The creation of the Continental Navy was not so much a matter of political independence, but rather of economic necessity. In 1775, Congressional political leaders, merchants and supply commissaries supported the formation of the Continental Navy, believing its importance was to obtain materials to carry on war. The new navy was not charged with confronting the Royal Navy but rather to avoid its superior ships in an effort to continue trade. Typical efforts would involve salvaging stranded cargos of munitions and valuables before Royal Navy tenders could. The committees hoped that a substantial portion of the navy’s revenue would somehow come from its ships taking prizes. At its birth, then, confusion existed as to whether the Continental Navy was primarily a military or trade endeavor.1
It would be overseen by Congress’s Naval Committee, which in 1776 was renamed the Marine Committee. Top-heavy with New Englanders, its original members included John Langdon of New Hampshire, Silas Dean of Connecticut, John Adams of Massachusetts, Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia and Joseph Hewes of North and Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina.2 Eventually, the committees would be phased out and the names of Robert Morris in Congress and Benjamin Franklin in France would dominate the navy’s administration.
Even if Congress could not create a navy to confront the Royal Navy, it did commission and build warships. Most of the ships commissioned were converted merchantmen, although a few warships would be purposely built. Portsmouth, New Hampshire on the Piscataqua River was the home of several purpose-built ships for the Continental Navy, including the 18-gun sloop Ranger. It was the third ship built for the navy at John Langdon’s shipyard, Badger’s Island, Kittery Point, today’s Maine.3 He was a merchant, who had profited from trade to the West Indies and London. In 1777, he would be Speaker of the New Hampshire General Court and his state’s representative to the Continental Congress. Fittingly, Langdon planned to name the new sloop Hampshire, but Congress preferred Ranger.
The Ranger was launched on May 10, 1777. Construction had been delayed because a warm January had made the delivery of hewn timber impossible. Further construction and outfitting would last until October. While twenty-six guns had been purchased for the Ranger, it was discovered that the ship was incapable of bearing the weight of that number and the complement was reduced to eighteen 6-pounders.4 Also, thirteen swivels were purchased to supplement the armament. Its crew of sailors and marines had already been gathered and by August, rum had become an import expense meant to please them.
Construction continued as the bowsprit was placed by early June. Still to be found were an anchor, sweep oar, lanterns, thumbs, poles, pails, bolts of duck, medicine, axes, hinges, oakham for caulking and two pump hammers and two hawsers. Items needed for war included cartridge paper and boxes, powder horns, grape shot and cannisters.5 Daily necessities would be tallow, candles, cabinets and lockers. Finally, a set of colors were required to identify or disguise the ship. Not until the last would it have a crucial suit of sails, of which half were made of inferior loose-woven cloth.
The construction quality of American ships like the Ranger had been debated before and continued to be at this time. A review of its later repairs shows that its captain had to make changes to the ship in Portsmouth before it ever sailed. As built, the vessel was oversparred, meaning the masts were too large for the ship, so that it needed a lower topside weight and center of gravity.6 The best means of doing this was to reduce the ship’s heavy armament. Also, on its Atlantic voyage the tiller rope broke, causing broaching. In France, thanks to Nantes’ dockyards, it would be repaired, its masts shortened, more ballast added and new sails cut to replace those battered in the Atlantic crossing. To clean the Ranger’s already foul bottom, it was careened in a graving drydock, found only in France’s most sophisticated dockyards. On the Ranger’s return Atlantic voyage, the fore topmast and main top gall mast were carried away, another sign that the ship was top-heavy. Finally in 1781, after it had been captured, the decision of the Royal Navy to sell rather than adopt the Ranger showed that it was not a durable vessel.
The Ranger’s situation was not unique. Of the original frigates authorized in 1775, none got to sea until 1777 and eight of those rendered no service while incurring considerable expense.7 This situation would debilitate the navy for the rest of the war.
The Continental Navy also had difficulty in putting together crews. Often, navy ships were stranded in port for months, facing debilitating desertion and sickness, while they continued to lack sufficient sailors.8 Stiff competition existed, not just from the Royal Navy, but state navies and privateers. Even the Continental army took its share when Colonel John Glover, a sea captain from Marblehead, Massachusetts, formed a ‘Webfoot Regiment’ for Washington to transport his troops by bateaux.
