipated, New Bedford and Fairhaven were raided on September 4. New Bedford was burned, with wharves and such vessels as were not carried off; part of Fairhaven also was burned. Prescott, exchanged for Lee, superseded Pigot at Newport as commander of land forces, which was fortunate for Rhode Island, probably, since of the two Prescott was less aggressive. The British fleet, strengthened by Admiral Byron's squadron of a dozen ships of the line, made Newport a rendezvous and naval base for a time; eventually it was withdrawn for the most part for service elsewhere, principally in the Southern campaign, leaving at New- port only a small number of warships and transports. In spite of their strength and the weak- ness of the American forces in Rhode Island, which must have been known to the British if they maintained only the customary wartime system of espionage and communication with their own sympathizers within the American lines, the British limited their activities in and about Narragansett Bay to raiding or foraging expeditions of minor importance, in several instances exploits planned by Tories as a solace for their own bitterness against their patriot countrymen. Conanicut was occupied on April 14, 1779. Raiding parties visited North Kingstown, February 1; Point Judith twice, May 8 and June 6; other places in South Kings- town, May 21 and June 7; Fall River, July 7; Seaconnet, late in July; besides places in neighboring states, including Nantucket and Swansea. Most of the raiding parties encoun- tered determined resistance, and they were, in several instances, driven off after sharp fighting with casualties on both sides. The Seaconnet raid was planned expressly to capture members of the Taggart family, who were known to have obtained and conveyed to the Americans important information about the disposition of troops and the defences of Newport for use by the Spencer expedition of 1777, and who later had served as officers in the flotilla of patrol boats employed by Sullivan. Two of the sons of William Taggart were captured by the Seaconnet raiding party. One, while trying to escape, was shot through the thigh and then was killed deliberately and brutally by a bayonet thrust as he lay upon the ground. The other was taken to Newport, but, with a companion, made his escape from prison, reached the shore, built a light raft of planks and logs, and was carried on it by the tide to Prudence Island and safety. Warning of the planning of raids and other valuable information about conditions on the island were conveyed to the Americans across the Seaconnet River through a system of communication established by Isaac Barker of Middletown, and Lieutenant Chapin of Sherburne's continental regiment .*
EXPLOIT OF SILAS TALBOT-On the American side there was never a force sufficient to warrant extended operations ; indeed, with his army reduced to less than 4000 men, of whom I200 were continentals, 2000 state troops, and the remainder militia, Sullivan was perplexed by the problem of defending strategic positions along the farflung coastline, and was con- strained to ask aid from other New England states. From these he received little encourage- ment even by promise, and less by actual reinforcement. Occasionally the dull monotony of a most distressing situation was relieved by a success achieved through Rhode Island initiative and the resourcefulness of men who were as much at home upon the water as upon the land. Such was the exploit of Silas Talbot in October, 1778. With the consent and approval of Sul- livan, Talbot fitted out the "Hawk," sloop, with two three-pound cannon, and selected a crew of sixty daring fellows tired of camp duty and eager for adventure. Talbot planned an attack upon the "Pigot," British war galley, a brig of 200 tons displacement, mounting eight twelve- pound cannon and ten swivel guns. The "Pigot" lay in the Seaconnet River, an obstacle to commerce, an annoyance to fishermen, anathema to patriots. Sailing down Narragansett Bay and by Bristol Ferry, the "Hawk" passed the British batteries on the Portsmouth side in
*Colonel Sherburne and a large number of his command were Rhode Islanders.
.
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safety, but was discovered and sought concealment temporarily in the Taunton River. Still another battery, at Fogland Ferry, lay between the "Hawk" and the "Pigot," and Major Talbot, while waiting for a favorable wind, went down to Little Compton, and examined both battery and the "Pigot" through a telescope. To prevent a surprise attack, the "Pigot" was protected by a boarding net ; yet Talbot planned a boarding party from his small sloop against a vessel carrying an armament twenty-five times as heavy as his own. At his request, Lieu- tenant William Helme and a detachment of fifteen men from Topham's Rhode Island regi- ment joined the expedition.
