In 1775, Lord Barrington, the Secretary of War, argued that the navy alone could bring the rebels to terms, for the army in Boston had already found itself in such trouble that it would be best if it were withdrawn. He suggested that a naval blockade would hit rebellious New Englanders in their pocketbooks and cut them off from external relief.1 From a political perspective, however, critics pointed out that such action might encourage rather than suppress rebellion as it caused hardship for the population.
Moreover, it was a momentous task for the Royal Navy to blockade the long Atlantic coastline, stretching from Labrador to Barbados. The task was further complicated by the navy’s other duties, from protecting troop and supply convoys across the Atlantic, to participating in amphibious military actions.2 Just in the first two years of war, the navy would reinforce Boston, evacuate the army to Halifax and then transport it to New York, while it relieved Quebec at the same time.
Originally limited to the police action in Massachusetts, this expanded blockade would remain a long-term solution that the navy would enforce throughout the war. In July 1775, Captain Andrew Hamond had been chosen to command the squadron that would blockade the Delaware River, its port of Lewes, and the city of Philadelphia. Hamond believed ‘the principal means of putting an end to the war was to put an entire stop to the trade of America, which was only to be done by having a great number of cruisers, and a constant succession of clean ships.’3 Here he followed his superiors – Admiral Samuel Graves, Admiral Richard Howe, Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot – in advocating the establishment of a naval blockade over the entire North American coastline to strangle trade.
Replacing Admiral Graves as commander of the North American Station in July 1776, Admiral Richard Howe arrived to direct the blockade. He claimed to have too few ships to successfully maintain it, as ships had to be detached to support British army operations.4 He teamed with his brother William to conduct joint expeditions with the army, which interrupted the continuity of the blockade. Still, Howe felt his blockading ships had successfully disrupted trade in the colonies below New York. After he left American waters in 1778, the blockade would continue. The ministry renewed it and it proved more promising than ever, as it led to a decrease in rebel seaborne trade beyond the coast and caused the prices of foreign goods to rise in their markets.
The enforcement of the blockade from early 1776 was chiefly in the hands of the Royal Navy. Its ships were now allowed to take merchant ships as prizes and share in the spoils just like privateers – although it was a secondary activity, meant as an inducement to attract sailors, not a regular duty. Often navy ships simply chased suspected vessels and went aboard to investigate, convincing them to return to their home ports rather than taking them as prizes.5
Support of the blockade depended upon adapting to local conditions. Crucial to Hamond’s blockade of Chesapeake and Delaware Bays was his ability to move seamlessly from water to land, as ‘on account of the navigable rivers, there is no part of the continent where ships can assist land operations more.’6 The numerous tributaries allowed smaller ships, tenders and barges to penetrate deeply into the interior. By emphasizing these smaller craft, the Royal Navy could sustain the blockade over a broader geographical area.
Historian Richard Buel Jr has shown that from March 1 to August 22, 1776 the Royal Navy blockade caused the number of ships entering Philadelphia from the Delaware River to plummet by two/thirds. This situation would continue and actually the blockade would become most effective late in the war in 1782, as peace was being negotiated.7 By this time, Royal Navy ships at the Delaware Capes were augmented by privateers from New York, which were soon selling confiscated Delaware Valley flour in the city’s markets. The blockade had continued to cause Philadelphia’s overseas entries to fall and even its trade with minor Delaware River ports had declined. The city also suffered a credit crunch, bankrupting many merchants. As Philadelphia’s trade declined, illicit trade with the British in New York rose. The blockade also effected the states’ compliance with Congress’s requisitions of men and supplies to carry on the war. With commerce brought to a standstill and specie (money in the form of coins, more trusted than paper notes) from the outside cut off, the states were broke or unwilling to meet their Continental obligations. Thus, to the very end, the blockade contributed to the overall distress of the rebel economy.