Marblehead, northeast of Boston, had conditions which allowed their fishermen to join crews not just of Glover, but of Continental and Massachusetts ships, privateers and even a local coastguard. Settled in 1629 by fishermen from the Channel Islands and Fowey in Cornwall, Marblehead developed as a fishing and shipbuilding center, replacing Boston as the Massachusetts’ port of entry after passage of the Boston Port Bill in 1774. Built on a granite promontory, the community of 5,000 was known as a ‘brawling, smelly [because of the drying fish], irreligious town’.9 It was notorious for its population of growing boys, ‘attributed to their feeding on Cod Heads, which is their principal diet’. Among them was Samuel Tucker, who would rise to become a merchant captain and go on to a career in the Continental Navy.
When the war came to Marblehead, unemployed fishermen looked on service in the Continental or state navies favorably because they could gain a share of prize money, although the former service required a long-time commitment. Privateers also offered shares, but they did not have regular pay. Marblehead’s coastguard was singular. It was responsible for building and manning sea-coast defenses at its harbor entrances, guarding inbound and outbound vessels and challenging British vessels that attempted to enter. Marblehead maintained three ‘Sea Coast Defense Companies’ of fifty men each.10 While the pay was low, men in these companies could remain in town and supplement their wages. These units also sustained vessels to patrol harbors. Still, the Marblehead situation was unique.
Inevitably captains and states were forced to turn to unpopular impressment. The Massachusetts General Court issued a press in 1779 for its expedition to Penobscot. A year later in Philadelphia, when Captain John Young began a press to man his sloop Saratoga, he was thrown in jail. In 1777, Captain James Nicholson desperately tried to man the Virginia. He decided to use the press on the Baltimore waterfront to fill his crew, adding thirty men to his rolls. However, Governor Johnson of Maryland had not been consulted and he demanded that the pressed men be released. Nicholson replied that he was under pressure from Congress to get his ship underway, that impressment had been going on in Philadelphia while Congress was sitting, and that he did not give a whit ‘for the threats of any Council of Maryland’.11 Congress backtracked and suspended Nicholson from his command, but he was reinstated after he made a grudging apology to Johnson. A year later, Nicholson sent a request to the Marine Committee asking that he be able to recruit mariners and naval officers in the West Indies, showing how desperate he remained for seamen. The request was not far-fetched because late in 1780 the American community at Dutch St Eustatius numbered 2,000.
After a ship’s company was formed, Continental captains still lacked the support of their crews and it was commonplace for crews to mutiny.12 The crews’ polyglot makeup meant diverging reasons for going to sea. Loyalty to their hometown and by extension to shipmates from the same place was a primary motivation. Some historians have seen New England sailors’ propensity to mutiny as a result of their commitment to democracy, meaning less inclination to take orders from officers.
Due to Congress’s emphasis on political appointments rather than sea experience, a top-heavy ratio of one officer for every ten men developed. As most of them had previous experience on privateers or transports, they felt the new navy would be most effective if its ships acted as privateers, combining self-interest with public service. They also seemed to be emotionally a bunch of jealous school boys and their personal antics have earned them the designation of being dystunctional.13
James Nicholson would block John Paul Jones’ lobbying with Congress to become commander of the United States Navy because he felt Jones lacked seniority and that his exploits were as an adjunct to the French navy.14 Nicholson had different qualities; while he was not a great sailor he did obey the orders of his superiors and he was respected in both the Maryland and Continental navies.
While court martials by their peers were regarded by captains as a chance to clear blots on their reputations, Continental captains fared badly. From 1776 through 1780, at least seven Continental captains were dragged before a court martial.15 Five were dismissed and one, Abraham Whipple, was found guilty of poor judgement but remained in the service. Only one, John Manley, whom we shall hear about later, was exonerated.
These conditions were first evident in 1775, when Congress designated Esek Hopkins commander-in-chief of the Fleet of the United Colonies and gave him command of eight converted merchantmen, the largest, his flagship the 20-gun Alfred. Esek’s brother Stephen, a member of Congress’s Naval Committee, was responsible for his appointment.16 Their home, Rhode Island, was the first state to petition the Congress to form a navy to rid Narragansett Bay of Captain James Wallace’s smuggler-seeking Rose, which was crippling Newport and Providence merchants.
Known as the ‘Father of the American Navy’, Esek was born in Scituate, Rhode Island where his family was prominent. At the age of 20 he went to sea and proved to be a good sailor and skilled merchant. He sailed to nearly every quarter of the Atlantic and commanded a privateer in the Seven Years’ War.17 In the interval between voyages, he was engaged in Rhode Island politics, serving as a deputy to the Rhode Island General Assembly. In September 1764, Hopkins took command of the slave ship Sally, owned by the influential Nicholas Brown and Company. Hopkins had no prior experience in sailing a slaver and as a result the fifteen-month voyage would cause the death of 109 out of 196 slaves. When Sally arrived in the West Indies, the surviving African captives were in such poor condition that most sold below expectation. Hopkins’ failure with the slaver contributed to the Brown brothers reconsidering their participation in Rhode Island’s slave trade.
