Rumors flew in Britain of “no less than thirty” privateers fitting out in France with international crews said to include “a number of our best seamen, allured by the prospect of getting a great deal of prize money.” Insurance rates on shipments across the Channel jumped another 10 percent as unverified sightings of privateers “infesting” waters from Ireland to Spain poured in.
Rancor mounted in Britain’s maritime community as merchants criticized local privateers for avoiding battle with their American counterparts and preferring instead to “cruise the latitudes of the enemy, where they joyfully succeed in taking prizes.” And British newspapers mocked “the secretary and clerks of the Admiralty” for their rosy war reports and began highlighting demeaning incidents such as transports surrendering to privateers armed with wooden guns “for deception” and a Royal Navy frigate accidentally discharging a celebratory holiday volley into an adjacent troop ship.
When Conyngham returned to Dunkirk with Prince of Orange and one other prize in tow, a storm of diplomatic fury greeted him. Dunkirk’s delicate political status made the move “imprudent” in Franklin’s view and “stupid” in Vergennes’s. On Louis XVI’s decree, Surprise was confiscated, its prizes restored to Britain, and Conyngham thrown in jail. This pleased Stormont (“a temporary triumph,” Deane shrugged) and drew praise from George III, who called it “strong proof that the Court of Versailles means to keep appearances.”
Many Britons were less sanguine, deeming Conyngham’s “mock confinement” a phony gesture. Vergennes didn’t care. “It matters little to His Majesty whether His determination has or has not excited the gratitude of the English.”
Confident of his nation’s dominant position in its negotiations with Congress, Vergennes saw no rush to enter the war. “Whatever may be the strength of the English army, it appears that the Americans are in a position to face them.” Time seemed on France’s side. A year earlier, he’d downplayed the need to help America win at any cost. “If they fail, we will have entertained with them, at least momentarily, a trade exchange which is obviously to our advantage.” He still held that view, noting that Britain’s woes presented a rare opportunity for France’s maritime interests. “It is to be hoped that our sailors will have the good sense to profit from the circumstance.”
This languid pragmatism worried the Paris commissioners. Knowing the precariousness of America’s finances and fighting ability, the commissioners resolved to push British pride beyond its limit by perpetrating more treaty violations under French auspices. After all, it made no difference whether France or Britain initiated hostilities against the other as long as one of them pulled the trigger soon.
Franklin continued to play a double game with his hosts. He privately cheered reports of British privateers snatching French transports; it was another pinprick that might “occasion the two powers to stumble on a war whether either really intends it or not.” But his official response was to express deep regret for any inadvertent part played by American mariners in provoking such illegal reprisals. Likewise, after directing Deane to entreat French authorities to release Conyngham on grounds that his return with prizes to Dunkirk had been merely an error in judgment, Franklin excitedly wrote Congress that it was “an act so notorious and so contrary to treaties, that if suffered must cause an immediate war.”
When it didn’t, Deane and Hodge began outfitting another, larger warship in Dunkirk in anticipation of Conyngham’s release in June. The financing was murky. Half the proceeds from the vessel’s eventual voyages went to the government, even though, for appearances’ sake, Hodge was listed as the vessel’s sole owner. His actual share was one half. Deane may personally have taken a percentage of that. John Ross, for one, referred to him as “part owner.” Arthur Lee carried the presumption further, asserting beyond question that Deane bought his stake with public funds.
The vessel, Greyhound, was registered as a transport, albeit a singular one, “painted blue and yellow, built for the smuggling trade, and reported to be a fast sailer.” Fourteen cannon and twenty-two swivels were hidden in its hold. Before approving its departure, local authorities certified that no Frenchmen were among its crew. When on the eve of its launch British officials lodged a last-minute protest of Hodge’s earlier connection to Surprise, Hodge countered by immediately selling Greyhound to one Richard Allen, a little-known English sea captain of apparently spotless reputation.