The blockade required numerous small confrontations, creating a collective effect. What follows is a detailed account of Hamond’s blockade of the Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay. He believed that a forceful blockade would prevent Philadelphia’s munitions trade with the West Indies.8 He explained:
The Merchants in the French and Dutch West India Islands tell the Merchants at Philadelphia … that if they will send them very small fast sailing Pilot boats, they can supply them amply with Powder, Arms and Clothing at very little risk, but as they have no money to send in return, and these Vessels will not convey the bulky commodities of America, they can not devise any mode for remittances to be made, and unless that can be done the trade must drop. Therefore the necessity of shutting up the Ports is obvious …9
In March 1776, Hamond outlined the state of the blockade at the Delaware Capes, where the task was to cut Philadelphia’s trade. His ships had already been frustrated by shoals and tides at the mouth of Delaware Bay, which had prevented them from getting two rebel privateers. Other rebel privateers had confounded his tender the Lord Howe, but it had been able to take the Grace, a Philadelphia ship bound for Virginia, at Cape Henlopen.10 Earlier, the Lord Howe had also captured the Stockholm out of Dutch St Eustatius bound for Egg Harbor, New Jersey with 745 barrels of powder and bale goods.
Hamond had arrived just after the destruction of Norfolk, and Governor Dunmore asked him to organize his diverse fleet in the Chesapeake. On his way, Hamond sent the Stockholm to Norfolk to be refitted as the tender Maria. He ‘manned and armed’ her with an officer and four men and sent her, with the Lord Howe, after two small sloops coming down the bay destined for North Carolina, which they took, one in ballast and the other, the Polly, with groceries. Hamond distributed the food amongst his ships’ companies.11 Next, Lieutenant George Ball sent Hamond the Dove, a vessel bound for Philadelphia from Plymouth, Massachusetts, which Hamond scuttled as it was in ballast.
The Roebuck then left Dunmore, returning to Cape Henlopen on March 25, and renewed the Delaware blockade. In late March and April, it remained between Cape Henlopen and Cape May, along with its tenders and ultimately the frigate Liverpool and sloop Otter, inspecting ships, searching for pilots and taking numerous prizes. Shipping from Philadelphia would attempt to evade his blockade by maneuvering in the shallows and by running their ships on to the land, where the cargo might be unloaded by local militia. Realizing the difficulty in confronting enemy ships in the shoals, Hamond would let them pass the capes into open water, where the Roebuck could freely give chase and easily catch them. He also continued to perform a balancing act in placing ships at both the Delaware and Virginia Capes as he was ‘desirous to keep the little footing we have in Virginia secure’.12 He did this so well that rebel authorities reported that the Roebuck was in both bays simultaneously.
The day after his return to Delaware Bay, Hamond sent his ships in pursuit of a Lewes pilot schooner owned by Henry Fisher, agent of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety. The schooner wanted to get to Philadelphia with the news of the Roebuck’s arrival.13 Hamond’s squadron had no difficulty in taking the vessel, but in the fog the crew escaped in a skiff and disappeared. This schooner was the first prize that Hamond would convert to serve in his squadron, because it would be useful in chasing enemy vessels. On March 28/29, he decided to destroy three of his prizes off Cape Henlopen – the Dove, Dolphin and Betsey – as he assessed they offered no advantages.
The Continental Navy posed no threat to Hamond’s blockade, as its ships aimed to avoid him, getting into the Atlantic at any cost. The Roebuck and the tender Maria confronted their first Continental warship, the 10-gun sloop Hornet under Captain William Stone, which fled and was able to elude them.14 A week later, the Roebuck chased the Continental brig Lexington under Captain John Barry, but it escaped.
Hamond had to gauge the performance of his new tenders like the Maria and Lord Howe in supporting the squadron. On its own, the Maria brought in a small Philadelphia-bound sloop laden with oats. At least twice, however, Hamond was forced to tow the Maria behind the Roebuck, probably because its crew was unable to manage it in difficult waters. On April 7, he sent a tender and two armed boats after a vessel, which they drove ashore, but were unable to bring off because a rebel shore party kept up a constant fire against them.15
Refitted merchant prizes like the Lord Howe did not necessarily make good tenders. Its capture of the Grace was not profitable because it had no cargo. Hamond also felt the Lord Howe had failed in its principal task, which was to acquire a Philadelphia pilot. He wanted something larger than it to serve as a tender, ideally a vessel that could carry ten guns. Finally, on April 9 he decided to disarm the Maria and Lord Howe and send them to be laid up at Norfolk. It made more sense to take recruits from the Lord Howe and Grace to fill the gaps in the Roebuck’s crew.16 Lewes’ rebels were puzzled by the tenders’ disappearance and assumed that they had been taken by their land forces.