Hopkins’ orders from the Naval Committee on January 5, 1776 read: ‘Proceed directly for Chesapeake Bay … and if …you find that [the enemy] are not greatly superior to your own you are immediately to enter the said bay, search out and attack, take or destroy all the naval forces of our enemies you may find there.’18 A few days later, the Committee added that he was to seek information on ‘Lord Dunmore’s fleet and land forces’. Clearly Congress wanted him to shadow Dunmore’s fleet and protect rebel shipping in Chesapeake and as far south as the Carolinas.
However, Hopkins completely ignored his orders without informing Congress or making any effort to ascertain the strength of Dunmore. At his court martial in August, he defended himself by stating his orders could be dispensed with, on account of ‘bad winds, or stormy weather, or any unseen accident of disaster discernable to you …’19 Still, the committee had assumed that he would make every effort to protect rebel shipping in the South.
Hopkins feared a confrontation with the Royal Navy, believing the preservation and profitability of his fleet was primary. Since his ships were converted merchantmen, he also seems to have assumed that he was a privateer, primarily concerned to use his ships to take enemy merchantmen as prizes. In fairness to Hopkins, the committee had not yet formulated a naval policy for prizes. Clearly, Hopkins and Congress’s Naval Committee had rather different perceptions of the role of the Continental Navy.20
From here the story of Hopkins’ squadron is well known. He sailed from Philadelphia directly to the Bahama Islands, skipping Chesapeake Bay and the Southern colonies altogether.21 He chose to go to Britain’s weakly defended Bahamas, which in previous colonial wars had been a center of piracy and privateering. Nassau was easily taken, and among other booty, Hopkins did obtain a small amount of ammunition. Leaving after a few days, he headed for New London, Connecticut, rather than the destinations suggested by the committee, although he did send a ship to Philadelphia to report his whereabouts. In his home waters, the Nassau booty was sold and proceeds divided by Hopkins among his officers and crew. Admiralty courts were only in the process of being set up and Hopkins avoided them so that he and his crew would not have to share their prize money with Congress, state authorities or ship owners.
By April 1776, Hopkins’ squadron of six warships was at the east end of Long Island near Block Island.22 The squadron cruised off the island and began to take merchantmen as prizes. At night on April 6, they caught sight of a single ship, the Glasgow, a 20-gun Royal Navy dispatch carrier on its way from Portland, Rhode Island to Charleston, South Carolina. Under Captain Tryingham Howe, it turned about to investigate Hopkins’ squadron, closing to within hailing distance. Hopkins gave no signals to the Glasgow before it confronted his ships individually. With the Cabot, after a few broadsides, it killed the master, wounded the captain and disabled its steering. Next came Hoskins and Dudley Saltonstall in the Alfred, where the gunnery was even, but the Glasgow broke the lines to the Alfred’s tiller and it drifted as it was raked by fire. Then it was the turn of the Andrea Doria, which was entangled by the Hopkins’ drifting ships. The Providence stayed out of range and the Columbus came up, but its fire was ineffective. The squadron operated in what was described as ‘Helter-Skelter’.
Outnumbered, the Glasgow drew off and distanced itself, and in the morning, Hopkins called off a pursuit for fear they would encounter Captain James Wallace’s squadron at Newport. The Glasgow had sustained one killed and three wounded while the Continental squadron had at least twenty-four casualties.23 Hopkins’ ships had depleted crews, many of whom were sick, and after the debacle they sought a complete refitting. The Glasgow’s destination was changed as it was sent to England to be honored.
The young captain of the Andrea Doria, Nicholas Biddle, a former Royal Navy officer, charged that ‘a more imprudent, ill-conducted affair never happened before.’24 Even Lieutenant John Paul Jones of the Alfred surmised, ‘the unfortunate engagement with the Glasgow seems to be a general reflection on the officers of the fleet.’ As noted, Captain Abraham Whipple of the Columbus asked for a court martial, which condemned him but allowed him to remain in the navy. John Hazard of the Providence was not so lucky; a court martial convicted him of neglect of duty and he was forced to resign. A single Royal Navy mail ship had almost demolished Congress’s first squadron. Hopkins had been correct in advising never to confront a Royal Navy ship, even if your force outnumbered it.
Some of Hopkins’ officers went to Congress to protest his command, and in August 1776 he was censured by Congress for taking his squadron to Nassau.25 However, he had support from New Englanders in Congress like John Hancock and they opposed removing him from command. Finally over their objection, in January 1778, Congress voted to permanently relieve Hoskins of his command.