The British battery at Fogland Ferry was passed at night on October 28, quietly, with sails lowered and only the bare mast exposed to possible discovery by a wary sentry. The battery passed in safety, Talbot anchored the "Hawk" temporarily, and reconnoitred in a small boat to determine the exact position of the "Pigot." Returning to the "Hawk," he placed a kedge anchor on the jibboom, and sailed with all speed against the "Pigot." The "Hawk" was discovered by the lookout, hailed and fired upon with muskets. The anchor on the boom tore away the boarding net, and Talbot and his crew boarded at the first contact, Helme and others, who had taken positions on the bowsprit leading. The crew of the "Pigot" was taken by surprise and driven below quickly. Lieutenant Dunlop, commanding the "Pigot" and dis- posed to fight, was subdued; and then shed real tears of chagrin when he was compelled to surrender his brig to so small a vessel as the "Hawk." Silas Talbot succeeded in making sail on the "Pigot" and carried the vessel away to New London for refitting. Subsequently the "Pigot" was one of a squadron commanded by Talbot in which he spread terror among British vessels operating in the waters between Nantucket and New York. Congress com- missioned Talbot as Lieutenant Colonel, and Rhode Island presented to him and to Lieutenant Helme silver-mounted swords.
Lieutenant Chapin of Sherburne's continental regiment, with six men in a whaleboat, boarded and captured a brig in the Seaconnet River on December 17. The "Providence," sloop, Captain Hacker, captured the "Diligent," British cruiser, twelve guns, after a vigorous naval battle lasting four hours, and also a British supply ship laden with rice, and sent both into Providence as prizes on May II. Two days later a flotilla of three small vessels in Rhode Island service captured a sloop off Newport. Lieutenant Colonel Talbot, on the "Argo," armed sloop, ten cannon and sixty men, captured the "Lively," privateer, ten cannon, and three prizes, and returned to Providence on July 7 from the same cruise with two other armed vessels, twelve and eighteen cannon, captured off Sandy Hook. The "Providence," frigate, Captain Abraham Whipple, and two other naval vessels, captured and sent in to Boston eight British vessels in July, 1779; these prizes, with their cargoes, were valued at close to $1,000,000. Silas Talbot, on the "Argo," refitted with twelve cannon, captured the "King George," Tory privateer from Newport, Captain Stanton Hazard, August 7. The "King George" had been fitted out expressly to cruise in pursuit of and to capture Talbot and the "Argo"; when the vessels met Talbot laid the "Argo" alongside the "King George," boarded the brig and captured it without the loss of a man. On the same cruise Talbot took four other valuable prizes. For these adventures Congress commissioned Lieutenant Colonel Talbot as a Captain in the navy without assignment. Sailing as commander of the "General Washing- ton," privateer, Talbot was captured in 1780 and carried away to an English prison. Of the two warships built in Narragansett Bay for the United States navy, the "Warren" was burned in the Penobscot expedition in 1779; and the "Providence" was captured at Charlestown in 1780.
Bad as was the military situation after the retreat from Rhode Island in 1778, it grew worse instead of better. Except Rhode Island, none of the New England states even pre- tended to maintain the quotas for the New England army agreed to at Springfield. The Brit- ish force at Newport was reduced to 6000 early in 1779, but Sullivan at the time had less
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than 4000 men, including the continental troops, who were subject to recall to Washington's army at any time. When Glover's brigade was recalled in April, appeals to Governor Trum- bull for Connecticut's quotas for the army were met with repudiation of the Springfield agree- ment. Rhode Island made an effort to reenlist for continued service the members of the Rhode Island brigade whose terms expired in the spring of 1779; officers resigned because the depreciation of paper money made it impossible to maintain their families. By June the brigade had been reduced to 233 infantrymen, and the two regiments were consolidated as one. Major General Sullivan was recalled in March and assigned by Washington to command a punitive expedition against the Seneca Indians in western New York. In his year in Rhode Island he had endeared himself to the people, and on his departure he received from them many expressions of their appreciation of his services and sterling qualities as soldier and citizen. A bronze tablet in the State House commemorates his service in Rhode Island. Gen- eral Glover, as senior Continental officer, succeeded him temporarily, until the arrival of Major General Gates on April 3. Varnum resigned his continental commission and became Major General of the reorganized Rhode Island militia. His successor in continental service was Brigadier General John Stark, hero of Bennington. Gates found himself in Rhode Island in command of barely the skeleton of an army. Of the continental troops, Stark's brigade remained in Rhode Island when the British sailed away from Newport on October 25, 1779.
