Early in the war, Massachusetts authorities had asked Washington to send an invasion force against Halifax and Nova Scotia in an effort to add it to the colonies supporting the Revolution. Halifax had almost no garrison and it was estimated that 1,000 men, four armed vessels and eight transports were all that was needed to subdue the colony.1 Washington, who was besieging Boston, knew that he did not have the resources for such an effort, and while it was often planned, no amphibious rebel expedition would ever be formed against Nova Scotia. Instead, its future would be determined in naval action in what is today Maine, which then belonged to Massachusetts.
In New York, as Sir Henry Clinton was preparing his expedition to Charleston, ever ambitious Lord Germain also asked him to support the expansion of Loyalism in Maine. A new post on Penobscot Bay was to be a place where Loyalists driven from their habitations ‘may be enabled to support themselves and their families without being a continued burden upon the revenue of Great Britain’.2 It also would secure Nova Scotia and provide mast timber and naval stores for the Halifax careening yard. Just as on Lake Champlain, the British found that their best defense was an aggressive offense against New England’s borderlands.
In June 1779, word came to Boston of British activity in Maine. They had begun to erect Fort George on the Bagaduce River side of a spit of land that jutted out into Penobscot Bay, the Bagaduce Peninsula, today’s Castine. Secondary batteries would be located on a nearby island and on the bluff overlooking the landing. Although it was 150 miles north of Boston, it was, from the British standpoint, conveniently located halfway between their naval bases at Halifax and New York.3 From Halifax, Brigadier General Francis McClean came to occupy Bagaduce with a force of almost 700, consisting of the 74th and 82nd regiments and an artillery company. McClean’s force was transported and escorted by a squadron under command of Captain Andrew Barkley, led by the 32-gun French prize Blonde, supported by three sloops, the Albany, the Nautilus and the North, the former under the familiar Captain Henry Mowat. Several locals came aboard the Blonde and assured the captains of ‘their peaceable dis-position’ and a proclamation was drawn up by which the locals would ‘receive gratuitous grants … of all lands they may have actually cultivated and improved’. Barkley then sailed to New York, leaving Mowat in charge of the three sloops. He had been serving in Nova Scotia since the Falmouth incident.
On news of the nearby British threat, the Massachusetts General Court proposed an amphibious operation against Bagaduce’s emerging fortifications. The state’s merchants were ready, as they already had an important stake in the Continental and state navies and were the sponsors of numerous privateers. They would support the raising of a fleet, commanded by Connecticut’s Dudley Saltonstall, and almost 900 militia, serving under Massachusetts’ Brigadier General Solomon Lovell. The latter was a veteran of the Seven Years’ War at Lake George and a gentleman farmer who had represented Weymouth in the assembly for eight years, certainly politically well connected.4
Forty-one-year-old Saltonstall had gone to sea as a youngster and had commanded a privateer in the Seven Years’ War. He had been in charge of the Alfred in Commodore Hopkins’ ill-fated attack on the Glasgow and although charged with incompetence, he was exonerated. His lieutenant had been John Paul Jones, who found him to be a snob, with a ‘rude unhappy temper’.5 Late in 1776, Congress named Saltonstall its fourth-ranking captain after Nicholson, Manley and McNeill. Saltonstall had spent a frustrating 1777 trying to get the frigate Trumbull over the Connecticut River bar and into open water. Even those who felt his talents were underestimated, have described him as ‘a curt, gloomy, surly man who kept to himself’.6
Massachusetts would accept contributions. From nearby New Hampshire came the 20-gun Hampden, a dozen privateers and twenty-one transports.7 In Boston, the Eastern Navy Board would offer three Continental warships, the 12-gun Providence (participant in the Glasgow affair), the Diligent, and the most powerful ship of all: the 32-gun frigate Warren. It was now available because its captain, John Hopkins, had been charged with being a prize agent and suspended.