Before he was relieved, Hoskins had been in more trouble as commander of the frigate Warren. On February 19, 1777, officers of the Warren, led by Third Lieutenant Richard Marven and Midshipman Samuel Shaw, met under the deck and drafted a petition to the Marine Committee accusing Hopkins of calling Congress ‘damned fools’, of obstructing the recruitment of crews because he ‘had such a spleen’, and of torturing British prisoners.26 An inquiry was conducted, and Hopkins retaliated by bringing criminal libel proceedings against both officers. In July 1778, Congress responded to Hopkins that they would legally defend the petitioning officers, as it was their duty to report misconduct and fraud, this commitment being the first Congressional Whistleblower law. Thus ended the saga of Congress’s only commander of the Continental Navy, showing Hopkins’ propensity to act like a privateer, rather than protecting trade and supporting the war effort.
In October 1776, Congress produced a seniority list of its top twenty-six captains.27 No Admiral would ever be designated and the list would never be updated, so it shows who they felt counted at the time. Hopkins was not on the list as his star had faded, but his critical subordinate, Nicholas Biddle, was ranked fifth. Captains like Hopkins’ brother-in-law Abraham Whipple, John Paul Jones and John Young were well down the list at numbers twelve, eighteen and twenty-three respectively. Remembering the egos of these captains, here was the basis for complaining for the rest of the war. The top position belonged to Marylander James Nicholas, followed by two Massachusetts captains, John Manley and Hector McNeill. Here was political balance, the Southerners in Congress wanted the top spot after Hopkins had ignored them. Still Manley and McNeill represented the continuing influence of New England.
James Nicholson was the product of a Chesapeake family that made a reputation in the Revolution through naval service. From Chestertown, Maryland, three members of the Nicholson family – James, Samuel and John – would have careers in the emerging Continental Navy. The Nicholsons were not gentlemen planters; before the war, their ships were hired by planters for trade with England.28 The patriarch was Joseph Nicholson, a colonel of Kent County militia and a member of the first Committee of Correspondence in 1774.29 He had been in Chestertown since the 1730s and he and his wife ran the White Swan Tavern, a hangout for sailors.
James was born in 1737 and had the advantage of serving in the Royal Navy, participating in the Siege of Havana in 1763.30 Earlier, he been accused, but pardoned, of killing a sailor in Chestertown. It was his cargo that caused Chestertown’s Tea Resolves of 1774, but he also served with his father and brother Joseph on the resulting Committee of Correspondence. He supported the sending of flour to the poor of Boston.
From October 1776, he would have dual responsibilities in the Maryland and Continental navies. In his first action, when the Royal Navy blocked his squadron in Baltimore Harbor in October 1776, he was forced to abandon his ships and march his men overland to serve with Washington in New York.31 In 1777, he was made commander of the Maryland navy and was given command of its first outfitted ship, the Defense. He was ordered to watch the movements of British and Loyalist ships and escort rebel merchantmen in Chesapeake Bay, a duty rated foremost by Congress and the Maryland Assembly.
Congress’s Marine Committee continued to focus on obtaining war materials from overseas sources and the diplomacy it believed would win the war. When the Maryland Assembly built the powerful 28-gun Continental frigate Virginia in 1777, James Nicholson was given its command. His orders from the Committee in April stated that the Virginia was to sail to French Martinique, the West Indies, where William Bingham the rebel agent resided, and it was believed he would supply the Continental ship with stores.32 Bingham hoped that when the ship came, it could cruise in the West Indies, showing the new nation’s colors. If possible, the Virginia was to capture ships to add to the navy, to obtain valuable seamen and even attempt to seduce Royal Navy petty and warrant officers to desert. Prizes that were taken would be exempt from court reviews as they could be sold on the spot because their cargos were ‘perishable or particularly suited to the West Indies markets’. Nicholson was to return to the middle colonies, where he would be under the instructions of the Philadelphia Naval Board. However, these ambitious instructions were never implemented.
Instead, for the next eleven months, the Virginia was unprepared to sail from Baltimore. Delays were caused by shortfalls in the manning of the ship, the lack of a lieutenant, which Joshua Barney was sent to fulfill, and by the need for a tender to service the ship. In December, it was suggested that the Virginia’s primary duty was financial, to carry tobacco to sell in the West Indies. Finally, she was underway, but on March 21, 1778, she ran aground on Middle Shoal, between the Chesapeake capes, and was easily captured by Royal Navy ships.33 Thus, all the effort came to naught; Nicholson was blamed for this by his rivals, a situation typical of his career.