DISTRESS IN RHODE ISLAND-The General Assembly met eight times in 1778, at East Greenwich in February, June and September, at South Kingstown in March and October, and at Providence in December and twice in May. Governor Cooke and Deputy Governor Brad- ford retired from office in May; William Greene was elected as Governor and Jabez Bowen as Deputy Governor. Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery, Henry Marchant and John Collins were elected as Congressmen, with the purpose of maintaining not less than the minimum of two delegates in actual attendance that qualified a state to vote in proceedings. Wartime measures dominated the business of the General Assembly, which was concerned with enlist- ing, arming, clothing and supporting troops, and finding munitions. Of two measures deal- ing with internal improvements, one increased fines for failure to assist in maintaining streets and highways, the depreciation of the currency having made the old scale non-effective, and the other granted a lottery for repairing a bridge across the Blackstone River. With the failure of the Sullivan expedition against the British, and the continuance of control by the latter of the island towns and of the entrance to Narragansett Bay, abject poverty and stark famine confronted Rhode Island. The condition of refugees from Newport was particularly distressing; the number was increased in the autumn of 1778 as the British, seeking shelter for soldiers, excluded many from their homes.
The General Assembly in October, resolving that "many inhabitants of the island of Rhode Island, after having suffered every evil insult from the wanton cruelty of our enemies ; and from affluent and comfortable circumstances are reduced to the most distressing necessity for the common supports of life; and are now by them (in order if possible to render their distresses more aggravated) thrust out from their late comfortable and peaceable dwellings at this approaching inclement season, destitute of the means of support and subsistence, and per- mitted to come off to the main, to seek asylum and succor among their brethren; whereby we are called upon by every motive of compassion to extend that humanity toward them we would wish to find under similar unhappy circumstances," appointed a committee to obtain a list of persons needing assistance, and to "solicit donations from the charitable inhabitants of our sister states, and other well-disposed persons, and distribute what they can by that means col- lect, as well as what may be granted by this General Assembly, from time to time, as equitably as they can," and recommended that town councils list "what numbers of the inhabitants afore- said there are now residing in their respective towns, and which numbers more they can com- fortably accommodate with dwelling places during the coming winter." Captain Peleg Clarke,
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late of Newport, then residing in Providence, was appointed almoner, and the General Assem- bly appropriated £ 1000 as the state's contribution to the relief fund. Aside from the distress affecting refugees, Rhode Island generally was facing a serious shortage of food in the autumn of 1778. The British held the areas that had produced much of the surplus of food in colonial days; the military movements of 1777 and 1778 contributed to a neglect of farming operations elsewhere that was cumulative in reducing production.
Governor Greene, "in the name and in the behalf of the General Assembly," wrote to the General Assembly of Connecticut in October, 1778: "The scarcity of provisions within this state necessary for the support of its inhabitants occasions our addressing you at this time. We will briefly state the causes of this scarcity. The unfortunate expedition of 1777 against Rhode Island prevented the English grain from being sown in the usual quantities, and the severe drought of the past summer cut short the produce of what was sown, as well as the labors of the present season; and from our men being all on duty for a considerable time the present fall, great losses accrued for want of a timely harvest. Added to these, we have been obliged for the two years past to keep as guards on our shores a great number of our militia, whereby the state was deprived of their labor in agriculture; and our best lands, to the amount of nearly one-fourth part of our whole state, have been either in the possession of the enemy, or so situated with respect to them, as to render their improvement impracticable; and by the blockade of our ports by the enemy, and the embargoes, prohibiting the exportation of provi- sions from the neighboring states, has prevented supplies both by land and water being brought in necessary quantities into this state. We wish you to consider that numbers of distressed inhabitants have already come, and are daily coming, off from Rhode Island to seek support, and that a large body of troops are posted in the state. From these facts it is easy to conceive the distress to which we are liable, unless prevented, by timely supplies from your state, and such other of our sister states as can afford them. And we will not doubt, from a due con- sideration thereof, that you will immediately remove every obstacle that prevents, on the part of your state, the free importation of provisions by land or water, into ours, for the consump- tion of its inhabitants; assuring you it shall be our particular care to prevent any supplies going to the enemy ; and that no provisions be exported from this state to foreign parts." At the December session of the General Assembly a committee was appointed to draft letters to the Continental Congress and to the states of Connecticut and New York, "representing the distressed situation of some parts of this state occasioned by the scarcity of bread corn, and requesting that the embargo in those states be dispensed with, so far as prohibits the exporta- tion thereof to this state by land." The letter to Congress was addressed to Rhode Island's delegates; it reviewed the situation and the reasons for it: "You are sensible that at the best of times this state never raised bread-corn sufficient to support its own inhabitants; nearly one-quarter of the best plowland is now in possession of the enemy; and other considerable tracts so exposed that the occupants have not dared nor been able to plant them for two years past. Added to all this, a strict embargo from all western and southern states .. . We have repeatedly applied to the authority of the state of Connecticut for liberty to purchase and transport by land bread and meal for the support of the inhabitants of this state; but have been always put off without having our request granted. 'Tis an express vote of our General Assembly that you lay this matter before Congress and request them, in the strongest terms to take it up, and so far interest themselves in our behalf as to have the embargoes repealed in New York and Connecticut, as respects supplying the inhabitants of this state with provi- sions by land. If some relief is not speedily granted many of the poorer sort of inhabitants, especially those that have come from Rhode Island, must inevitably perish for want." A let- ter to Governor Clinton of New York repeated the same general statement of causes and necessity and continued : "Your excellency will be able to judge, from what your own inhabi- tants suffer, how hard the lot of those poor people must be, when I inform you that corn nor
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flour cannot be purchased for money at any price whatever. We have made repeated applica- tion to our sister state of Connecticut for them to grant us the favor we now ask of you; but all in vain." Governor Trumbull's adamant refusal to assist Rhode Island either with troops or food had induced the General Assembly, in October, to address the Connecticut General Assembly instead of the Governor. Deputy Governor Bowen and Reverend James Manning, President of the Rhode Island College,* were sent to the Connecticut General Assembly in January, 1779, "to represent to them the distress of this state for want of provisions; more especially of the unhappy persons who have left Rhode Island; and earnestly solicit a repeal of their act for laying a land embargo upon provisions so far as may respect this state." The mission carried a letter, which declared : "Repeated applications have been made to his excel- lency Governor Trumbull in order to obtain a repeal of your non-exportation act, with respect to provisions for the use of the inhabitants of this state, but without effect." It declared that the Rhode Island refugees then numbered 2000; that neglect of farming while one-half the man power of the state was actually in service had occasioned loss of the first harvest of grain; and that the storm in August (just before the battle of Rhode Island), "together with the injury which the Indian corn received for want of laborers, hath deprived the inhabitants of the usual quantity of grain." The letter continued: "The most obdurate heart would relent to see old age and childhood, from comfortable circumstances, reduced to the necessity of begging for a morsel of bread; and even that they cannot often obtain, not for the want of a sympathetic feeling in the inhabitants for their distresses, but merely for their inability to relieve them." The letter assured ample guarantees that provisions would not be permitted "to fall into the hands of monopolists." Of the latter the war had produced a horde so numerous and so active in buying up and hoarding necessities of life as well as articles in demand for supplying the army that Congress, in November, 1778, urged drastic legislation by the several states to deal with the evils involved. The Connecticut General Assembly yielded to the extent of permitting the exportation of 7000 bushels of grain to Rhode Island. The grain was apportioned to Bristol, Charlestown, Cranston, East Greenwich, Hopkinton, John- ston, Little Compton, North Kingstown, North Providence, Providence, Tiverton, Warren, Warwick and Westerly, and John Updike was appointed agent to purchase the grain in Con- necticut and to sell it to these towns. The Connecticut Assembly also recommended contribu- tions by Connecticut citizens for the relief of Rhode Island; subscriptions totalled £4300 and 500 bushels of grain. Meanwhile Congress had adopted resolutions urging both New York and Connecticut to permit the exportation of foodstuffs to Rhode Island. The winter of 1778-1779 was one of the most distressing in the history of the colony or state; it was replete with hardships and real suffering ; it opened December 12 with an intensely cold blizzard that piled snow to unusual height. As the August storm that disabled the French fleet was known as the "French storm," that of December was known as the "Hessian storm," because so many Hessians died while on guard duty, frozen or suffocated by driving snow.
