The Continental Risque

by James Nelson

‘Ahoy, there!’ the man in the stern sheets shouted with a self-conscious tone, half mocking his own use of the word, the way a landsman will when hailing a vessel, uncertain if that was what sailors really said. ‘Are you Captain Biddlecomb?’

  ‘Yes. Who in the devil are you?’

  But the man did not answer. Rather he turned to the people in the boat and pointing right at Biddlecomb shouted, ‘There! That’s Captain Biddlecomb, the one who chased the Glasgow clear into Newport harbor!’ The others in the boat, those who were not already doing so, turned and looked up through the windows, waving like idiots and grinning at Biddlecomb as if he were there on display.

  ‘What in all hell …’ Biddlecomb said, getting to his feet just as Faircloth, Rumstick, and Weatherspoon crowded around to stare back.

  ‘Huzzah, the Argonauts!’ shouted a man in a gold-trimmed cocked hat, and the others in the boat followed his lead with lusty ‘Huzzah!’s.’

  ‘What in the hell!’ Biddlecomb said, louder this time.

  ‘Listen, sir,’ said Faircloth, cocking his head to the open skylight above. ‘Do you hear it?’

  Biddlecomb listened. There was something, a sound like rustling leaves or water moving past the hull. ‘I hear something … Come, let us go topside,’ he said, directing one last scowl at the wealthy fools in the boat and pushing past his officers to the door of the great cabin. The last thing he heard before stepping past the marine sentry was a feminine voice from the boat saying, ‘Look how that horrid frigate has shot out all of the poor captain’s windows.’

  They stepped through the gunroom, through the scuttle, and aft to the quarterdeck. The sun was well up now, revealing a perfect spring morning. The water was a deep blue, far deeper than the robin’s-egg sky, and the fields that ran down to the river were a vivid green, broken here and there by tilled patches and stands of trees.

  The town of New London was a quarter mile off the larboard side, close enough that the four men on the quarterdeck could make out the finest details of the brick buildings, the storefronts and wharves, the wagons and coaches that filled the streets.

  But they were looking at none of that. They were looking, rather, at the crowd.

  The waterfront, from the north end of town to the south, was packed with people, and from that mob, which jostled and waved and clambered down into boats along the docks, came an almost continuous cheering. Men were waving their hands, waving flags, and women waved handkerchiefs and children raced around. Boats crammed with people, such as the one under the Charlemagne’s transom, swarmed around the anchored fleet like mosquitoes. Biddlecomb had seen nothing like it since the day in Philadelphia when the fleet had gotten under way.

  ‘By God, it would appear that we are heroes, sir!’ Faircloth said, grinning from ear to ear. Biddlecomb met Rumstick’s eye, and Rumstick grinned, and quite despite himself, Biddlecomb grinned as well.

  Faircloth was right. They were heroes, all the brave men of the Continental navy. Word of what they had done, the taking of New Providence, the battering, if not the capture, of the Glasgow, must have spread like fire in a bosun’s locker, and the town of New London had turned out to hail their conquering countrymen.

  ‘Good Lord in heaven,’ Biddlecomb said, still grinning and shaking his head. The yelling from the crowd redoubled, surged and fell like a crashing wave, then surged again.

  Whatever did these people think? Biddlecomb wondered. Did they have any idea how little had been accomplished, and at what a price? Did they understand how much more was left to do? How much blood and misery would be involved in winning liberty of these … what was it that Adams had insisted on calling them? For these United States?

  THE END

  Continued in Lords of the Ocean

  Historical Note

  The men of the first American fleet were indeed hailed as heroes after their return from New Providence. When Hopkins’s report of the voyage was read to Congress and published in various papers throughout the colonies, it generated great excitement and pride at what had been accomplished. President of the Congress John Hancock wrote, ‘Your Account of the Spirit and Bravery shown by the Men, affords them [the Continental Congressmen] the greatest Satisfaction; and encourages them to expect similar Exertions of Courage on every future Occasion.’