Saltonstall would use the Warren as his flagship, while the Providence was commanded by the other notable Continental captain, Hoysteed Hacker, sixteenth on the Continental captains’ list.8 In 1775, Hacker had been a mere lieutenant, commanding the schooner Fly. From a Providence, Rhode Island merchant family, he had been willing to take charge of a ship that John Paul Jones turned down, the Hamden, and as a result moved ahead of Jones in seniority. We will see that he and Jones served together in a squadron sent in late 1776 to raid the Cape Breton coal mines, in which Jones thought Hacker’s conduct deserving of a court martial. Jones, of course, was known to be jealous of rival New Englanders, but it appears that Hacker had shortcomings.
In Boston, the same enterprising spirit pervaded as in 1745, when Massachusetts had enthusiastically raised a force that had been promised plunder as a reward for taking the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. Massachusetts leaders seem to have forgotten that the plunder never reached expectations because a requested Royal Navy squadron under Commodore Peter Warren had blockaded Louisbourg and taken all of the valuable prizes. Still, Massachusetts authorities now gathered a fleet of at least thirty-seven ships from various sources, including at least twenty privateers and several transports. Its navy contributed the brigs Hazard and Tyrannicide, and the brigantine Active. The Massachusetts authorities were concerned that it be regarded as an exclusive state enterprise; they even failed to inform Washington of their intentions as they did not want Continental soldiers serving as marines, for they feared ‘If but ten Continental soldiers are concerned, the Continent will take all the honor.’9
The strength of Massachusetts naval contribution actually lay in the fleet’s largest segment, its privateers. In 1778, they had been active, bringing thirty-five prizes from Nova Scotia waters before their vice-admiralty courts. The names of the privateer captains included Nathaniel West, Nathan Brown, Thomas Alexander Holms and William Buke. Six of the privateers carried twenty guns and two more were at eighteen, only the Warren could compete with them in armament.10 The marines were commanded by captains John Welsh and Thomas Jenner Carnes. During the siege, seamen outnumbered Lovell’s men, easily forming parties of 1,000 men or more. The warships were to escort twenty transports with Lovell’s militia to Penobscot. Both in terms of ships and men, this would be the largest fleet produced by the rebels at any time during the war.
At first it was thought that less than a week would be needed to put the expedition together. Speed was crucial because they feared that the fort would be completed or that Bagaduce would be reinforced. In reality it took six weeks to organize. The Massachusetts Commissary General impressed provisions for the expedition, and its agents spread throughout the state to acquire kettles and bowls for food preparation as well barrels of pork and flour, tierces of beef and tons of bread. On July 3, press warrants were issued to officers to procure men for service on their vessels for two months. They were to take any able-bodied seamen found in their precinct. Officers were ‘authorized to enter on board & search any ship … or to break upon and search any dwelling house … in which you shall suspect [they are] concealed’.11 Men were to be delivered over to be assigned among the fleet’s vessels. At least 300 Marines were recruited, to be evenly divided between Massachusetts and Continental ships. The Massachusetts Council was forced to impress not only seamen to serve in the fleet but transports from Boston, Salem, Beverly and Newburyport.
The Eastern Naval Board ordered Saltonstall ‘to captivate, kill or destroy the enemies whole force both by sea and land …’12 On July 19, 1779, he sailed out of Nantasket Roads bound for Penobscot Bay. When the fleet arrived at the bay, it seemed invincible for it greatly outnumbered Mowat’s three sloops and Fort George was less than half finished. While the militia landed and a battery was erected to bombard the fort, the steep cliffs along the bay made it difficult for them to get close enough to confront Mowat’s ships. The Massachusetts captains were mostly privateers, unwilling to have their ships damaged in an artillery duel and hoping for a quick victory rather than a protracted siege.
Meanwhile, the British garrison and seamen from Mowat’s squadron constantly improved their defenses. Mowat was able to prevent the rebels from entering the harbor by placing his ships across its entrance and backing them up with possible fireships. On his own, he sent parties ashore to build an additional square redoubt, in which he placed eight of his ships’ guns to be manned by fifty sailors.13 When besieged, these British land and sea forces would cooperate on a daily basis, swapping ordnance back and forth, while Mowat’s ships would send up to 140 seamen and marines ashore to reinforce McClean.