In Congress’s seniority list, after Nicholson, John Manley and Hector McNeill were ranked second and third. They were both from the Massachusetts coast, had connections with the Royal Navy in the colonial wars, and had shepherded the outfitting of the new ships designated for them, in preparation to sail against the Royal Navy blockade.34
McNeill was born in County Antrim, Ireland on October 10, 1728, the son of Scottish migrants to Ulster. At the age of 9, he immigrated with his parents to Boston, arriving there in 1737. In the Seven Years’ War, he entered the King’s service, claiming that he was ‘acknowledged’ by ‘Admirals Boscawen, Saunders, Durrell and Colvill’, commanding an ‘armed vessel of war’.35 He probably was in the transport service, in April 1755, taking General Robert Monckton to Nova Scotia, where he remained during the siege of Fort Beausejour. Later, he commanded a vessel that was captured by French allied Indians in Passamaquoddy Bay and taken as a prisoner north to Quebec. After an exchange, he was able to acquire another ship and participated in the New England coastal trade. This experience made him highly regarded by Congress and even John Paul Jones, a dear friend, who felt he had more ‘Marine Knowledge’ than any other officer in the service. McNeill was living in Quebec when the Revolution began and Governor Carleton demanded that he either join the militia or leave the colony – so he left.
In June 1776, McNeill went before the Continental Congress to lobby for a commission as captain in the Continental Navy. By September, he was granted the position and given command of the new frigate Boston, which was outfitted at Newburyport, Massachusetts.36 After a year preparing the ship and finding a crew, the Boston joined John Manley’s Hancock to form a squadron to be commanded by Manley.
Manley was born in 1733 near Torquay, the Devon port. He eventually settled in Marblehead, Massachusetts, becoming the captain of a merchant vessel.37 John Paul Jones claimed that Manley had also served as a boatswain’s mate on a Royal Navy warship. In November 1775, Manley sailed from Marblehead and captured a valuable prize, the brigantine Nancy, carrying ordnance and military stores for British troops in Boston that were needed by the Continental army. As a result, he was named captain of the Hancock, a new frigate in building.
On May 21, 1777 the Hancock and Boston, minus their absconding privateers, sailed to the Grand Bank fisheries.38 From the beginning, however, McNeill and Manley did not get along and this would endanger their enterprise. Early in June, they captured the frigate Fox. In the confrontation, Manley’s ship did most of the fighting, but McNeill was able to position his ship to take possession of the British frigate. Manley would not allow it, ordering McNeill to relinquish the Fox to his prize crew. Tempers began to flare.
By July, the two ships made landfall in Nova Scotia and encountered two Royal Navy ships, Captain George Collier’s Rainbow and the Flora, only frigates though Manley and McNeill thought they were larger.39 It was decided that the best way of avoiding them was for the three ships to disperse in different directions. Manley sailed ahead of the other two ships but had navigational problems and after a thirty-nine-hour chase, the discipline of Collier’s crews allowed them to capture the Hancock and recapture the Fox from its prize crew. McNeill did not support Manley’s flight, instead withdrawing to the safety of the Sheepscot River, Maine, where he remained, as criticism of his leadership mounted. In contrast, Manley and his crew were sent to Halifax and then imprisoned in New York until March 1778. After a prisoner exchange released Manley, both he and McNeill were court-martialed, with the result that McNeill was dismissed from the navy while Manley was exonerated.
McNeill spent the rest of his career trying to get Congress to expunge the blot on his career, writing appeals, including sympathetic letters to John Paul Jones, who had recently lost command of the Ranger. Manley and McNeill would end up commanding privateers. In answer to petitions by the investors, McNeill would be named by Massachusetts authorities as the captain the privateers, Pallas and Adventure.40 Even though exonerated, Manley also became a privateer, commanding the Marlborough, Cumberland, and a prize, the Jason, until 1782, sandwiched between two more periods of imprisonment, one for two years in England’s Mill Prison. Their fate was not exceptional.
The names of these four early captains are not well known, with the possible exception of Hopkins because he was so infamous. All had served in ships in the Seven Years’ War. Only Nicholson had a documented appearance in the Royal Navy, while the other three commanded privateers or transports. Hopkins, Manley and McNeil were New Englanders and they shared a regional distain for Congress’s command of the navy, which imperiled its ability to conduct the war. Nicholson was better in obeying the Congressional orders, although he seems to have been so unlucky that he rarely was able to put to sea. All parties sought to gain prizes, but the New Englanders felt the proceeds belonged to them, while Congress expected that the proceeds would support their war effort.