  Not until a month or more after their return did the bloom come off the rose and Congress begin to question just what it was that Hopkins had done.

  Sectional differences, suspicions between the Northern colonies and the Southern, had long been a problem with any organized efforts in America. The Continental Army was constantly plagued by infighting along those lines, though the appointment of a Virginian to the post of commander in chief and a strong Southern military tradition did much to assuage Southern concerns.

  The same was not true for the navy. It is hardly surprising, of course, that the majority of captains should come from New England, as that region had the greatest maritime tradition in Colonial America. Still, the preponderance of Yankee captains made the Southern colonies suspicious of that branch of the armed forces, and most opposition to the creation of a navy came from the South.

  Hoping to allay Southern fears, Congress ordered the navy to first relieve the Chesapeake Bay of the despised Lord Dunmore and his small fleet. They were then to make themselves ‘master of such forces as the enemy might have both in North and South Carolina.’ It may have been a tall order for that small fleet, but it was a politically astute one.

  By ignoring those orders, Commodore Hopkins (about whom Henry Knox said he would have ‘mistaken him for an angel, only he swore now and then’) did nothing to assuage Southern feelings. Why Hopkins chose to ignore the directions of Congress will never be known. In his own defense he said that, after putting to sea, he had ‘many sick and four of the vessels had a large number on board with the small pox … I did not think we were in a condition to keep on a cold coast.’

  Having been frozen in the Delaware River for seven weeks had not helped conditions aboard the fleet. And indeed the orders he was given were more than could reasonably have been expected of a small squadron of converted merchantmen. Congress, however, must have considered their orders reasonable, and after sober reflection they were not pleased that those orders had been so thoroughly ignored. Hopkins did not help things as far as the Southern colonies were concerned when, after anchoring in New London, he sent some of the guns taken from New Providence to Connecticut and Rhode Island without even asking permission of Congress to do so.

  More questions were raised as to why the Glasgow was able to escape from the entire American fleet. The answer, in hindsight, is obvious: the American attack was piecemeal and uncoordinated, and the Glasgow was allowed to take on the Cabot and the Alfred one at a time, while those ships in turn prevented the Columbus and the Andrew Doria from joining in the fight until it was too late.

  Hopkins was blamed by Congress for the debacle and has been blamed by historians for failing to coordinate the attack while it was taking place. But in fact he had provided himself with no means to do so, even if he had so desired. The signals that he devised prior to leaving Philadelphia were crude at best. The only relevant signal he had created for such a situation was for the fleet to attack an enemy, and giving that signal would have been pointless. Beyond that, Hopkins could have done nothing, except hope that his captains would make the best of it.

  Nor did the Glasgow escape unscathed. Unfortunately, for the sake of morale, the Americans were not aware of how much damage they had inflicted. In a letter to Philip Stevens, secretary of the admiralty, Vice Admiral Shuldham, the commander of British naval forces in North America wrote:

  His majesty’s Ship Glasgow having on the 6th. Instant off Rhode Island fallen in with and been attack’d by several Armed vessels of the Rebels, in which Action she received so much damage that she was thought unfit to proceed on the execution of the Orders Captain Howe had received for carrying General Howe’s and my Dispatches to the Southward, which we
re unluckily thrown into the sea … I find the Glasgow is in so shattered a Condition and would require so much time, and more stores than there is in this Yard to put her in proper repair, I intend sending her to Plymouth as soon as she can be got ready.

  It is clear that Captain Howe, in command of the Glasgow, did not consider his escape to be a foregone conclusion. Only a captain who believes himself to be in imminent danger of capture throws his orders and dispatches over the side.

  Though they failed to capture or sink the frigate, the Americans did accomplish the next best thing: they knocked her out of action. It is too bad for Hopkins’s career and the reputation of the other captains that the Continental Congress and the nation as a whole did not know that.