The vessel sailed. Once offshore, its guns were mounted, the forty-man crew was augmented with sixty-six French “desperadoes,” and Revenge became its new name. Under carefully worded orders conveyed by Carmichael from Franklin and Deane, the vessel was to return straight to America, “notwithstanding which if necessity obliges you to obtain provisions either in making prizes for your own preservation or in making reprisal for damages sustained.”
Lest the commissioners’ meaning still be unclear, Carmichael offered “verbal explanations that could not be committed to paper.” As intended, this got the crew clamoring for an all-out hunt for British plunder. Having “no interest in diplomacy,” their new commander readily agreed. It wasn’t Richard Allen—there was no such person. Revenge’s captain was Conyngham.
“By his bold expeditions,” Deane wrote Robert Morris six weeks later, “he is become the terror of all the eastern coast of England and Scotland. But though this distresses our enemies,” he cautioned, “it embarrasses us.”
The embarrassment was diplomatic. Stormont, whose fulminations had inspired French officials to turn his name into a verb, stormonter, was again demanding penalties against the commissioners. “There are some things too glaring to be winked at.”
Vergennes at first tried to pin Conyngham’s voyage on “the inter-position of an English subject named Richard Allen,” but the secret of that alias was out. Compelled to throw the ambassador a bone, he had William Hodge locked up in the Bastille for “changing the ownership” of his vessel in order to get it to sea.
Franklin sought his release. Vergennes refused. “I know not whether such tricks are allowed in America, but in France and Europe it is a very serious fault to tell the king a falsehood.”
Commissioner Arthur Lee had been left out of the doings at Dunkirk. Now that the “illegal transaction” had soured relations with the French government, he was quick to lay blame. Speaking for himself and Franklin (who in truth had supported Conyngham’s cruise), he assured Robert Morris, “It was done by Mr. Deane without our knowledge.” For good measure he wrote his brother Richard as well. “Mr. Deane seems desirous of persuading us and others to be in ill-humor with the Court for taking violent measures to which they have been compelled by his unwarrantable conduct.”
Lee was distancing himself from Vergennes’s public displeasure—but in private the foreign minister was less adamant. He cautioned Louis XVI that “declaring them and their countrymen to be pirates and sea robbers” risked “implanting in the breasts of the Americans a hatred and a desire for revenge which the lapse of centuries will perhaps not eradicate.” His point was that Americans wouldn’t soon forgive, if it came to pass, France’s failure to stand by them in their bid for independence. And the beneficiary of their resentment would be Britain.
This acknowledgment heralded a shift in the ongoing negotiations. While still awaiting the right moment to exploit it fully, Franklin had understood from the beginning that France needed an American alliance. Now Vergennes understood it, too.
On September 25, the foreign minister issued revised instructions which Stormont tersely conveyed to London:
“Hodge is set at liberty.”
Revenge took twenty prizes in fourteen months of operation in European waters. Its captain became “the Dunkirk pirate” in the British press, a “nightmare figure” who burned or sank an additional two dozen vessels and ransomed several others.
Ransoming, legal at the time, enabled a captor to set free a prize in exchange for a negotiated fee to be paid on the prize’s safe return to its owner. (Conyngham as
ked that his fee be sent to the Paris commissioners.) Often the prize’s captain, who signed the pledge in his employer’s name, was held prisoner till payment arrived.
Britain was ransoming’s leading proponent. The law helped the Royal Navy to collect on the value of a captured ship without having to spare a prize crew to sail it home for settlement. But in 1782 Parliament would declare it “unlawful for any British subject to agree to ransom any British vessel” on penalty of £500. The privateers’ success forced the change in policy. “Now it was Britain’s enemies whose cruising range was extended by ransom practice.”
After circling the British Isles that first summer, Conyngham deposited prisoners, sold prizes, and refitted at Spanish ports. Two merchant houses, Lagoanere & Company of Coruña and Gardoqui & Sons of Bilbao, handled his affairs in a cooperative arrangement in which costs and revenues were shared “with perfect consideration,” Lagoanere told a business partner in November 1777. But confusion set in when Arthur Lee got involved. After learning that Ross and Hodge were in Spain monitoring Conyngham’s activities at Deane’s behest, he fired off imperious letters to Conyngham and the Spanish merchants hinting at misdeeds and cover-ups.