Lovell, having suffered heavy casualties among his militia and realizing that they were not capable of attacking Fort George alone, asked Saltonstall to risk his ships in an attack on Mowat’s squadron before he would send his troops further. Saltonstall seemed unsure of how to cooperate with Lovell. A petition to him of July 27 by the fleet’s ship masters complained that a prolonged siege was not what was needed. They contended ‘delays in the present case are extremely dangerous: as our enemies are daily strengthening … and are stimulated to do so being in daily expectation of a reinforcement.’14 However, Saltonstall replied to Lovell that the continuing desertions of the fleet’s impressed seamen were so extensive that he could no longer trust his ships. This impasse between Saltonstall and Lovell fatally delayed the expedition from acting.
Finally, plans were laid for a dawn land and sea assault on August 13, but before firing began, news came from a lookout ship that Sir George Collier was returning to the area, rapidly approaching with a relief squadron from New York. We have seen Collier at Chesapeake Bay in May 1779, but before this he had been in command of the North American squadron at Halifax. In 1778, he had led a squadron from Halifax to New England that took forty prizes and recaptured nine.15 Collier’s success from Halifax had resulted in his promotion in March 1779 to the acting command of the North American station in New York.
While the relief squadron may have had more firepower, it had fewer ships than the Massachusetts fleet. It was made up of his Raisonable, frigates Blonde (under Barkley), Virginia and Greyhound, and the sloops Camilla, Galatea and Otter, familiar names from Collier’s Chesapeake expedition three months before.16 In addition, Mowat would reconstitute his squadron, returning the guns that he had lent to the fort, sending a list of the rebel fleet to Collier, warping his vessels down the Bagaduce River and out to the bay, where he joined the Blonde in moving up the Penobscot River.
In Collier’s words, the rebel fleet seemed ‘inclined to dispute the passage. Their resolution, however, soon failed them; and an unexpected and ignominious flight took place.’17 Saltonstall’s captains had voted not to meet Collier, instead retreating up the narrowing Penobscot River, which emptied into Penobscot Bay. In the rout, fourteen vessels were burnt or scuttled by their own crews, while twenty-eight fell into Collier’s hands. The Warren, one of the original thirteen frigates commissioned in 1775, was burnt to avoid capture, while the Providence, Delight and Massachusetts warships were abandoned to the British. Having lost all of their ships, the New England sailors were forced to join their soldiers on land, retreating in the wildest confusion. Falmouth’s Committee of Safety reported the arrival of Penobscot seamen, who wandered in and were without officers and order ‘under the greatest distress imaginable obliging us to furnish them with necessary provisions and relive their distresses’.18 Nearly 500 New Englanders were killed or taken prisoner, while the British lost only fifteen. Collier had decisively destroyed the Massachusetts and New Hampshire navies along with some of the last Continental ships.
The most recent account of the debacle has claimed that Massachusetts authorities and Lovell conspired to put the full blame on Saltonstall. A late September investigation by the Massachusetts General Court asserted that expedition had failed ‘owing … to the lateness of our arrival before the enemy, the smallness of our land forces, & the uniform backwardness of the Commander of the fleet’.19 The General Court was most concerned to spread the $7 million cost of the debacle to its partners so that it would not be caught bearing the entire expense. After the fact, Congress was coaxed to contribute $2 million toward the overall cost.
For the General Court, Saltonstall, a Continental naval officer, was a convenient scapegoat. However, it hard to see Saltonstall as an inspiring or decisive leader. Under oath, he admitted he was ‘totally unacquainted with the [Penobscot] river’. A court martial would dismiss him from the Continental Navy and he would never hold a command in it again. Still, his influential Connecticut family, which included Silas Deane, saw to it that he was not brought to trial. Like so many ex-Continental officers, he was offered the captaincy of the newly refitted privateer, the Minerva, in which from May to July 1781, he had modest success.
In putting the emphasis on Saltonstall, the General Court ignored the fact that while the privateers were the largest segment of the fleet, they were not prepared for the siege and were less effective than their numbers suggest. Surely Lovell’s militia should also share the blame for the failed amphibious operation? In Congress, the dominance that New England had exercised in the founding of the Continental Navy was tarnished, as leaders from Pennsylvania like Benjamin Franklin and Robert Morris moved to the forefront of naval administration.