  Oddly, little seems to have been made of what was arguably Hopkins’s biggest blunder: his failure to seal off Nassau harbor and prevent the escape of the Mississippi Packet, the St John, and the vast majority of the gunpowder on New Providence. The brief reprieve from criticism that Hopkins enjoyed was largely due to the quantity of military stores he brought to the war effort. Had he also brought New Providence’s entire store of one hundred and eighty-five barrels of gunpowder, that lifeblood of all eighteenth-century warfare for which the Americans were always in such desperate need, he might well have escaped further censure. Unfortunately, his numerous mistakes, tactical and political, along with his subsequent inactivity, were enough to put him in disfavor with Congress. On January 2, 1778, Hopkins was dismissed from the service, and for the rest of the war no one was to hold so high a rank in the American Navy.

  Just as inexplicable as the behavior of Esek Hopkins was the behavior of Gov. Montfort Browne of New Providence, Bahamas. On February 25, more than a week before the Americans’ arrival, Capt. Andrew Law warned Browne that the rebels were coming. How Law knew that is a bit of a mystery, particularly considering that Hopkins seemed to have come up with that destination entirely of his own accord. Perhaps it was a lucky guess on Captain Law’s part.

  In any event, Browne made no preparations for their arrival and mounted no defense as the American marines splashed ashore near East Point. Not surprisingly, the New Providence militia, were not enthusiastic (‘rather Backward in their assistance’ is how Browne phrased it in a subsequent report) about attacking the Americans once they were landed and formed up. The defense of the island devolved into a series of retreats, with the number of militiamen quickly dwindling. The conquest of New Providence was made without a single casualty.

  After being taken prisoner by the Americans, Governor Browne was quick to see treachery on every hand. He wrote a lengthy report on the taking of New Providence to the American secretary, Lord George Germain, at the end of which he named a handful of men who he believed conspired with the Americans even before their arrival. President of His Majesty’s Council John Brown was not mentioned.

  Germain agreed with the governor that treachery was involved, and despite the governor’s apparently believing John Brown innocent, Germain considered Pres. John Brown to have been an American sympathizer. In a reply to Governor Browne, Germain said, ‘The refusal of the President and Council to deliver the Ordnance and Stores to Genl Gage’s order, was evidently in consequence of a Plan they had concerted with the Rebels for putting them into their hands.’

  Germain went on to assure Browne that once the military situation on the American continent was stabilized, a small force would be sent to New Providence for ‘re-establishing of Legal Authority … [and] to discover the principal contrivers and abetters of this traitorous proceeding.’ Despite Germain’s optimism, things on the American continent got worse, not better, for the British army, and no force was ever dispatched to New Providence.

  Governor Browne did return to New Providence late in 1778. That none of the Nassauvians seem to have protested his being carried off by Hopkins would suggest that he was not overly popular to begin with. On his subsequent return he did nothing to help that situation by accusing everyone in sight of collusion with the Americans, including, this time, John Gambier and Pres. John Brown. The Nassauvians in turn accused Browne of criminal negligence in surrendering to the Americans. Ultimately, Governor Browne’s efforts resulted in his summary recall to London.

  Despite the numerous errors made by Commo. Esek Hopkins, as well as the loss of the gunpowder, the raid on New Providence, the first ever by the American Navy and marine corps, was the most successful American fleet action of the American Revolution. The booty taken from the island was prodigious: 88 cannon from nine to thirty-six pounders, 15 mortars, 5,458 shells, 24 casks of powder, over 2,000 round shot, and much more.

  But of greater significance was the threat that the fleet action presented. Suddenly the localized insurrection in the Colonies had become a hemispheric threat, and Hopkins’s raid exposed the vulnerability of England’s rich Caribbean possessions. Fear of further depredations struck at the heart of London. The Admiralty was forced to pull more of their vessels from home waters and send them to America. This in turn allowed the French fleet, in 1778, to sail unopposed out of the Mediterranean and ultimately to America. This same French fleet would eventually meet the British off the Virginia Capes in 1781 and prevent them from lifting a beleaguered Cornwallis off the beach at Yorktown.