Spies working for Britain’s ambassador in Paris, Lord Stormont, informed him of every detail of France’s clandestine aid to America. His threats of violent reprisal had little effect on French officials increasingly confident of the damage the Revolution and, in particular, the privateers were doing to the British economy—and they played into Franklin’s plan to incite war between Britain and France “sooner than is desired by either party.”
“Mr. Hodge and Mr. Ross have no right to direct or control you,” he wrote the captain, “neither had Mr. Deane any right to dispose of the prizes you made, as Monsieur Lagoanere informs us he has done.” Lee demanded to review beforehand any dispersal of prize money from now on. “Individuals who may be concerned will have their share when they prove their right.”
Conyngham, though puzzled by Lee’s orders “contradicting those of Mr. Deane,” was accommodating. He asked only that his men be paid (they wouldn’t sail otherwise) and that his prize earnings, once available, be sent to his wife and children in Philadelphia in the event of his death or capture.
Ross and Hodge were intimidated, however. Through insinuations “artful and wicked,” Hodge wrote his colleague, “Arthur Lee, Esquire, has been of considerable detriment to me, and has puzzled me to know how to act in regard to the accounts.”
Lee’s true target was Deane. In hopes of catching him in a lie, he regularly checked Deane’s assertions with Ross and Hodge to confirm “whether you understand it so.” The queries led Ross to warn Deane about appearing too independent. “Circumstances and my own observations lead me to see it necessary for you to act as much as possible with consent and approbation of your colleagues, lest your distinct services for the public in your present station (however well intended) may be misrepresented or misconstrued.”
Undeterred, Deane continued to direct Conyngham’s activities from Paris in a loose style that gratified the Spanish merchants if not Lee. They welcomed the business of other privateers and solicited colleagues to front Conyngham “all the money he will ask of you, upon drafts on us.”
So well did the merchants make out, when John Adams visited Spain two years later, Lagoanere handed him $3,000 in cash. A Bayonne merchant gave Adams “a letter of credit for as much more as I should have occasion for,” while another in Bordeaux offered a bill of exchange “for the like sum.” Adams’s travel expenses were “paid upon sight” and even his government salary, he advised Congress, could be drawn from Lagoanere’s funds if necessary. The source of this largesse seemed to surprise him, “being part of the proceeds of some prizes heretofore made by Captain Conyngham.”
Interestingly, Deane’s later testimony to Congress described Conyngham’s expeditions out of Spain in 1777 as a tactical winner but a financial drain. The first prize settled there “turned to little account,” he said, “as did also some others he afterwards captured.”
This was the truth as far as he knew. Though his critics contended that he discounted the vessel’s profits in order to pocket them, throughout its period of operation he consistently lamented Revenge’s red ink to friends and colleagues. The settlement snafus that plagued New England privateering occurred in Europe as well, delaying the accumulation of revenue; what were surpluses by the time Adams arrived were deficits to Deane. Thus by the fall of 1777 he was looking to unload Revenge “on account of the unsuccessful, expensive cruises of that vessel.”
Admitting that he didn’t expect a price “equal to the first cost” of its original purchase in Dunkirk, Deane proposed that Ross buy the government’s half-interest in the vessel and become co-owner with Hodge. He didn’t doubt that Conyngham and Revenge would continue to attack British trade; he predicted that they’d operate more effectively “under private instructions.” Being on scene in Spain rather than in Paris, Ross realized Revenge’s earning potential and agreed to buy it.
He nervously notified Arthur Lee of the pending deal, saying it was “agreeable to all parties.” Lee scotched it at once “owing to some difficulties” he didn’t articulate. They were clear enough to Deane and his subordinates. “The jealous disposition of Mr. Lee, which led him to apprehend designs injurious to him in everyone he dealt with, gave a general disgust and often proved prejudicial to our affairs.”