Without its tenders, during April, the Roebuck had a successful run in blockading shipping. It captured a vessel ‘laden with shot & stores for a battery erecting in North Carolina’.17 Then, it took the sloop Sally from North Carolina, ‘laden with pitch tar & turpentine, which the rebels are in great want of’, and the Roebuck’s tenders, after removing the cargo, destroyed the ship. Six days later, the Chance, under Philadelphia’s Captain Cropley Rose, laden with flax seed and staves, was boarded as it came down from Philadelphia. Rose argued with Hamond, claiming that the vessel belonged to an English merchant and that the cargo was shipped legally according to an Act of Parliament. On examination of the ship’s papers, however, Hamond discovered that it belonged to a rebel, Mr Carson of Philadelphia, who had been importing powder and arms from the Netherlands. Hamond seized the mostly English crew and replaced them with a prize crew that was to sail the ship to be condemned at the Halifax Admiralty Court.
On April 12, four vessels and a pilot boat came to Delaware Bay steering for Cape May.18 The Roebuck was at the opposite side near Lewes and rather than immediately chasing them, it purposely allowed them to pass out into the Atlantic. The Roebuck then pursued them in the open water and took the schooner Dolphin with a cargo of hams and bread, bound for Dutch St Eustatius. Hamond also took the pilot boat. While he did not know it, the two vessels that eluded him were the first commissioned Philadelphia privateers Congress and Chance.
A few days later, the Roebuck intercepted a brig under Danish colors from St Croix headed for Philadelphia. As she had no valuable cargo, Hamond decided to send her back to St Croix with a warning to the governor that if they continued to allow such shipping to go, it would be considered ‘a breach of the neutrality’.19
The acquisition of tenders was an ongoing project. While Hamond discharged many of his tenders, he complained about ‘the great misfortune that has attended my not having a small sloop or two with me, which I have now been in daily expectation of arriving from headquarters’. Continuing to look for suitable tenders, he took the pilot schooner Ranger, and armed and adopted it as a tender, keeping its name. Then the sloop Little John, with a cargo of salt, limes, molasses and rum, was taken as it arrived from Bermuda.20 Hamond adopted the ship, arming it and renaming it the Pembroke, and placed a midshipman with a crew on it.
Not for the last time, the Roebuck was twice endangered by being stuck on a shoal. The rise of tide and wind got her off without damage on both occasions.21 Hamond was only delayed a day and was able to continue taking prizes.
Overall, the capture of numerous prizes would not in itself make Hamond or his ship’s company rich. In practice, Hamond had to adopt or scuttle more ships than he was willing to keep as prizes. He admitted the Roebuck and its tenders had ‘taken 6 or 7 small vessels, but as none of them … had cargoes of much value, [he] rather chose to destroy them than weaken [his] ships company by sending men on board to navigate them’.22 To go to a distant Admiralty court required precious sailors and avoidance of the captive crew’s efforts to retake its ship.
The blockade experience would cause one of Hamond’s sister ships to be better organized to profit from capturing prizes. The entire ship’s company of the sister frigate Liverpool produced a document of October 7, 1776, in which they designated ‘Capt. Henry Bellew of the said ship and Mr George Sherry of the Bugle our agents for all such prize or prizes as shall have been sent or may hereafter be sent by us to the Port of New York’.23 The two were to act as their attorneys to recover all sums, goods and merchandise belonging to the company, representing them before governors and judges. The transaction was signed by Bellew, two lieutenants, the master, the boatswain, the gunner, the lieutenant of marines, the clerk, two master’s mates, and three midshipmen, representing eighty-five seamen, landsmen, boys and marines. It was sent to the Vice Admiralty Court at New York.