The Bagaduce defenses would remain in British hands until 1784. Even before the Massachusetts expedition, McClean had sent out a call to the surrounding settlements for volunteers to work on the Fort George’s defenses. At least 100 had responded and although at first they worked for free, McClean soon offered them hard currency, something that had not been seen in years.20 As a result, Loyalism grew and many sought the creation of a new province around the new defenses, dubbed New Ireland. As agent for the Penobscot Loyalists, Dr John Calef, an Ipswich Loyalist, went to England and petitioned the king, extolling the virtues of the Penobscot area. In London, the cabinet responded favorably, outlining the usual colonial administration, including an assembly. The ministry, however, found itself overwhelmed by the demands of a transatlantic war and was unable to provide the resources for the new colony.
Meanwhile, some Continental ships had not been involved in the Massachusetts buildup for the Penobscot expedition and were free to seek prizes. Back from Europe, Captain Thomas Simpson was able to put aside his earlier disobedience to the Marine Committee and undertake a cruise, with the familiar Ranger, joined with the 28-gun Providence under Abraham Whipple and again the Queen of France, now under John Rathburn. From Boston, they went north to the Newfoundland’s Banks, where in July 1779, flying a British flag as a ruse, by chance fell in with the British Jamaica convoy homeward bound, consisting of 150 sail protected by a ship of the line. They succeeded in capturing and retaining seven transports, which were brought into Boston Harbor. Those prizes had cargoes of ‘rum, sugar, logwood, pimento, &c., were sold and the proceeds split between the government and the officers and crews’.21 It was the richest haul that Continental ships took during the war, showing that their most lucrative targets were large convoys, where it was impossible for a few Royal Navy escorts to keep track of their charges. It contrasted a few months later with John Paul Jones’ failure to take the Baltic Convoy at Flamborough Head. Still this Continental success was exceptional, for both the Ranger and Queen of France would soon be lost at the surrender of Charleston in 1780.
With its navy destroyed at Penobscot, New England authorities would never again attempt to coordinate a large fleet with an army. As Continental ships disappeared, the war effort was left to privateers like Saltonstall’s Minerva, which sailed in small squadrons or singly. Among their motives, they claimed it was revenge for the Penobscot debacle.22
On Nova Scotia’s south coast, west of Halifax, Liverpool was a special target of New England privateers because it had sent out its own privateers against them. The last New England privateer raid on Liverpool occurred about a year after the Penobscot debacle. At night, the privateers, Surprize under Captain Benjamin Cole, and Delight, under Captain Lane, unloaded seventy men at Ballast Cove. By early morning they had captured the fort and taken most of the garrison as prisoner. However, Colonel Simon Perkins called out the militia, and captured Cole and negotiated with Lane for the recovery of the fort and the release of the prisoners. Within a few hours ‘every thing [was] restored to its former Situation without any Blood Shed’.23 While Liverpool would not be bothered by rebel privateers for the remainder of the war, other places in Nova Scotia were.
The use of privateers in the region was now controversial even among rebels. Hostility to privateering came on two levels. In June 1778, William Whipple, a New Hampshire delegate to Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, felt the true culprit for the lack of Continental seamen were the privateers that attracted seamen in devious ways. In Portsmouth, he complained that privateers ‘introduce luxury, extravagance, and every kind of dissipation that tend to the destruction of the morals of a people …’24 He asserted that they not only attacked enemy ships but any ship so long as the taking was lucrative.
Other local leaders felt that the privateers’ plundering was heartless to the point of alienating people who might be their friends. Colonel John Allen of Massachusetts, who had previously lived in Nova Scotia, complained of Massachusetts privateers ‘depredations committed on the coast of Nova Scotia [that] is cruel, robing [sic] the very people who … are secreting & spiriting prisoner subjects of the States in getting to [Maine], others go with an excuse to rob certain Tories & to take revenge for private injury’.25 To Allen, these raiding privateers were not part of the war effort, simply treating Nova Scotia’s towns as sources of booty for their personal profit and revenge. He felt that destruction by privateers ended any thought of Nova Scotians joining the New England colonies in rebellion. To see this more clearly, we must now turn to Halifax and Nova Scotia.