There were other setbacks. In December Conyngham seized a Spanish transport bearing British cargo. His excuse that the Royal Navy often ignored neutral flags didn’t assuage Spanish annoyance, and the crew Conyngham had placed aboard the prize was briefly imprisoned. Deane upbraided his captain (“in future let French, Spanish and other neutral vessels pass without detaining them”) and assured Lagoanere and Gardoqui that their support would bring no further embarrassment. That Conyngham still cursed the “damned policy” didn’t bode well, however.
The influx of privateers from America made such violations more common. A pair of Charleston vessels captured a Rotterdam sloop. A Massachusetts privateer, Civil Usage, managed to insult “two Bourbon courts” in one swoop by taking a French ship carrying Spanish goods, while a warship from New Hampshire did American diplomacy no favor by seizing a load of British beef bound for the French navy.
But the most egregious violation, occurring in May 1778, again involved Conyngham. Upon overhauling a Swedish brig, Honoria Sophia, he found a valuable cargo of wine, fruit, and oil. His crew, understatedly described as “not always amenable to discipline or willing to abide by the laws of civilized warfare,” composed and signed a crude release. “Whereas Captain Conyngham says that he has directions not to insult any neutral flag, yet the cargo appearing so plain to be British property we have engaged him to take her and try her chance to America.”
The dispatch westward of Honoria Sophia was the great affront in this case; it showed that Revenge’s men knew the capture was illegal and that their only chance for a payoff was in a prize court far from Europe. Now Sweden joined in the condemnation of “an American corsair named Conyngham,” whose claim that he’d been pressured into the deed by his crew found few believers in light of his fierce reputation.
Franklin undertook the usual damage control (“it is a crime in our eyes to have displeased a power for which Congress is penetrated with respect”), while Arthur Lee spread word that the incident’s fallout was dire but not his fault. In fact it subsided in a few months. Europe, in Deane’s phrase, was “embarrassed with connections and alliances” that often generated more diplomatic smoke than fire.
Still, the uproar over Honoria Sophia convinced Conyngham it was time quit Europe. His new destination was the same place the Swedish ship had ended up for settlement—Saint-Pierre, Martinique, the most avid privateering port outside New England.
His arrival in October 1778 was welcomed by Bingham. Knowing from experience that successful privateering required a satisfied crew, the agent advanced Reven
ge’s men a “bounty” against their future prize earnings before dispatching them after “the grand object” of enemy trade. Near St. Eustatius in November, Conyngham took three small transports and a British privateer in a single day. More captures followed (“this intrepid commander,” raved the Boston Gazette), until at last he headed home to Philadelphia in February 1779.
He arrived not to acclaim but to lawsuits. Three members of a prize crew he’d sent from Europe had filed a complaint that he’d concealed prize money through a private arrangement with Hodge, the man they said was Revenge’s true owner. The captain, who remembered his accusers well (“a very troublesome and mutinous disposition”), was called before Congress’s Marine Committee, headed by Richard Henry Lee, to explain:
“I admit that the command I was engaged in was intricate in its nature, but I must observe that I did all in my power to prevent any obscurity in the business so far as related to myself and the commissioners under whose authority I acted. I know of no evidence existing to prove or justify the idea of the vessel being private property, nor ever did I consider myself under the direction of any private person or persons.”
To support his defense, Conyngham was asked to provide “financial accounts and letters of instruction” pertaining to his voyages. It was impossible. For almost two years he’d been at sea, in prison, or darting in and out of foreign ports. Unable to make a ruling either way, Congress dismissed the matter and put Revenge up for auction.
Conyngham used the occasion of the inquiry to press a claim for back pay. “I also think myself entitled to two-twentieths of all prizes sent into port. This was sacredly promised to me by the American commissioners in Paris.” He apologized that his estimate of monies owed wasn’t exact, “but as nearly so as I was able from the information I was then possessed of.”
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