SUPPORTING CONGRESS-Rhode Island's allotment of the continental tax of $5,000,000 requested by Congress for 1778 in a resolution adopted November 22, 1777, was $100,000. Of this the General Assembly paid one-quarter in February, 1778, from the general treasury ; one-quarter from the proceeds of a general state tax ordered in June; and the balance in June, 1779, by surrender to the continental loan office of a continental warrant for $50,000 issued to Rhode Island as reimbursement on account of expenditures incurred in enlisting, equipping and paying soldiers at the request of Congress. Congress had no borrowing or taxing power inherently, and no taxing power by virtue of the Articles of Confederation. Congress in the beginning was solely a convention of delegates of colonies; it assumed many of the functions of government and sovereignty as the war situation developed and events carried a movement that had begun in a union for passive resistance into a union for aggressive
*Brown University.
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warfare. It borrowed money early in the war principally by emitting paper currency, under circumstances in which it must rely upon the good intentions of the colonies-states, rather than its own power to raise money, for the redemption of its promises to pay. Taxation was resorted to almost under the pressure of necessity of taking steps to bolster up the failing credit of Congress. If and when the delegates from the several states could be persuaded to apportion a "tax," it lay with the states to set up machinery for assessment and collection, and to collect and pay the tax into the continental treasury, with no effective power vested in Congress to coerce an unwilling, defiant or neglectful member of the Confederation. Rhode Island met every wartime request made by Congress with utmost patriotism; and in its rela- tions with other states was surpassed by none in the willingness with which it cooperated and undertook its share of the common burdens. The paper money issued by Congress depreciated rapidly in view of the patent inability of Congress to redeem or to guaranty redemption, and because the war soon settled down into a bitter struggle that indicated prolongation, increased indebtedness, delay in redemption (if ever) of promises to pay, and economic exhaustion with consequent inability to pay. Recourse to taxes apportioned to the states was taken when the credit possibilities of paper currency tended to approach zero; in actual practice the exercise of the pseudo "taxing" function became a method of distributing the continental debt incurred by Congress upon the several states as the agents responsible for payment ultimately. A state could pay the tax apportioned to it by cancellation of continental warrants issued to reimburse the state for advances made at the request of Congress, as in the instance in which Rhode Island paid one-half the continental tax for 1778 by surrender of a continental warrant; or by levying a tax within its own borders, accepting payment in continental notes, and paying the continental notes into the continental loan office or treasury. The latter process did not enrich the treasury of the Confederation; if it replenished the treasury it put into it only evidence of indebtedness, incurred in earlier borrowing, rather than real money. By one process Con- gress issued warrants to the state as reimbursement for state expenditures for continental purposes and accepted the warrants in payment of taxes apportioned to the state; by the other, persons selling articles or service for continental war purposes might be paid in con- tinental notes; the notes were called back into the treasury as taxes, when in the course of trade and commerce they had reached the hands of persons liable to taxation. To serve ade- quately its several functions additional to those of distributing the burdens of supporting government and of furnishing a medium of exchange, however, money must have intrinsic value or be exchangeable for commodities that have intrinsic value. Both the guaranty of redemption and the reasonable limitation of the volume of paper currency necessary to assure maintenance of parity with coin money, were wanting at the beginning of the war; as the war progressed the monetary problem became more and more difficult of solution. Into the interpretation of the burden of taxation by reason of the war must be read, for clear under- standing, the factor of the depreciation of currency, and the tendency to pay taxes in the cheapest currency in circulation as legal tender. The latter was continental currency. Like Congress, Rhode Island had begun to finance its war ventures with paper currency; issuing non-interest bearing promises to pay ; but Rhode Island abandoned this practice by agreement with other New England states, having recourse in stress of financial want to issuing short- term interest-bearing notes to be redeemed by taxes, and receivable as payment of taxes. These notes depreciated somewhat in exchange value, but not so rapidly as continental cur- rency. There was a tendency to hoard Rhode Island's interest-bearing currency, in spite of statutory provisions aiming to maintain state and continental currency at parity. The evil effect of the legal tender provision appeared in the practice of paying taxes levied by the state with continental notes, which the General Treasurer, consistently with patriotic support of Congress and the state's laws making continental notes legal tender, could not refuse to accept.
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