  Whether Commodore Hopkins and his captains ever realized it or not, their action at New Providence, with their converted merchant vessels and their sick and ill-trained crews, was one of the vital links in the chain of events that led to the British Colonial Possessions in North America becoming, by 1783, the United States of America.

  Glossary

  Note: See diagram of brig (here) for names and illustrations of all sails and spars.

  aback:

  said of a sail when the wind is striking it on the wrong side and, in the case of a square sail, pressing it back against the mast.

  abaft:

  nearer the back of the ship, farther aft, behind.

  abeam:

  at right angles to the ship’s centerline.

  aft:

  toward the stern of the ship, as opposed to fore.

  afterguard:

  men stationed aft to work the aftermost sails.

  backstay:

  long ropes leading from the topmast and topgallant mastheads down to the channels. Backstays work with shrouds to support the masts from behind.

  beakhead:

  a small deck forward of the forecastle that overhangs the bow. The crew’s latrine was located there, hence in current usage the term head for a marine toilet.

  beam reach:

  sailing with the wind abeam.

  belay:

  to make a rope fast to a belaying pin, cleat, or other such device. Also used as a general command to stop or cancel, e.g., ‘Belay that last order!’

  belaying pin:

  a wooden pin, later made of metal, generally about twenty inches in length to which lines were made fast, or ‘belayed.’ They were arranged in pinrails along the inside of the bulwark and in fife rails around the masts.

  bells:

  method by which time was marked on shipboard. Each day was generally divided into five four-hour ‘watches’ and two two-hour ‘dog watches.’ After the first half hour of a watch, one bell was rung, then another for each additional half hour until eight bells and the change of watch, when the process was begun again.

  binnacle:

  A large wooden box, just forward of the helm, housing the compass, half-hour glass for timing the watches, and candles to light the compass at night.

  bitts:

  heavy timber frame near the bow to which the end of the anchor cable is made fast, hence the term bitter end.

  block:

  nautical term for a pulley.

  boatswain (bosun):

  warrant officer in charge of boats, sails, and rigging. Also responsible for relaying orders and seeing them carried out, not unlike a sergeant in the military.

  boatswain’s call:

  a small, unusua
lly shaped whistle with a high, piercing sound with which the boatswain relayed orders by playing any of a number of recognizable tunes. Also played as a salute.

  boatswain’s chair:

  a wooden seat with a rope sling attached. Used for hoisting men aloft or over the side for work.

  boom:

  the spar to which the lower edge of a fore-and-aft sail is attached. Special studdingsail booms are used for those sails.

  booms:

  spare spars, generally stowed amidships on raised gallows upon which the boats were often stored.

  bow:

  the rounded, forwardmost part of a ship or boat.

  bow chaser:

  a cannon situated near the bow to fire as directly forward as possible.

  bower:

  one of two primary anchors stored near the bow, designated best bower and small bower.

  bowline:

  line attached to a bridle that is in turn attached to the perpendicular edge of a square sail. The bowline is hauled taut when sailing close-hauled to keep the edge of the sail tight and prevent shivering. Also, a common knot used to put a loop in the end of a rope.

  brace:

  line attached to the end of the yard, which, when hauled upon, turns the yards horizontally to present the sail at the most favorable angle to the wind. Also, to perform the action of bracing the yards.

  brake:

  the handle of a ship’s pump.

  break:

  the edge of a raised deck closest to the center of the ship.

  breast line:

  a dock line running from the bow or stern to the dock at right angles to the centerline of the vessel.

  breeching:

  rope used to secure a cannon to the side of a ship and prevent it from recoiling too far.

  brig:

  a two-masted vessel, square-rigged on fore and main, with a large fore-and-aft mainsail supported by boom and gaff and made fast to the after side of the mainmast.

  brow:

  a substantial gangway used to board a ship when tied to a dock.