Hamond would have been amused to know that his blockade had earned his squadron the epitaph of being ‘British Pirates’ from Major Henry Fisher of Lewes. The Roebuck’s blockade threatened not only trade but opened the possibility of his squadron combining with Delaware’s Loyalists. On account of the Roebuck’s success, the rebels in Lewes felt they were surrounded by Loyalists and found it necessary to seek outside help. The Lewes area soon became a Whig fortress surrounded by 1,500 ‘Disaffected’ (the term used by many rebels to describe Loyalists). From April to July 1776, Lieutenant Enoch Anderson of Haslet’s Delaware regiment confronted Loyalist patrols on his way to Lewes and Dover. While he claimed to be in fear of being taken captive to the Roebuck, he was able to arrive in Lewes unscathed and noted that the ‘Loyalists were willing to remain neutral and keep the peace’.24 Anderson demonstrated that the Roebuck was working with local Loyalists, who had not yet drawn hard lines between themselves and rebels like himself.
While Hamond’s official duty remained the blockade, in mid-January 1776, he had also been given leeway ‘to destroy those floating batteries, and to weight up or otherwise render useless the machines sunk in the channel of the [Delaware] River’ to protect Philadelphia.25 Here was authority to leave the Delaware Capes and push northward on the Delaware River and test the defenses immediately below Philadelphia.
In late April, Hamond decided to move his squadron northward on the river in search of fresh water to fill his casks. He anchored and got the water at Fenwick Island, which he used as a base for the next weeks, his ships visiting Bombay Hook, Port Penn and finally Newcastle.26 The squadron’s presence on the Delaware prevented ammunition from being sent to the rebels at Lewes and it ended the shipping of wheat from local farms to mills on the Brandywine River. As the squadron moved up the Delaware, Fisher reported on it, alarming Port Penn. This was one of thirteen alarm posts the Pennsylvania navy had created, stretching from Cape Henlopen to Bombay Hook, Delaware and then to Chester, Pennsylvania in Philadelphia’s vicinity.
On May 4, Hamond admitted to General Henry Clinton that
Without a body of troops to act in conjunction with me, I confess, I see no great advantage that would arise in clearing the passage of the [Delaware]; it would only afford an opportunity of cannonading [Philadelphia] for a short time, and the navigation can be stopped without it.27
Hamond realized that bombarding Philadelphia would be useless without troops, especially as the blockade at the Capes had already brought the city’s trade to a standstill.
The next day, the Roebuck moved up the Delaware River, chasing the Continental warships Lexington and Wasp. Its squadron now consisted of the Liverpool and two tenders. The chase went on for two days, until the Wasp, commanded by Charles Alexander, escaped up the Christiana River, while the Lexington hid near Wilmington. There they remained; neither of these Continental warships would figure in the confrontation that was coming. Two days later, Hamond’s squadron was off Wilmington, where a rebel vessel was driven ashore and its cargo of bread and flour confiscated. It was claimed that Wilmington’s citizens were attempting ‘to ingratiate themselves with’ Hamond.28
On May 6 at 1 p.m., a confrontation began (which lasted for two days) between the Roebuck’s squadron and the newly created Pennsylvania navy. Hamond was still thinking in terms of the blockade, his decks were covered with filled water casks, not cleared for action. He reported, ‘[The rebel] fleet consisted of 13 Row Galley’s [sic], each carrying a Gun, from 18 to 32 Pounders, a Floating Battery of 10 Eighteen pounders, and a Sloop fitted as a fire ship.’29 Actually neither the fire ship nor the floating battery would be in the confrontation, which would be carried out exclusively by the galleys. They kept their distance and remained on the river’s edges so that Hamond admitted, ‘being such low objects on the water, it was with some difficulty that we could strike them, so that we fired upon them near two hours.’ The rebel galleys responded with an ample expenditure of ammunition, but their distance was so far from his squadron they failed to damage his ships. John Emmes, a rebel captive on the Roebuck, confirmed that most of the galleys’ shot failed to reach the ship. George Read, New Castle attorney and Whig, commented similarly on the first day’s encounter, ‘I suppose it will be thought that too much powder and shot have been expended by the gallies …, but I am well satisfied they have produced a very happy effect upon the multitudes of spectators.’ The expenditure of powder was watched by Wilmington crowds along the shore, who were entertained as if it were a fireworks show.
In the evening, to get closer to the galleys the Roebuck moved forward but was grounded on the New Jersey shore. Hamond had the Liverpool and the tenders form a protective screen to warn him if the galleys returned. Plans went as far as the abandonment of the Roebuck and the transference of the crew to the Liverpool, but the galleys did not appear and must have been unaware of the vulnerable state of the Roebuck. She healed so far that her gun ports had to be closed to prevent flooding. (Healing is the dangerous situation in which the ship tilts to its side and does not return to an upright position.) The Liverpool finally got the Roebuck’s stream cable on board by 4 a.m. and the ship was freed, moving into deeper water. It was undamaged because the bottom mud was soft.30 This was not the last time the Roebuck was stuck in the mud. Rebel authorities claimed it had been stuck on shoals only a few days before in the vicinity of Odessa, although it had managed to free itself and made its way to New Castle. Still, the close call near the rebel galleys was a lesson neither Hamond nor his crew would forget.
The following day, Hamond found that the galleys 3 miles above him had been supplied with fresh ammunition. With the wind in his favor he moved against them and they ‘industriously played their oars & sails to avoid us’.31 As the British moved north, the wind slackened and the river narrowed so that Hamond was wary of the possibility of being again stuck and he decided instead to move south hoping to lure the galleys closer to a wider part of the river. In the late afternoon, he noted, the galleys ‘followed us, and kept up a smart fire, but cautiously remained at their usual distance’. As night came, the galleys stopped their pursuit near New Castle and Hamond anchored his squadron. The galleys had inflicted some damage on the Liverpool, but not all of their galleys had been able to reach this New Castle anchorage.
Later, Hamond summed up the confrontation with the observation, ‘they fired away seven tons of powder at us, without doing us the least mischief, except the loss of one man in the Roebuck.’32 The damage discrepancy between Hamond’s and rebel sources may be attributed to a difference of perspective: Royal Navy ships were always prepared for combat or bad weather and routinely expected to receive and repair damage. The Roebuck’s carpenters applied a compound called plaster to effectively plug holes. The boatswain routinely knotted and spliced rigging to repair it. Rebel vessels often had no one to do this.
Hamond’s squadron continued southward to Reedy Island, where it spent three days filling its water casks.33 George Reed noted that the squadron still blockaded the river and that powder and lead destined for Lewes would have to be carried overland to avoid it. Moreover, small farmers continued to be unable to use the Delaware to ship their grain to the Brandywine mills. In Philadelphia, Congress sent Lambert Wickes, captain of the 18-gun Continental ship Reprisal, to confront the Roebuck.34 However, before Reprisal was able to find the Roebuck, it collided with her sister ship, the 24-gun Montgomery, which carried away her ‘Jibb boom’. Wickes had to return to Philadelphia to repair his ship, thus ending his effort to shadow the Roebuck.
While the Roebuck had not penetrated Philadelphia’s defenses, its squadron remained at the mouth of the Delaware, effectively blockading the city’s trade, making it seem that the colonies’ largest city was under continuous siege. On September 10, 1776, much after these events, the Dutch newspaper Middelburgsche Courant reported that the Roebuck ‘and two war barges’ had aimed an attack on Philadelphia.35 The paper’s source was two Philadelphia ships with a load of corn in the harbor of Cadiz, Spain. Clearly this news was old and exaggerated. The routine activities of the blockade had somehow turned into an invasion.
The formal capture of Philadelphia by General William and Admiral Richard Howe took place a year later. William Howe was brilliant enough to leave the advance against the city’s extensive naval defenses till last, after the city had already fallen to him. The Delaware River defenses south of the city were formidable, including at least four chevaux de frizes, the Billingsport gun battery, and Forts Mercer and Mifflin.36 It took from October to mid-November 1777 to destroy them and the navy suffered the loss of a ship of the line, the Augusta, and another vessel, while the army was exposed to heavy casualties. However, the Pennsylvania state navy and three Continental frigates, Effingham, Washington and Delaware, proved ineffective in the defense and were forced to flee north above the city. With other priorities, Washington suggested several times that they should be scuttled, but Pennsylvania captains and Marine Committee members could not face such a draconian end. They finally accepted Washington’s advice and the ships disappeared into Delaware ports, though the Washington and Effingham were caught and burnt by the Royal Navy. When Admiral Howe decided to leave to winter at Newport, Andrew Hamond replaced him as commander of the occupation fleet with the duty of keeping Philadelphia’s Delaware River supply lines open. On the basis of his earlier experience with the blockade, he would again be a success in the narrow Delaware waters.