by Willis, Sam
The question we must ask, therefore, is how much of an impact such a small and fragile navy would have on the shape or direction of the war. To find the answer we must look beyond the obvious or traditional tools of naval warfare. At this stage of the war, the flag that these ships flew was of far more significance than the guns that they mounted. The first ensign of the Continental Navy – the Grand Union flag – was made up of thirteen red and white stripes with the British Union flag in the upper left corner next to the flagstaff [see fig. 12]. It is likely that its attraction lay in the fact that it could easily be made by sewing six white strips of cloth horizontally across the field of the easily accessible red ensign, or ‘meteor’ flag, of England.49
The first known naval use of the Grand Union was 3 December 1775, when it was hoisted by Senior Lieutenant John Paul Jones over the new commander-in-chief Esek Hopkins’s flagship, the Alfred, newly purchased for the Continental Navy and then lying in the Delaware River.50 Thousands cheered it and wished the Alfred Godspeed – a reminder of the value that this nascent American sea power had in forging a sense of unity among the existing supporters of the rebellion and in drawing the uncommitted to its flag.
That flag was first saluted by a foreign country nearly a year later, on 16 November 1776, by Fort Orange on the Dutch Island of St Eustatius. Significantly, British forces in nearby St Kitts witnessed the salute. They were furious and ordered the Dutch to ‘formally disavow the salute to the rebels, punish the culprit and recall and dismiss the Governor of St. Eustatius … His Majesty will not delay one instant to take such measures as he think due to the interest and dignity of his crown.’51
The naval use of this flag is important because it was a Band-Aid for the festering wounds that were the reality of American politics in the winter of 1775 and the new year of 1776. The country was deeply divided between rebels and loyalists, and both factions were themselves divided regarding the most appropriate way forward. The Second Continental Congress was taking significant steps towards centralization of power, but it did not have consent of the governed – de jure authority. In fact the rebellious colonies shared only three things: one was George Washington, another was the Continental Army that he commanded, and the third was this new Continental Navy. Washington and his army were both stuck in Boston. The navy, however, could go wherever it wanted and it could take its flag with it. It could, in essence, export the revolution, and show the world that the rebellious colonies were acting as a sovereign state with major pretensions at being a world power. In doing so it would present a simple, strong face to the revolution that hid its complex, weak nature. It is impossible to overstate how important this was at exactly this stage. It was quite clear to everyone that the revolution would not survive without a great deal of help, but to secure that help – essentially to attract foreign investors willing to buy into the revolution – it would have to take its own first wobbly steps. The creation of the Continental Navy must be seen in this light: it was nothing less than a declaration of independence.
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The final ingredient of colonial sea power that emerged in this period – one that also reflected the growing centralization of power in America and served to advertise abroad the rebellious colonies as a nation state – was privateering. A privateer was a privately owned ship whose captain held a ‘letter of marque and reprisal’ that gave him the legal right to seize vessels and their cargoes belonging to a particular nation, in this case Britain. This was of significance in America in late 1775 because, by authorizing non-state violence, these letters of marque implied the existence of a nation state. The authorization of privateering, moreover, was a crucial part of all European state behaviour in this period. All the significant European maritime powers – Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia – issued letters of marque in wartime. As with the creation of the Continental Navy, this is another example of the Americans inching towards independence simply by behaving on an international stage as if they were independent. The need to do this was well summarized by Richard Henry Lee in April 1776:
No state in Europe will either Treat or Trade with us for so long as we consider ourselves subjects of G[reat] B[ritain]. Honour, dignity, and the customs of states forbid them until we rank as an independent people.52
Every letter of marque, therefore, was in its own way a declaration of independence, and many of them pre-dated the formal declaration of 4 July 1776. The first suggestion of issuing such letters came from a particularly radical member of the Massachusetts Assembly, Elbridge Gerry,53 in October 1775, but it was not until March 1776 that the relationship between Britain and America had sufficiently fractured for Congress to feel able to issue them. This link between state formation and privateering is why John Adams referred to a bill that passed through the Massachusetts House of Representatives recommending the institutionalization of privateering as one of the most important documents in the history of the revolution.54
It is no coincidence that, in this period, the Americans, hitherto bound by the British Navigation Acts and thus restricted to trading with British ships, also opened their ports to foreign trade. This – an outright rejection of the British mercantile system – was yet another act that would be felt around the world; for it was both deliberately provocative of British maritime and naval power and also the first step in forming foreign alliances that the Americans and British knew would be crucial to their cause – and they would not be able to ask for foreign help without offering some form of trading privilege in return.55 These developments demonstrate clearly that winning independence in war was just one part of the journey to independence; behaving independently before the break was also crucial. Yet again, it is John Adams who saw the path for what it was. ‘Have you not seen the Privateering Resolves?’ he wrote to James Warren. ‘Are not these Independence enough for my beloved Constituents? Have you seen the Resolves for opening our Ports to all Nations? Are these Independence enough? What more would you have?’56
The rise of privateering created its own problems for the Americans, however. First among these was the competition for naval resources between the various navies, State and Continental, on the one hand, and the privateers on the other. The owners of privateers were commercially beholden to make privateering an attractive opportunity to mariners. Such forces did not run the Continental Navy. Congress offered a regular wage that a privateer owner did not, but for the promise of that wage and also to help pay for the Continental war machine, a sailor aboard a Continental warship received a smaller portion of any prize than his compatriot aboard a privateer. A crew sailing under the flag of the Continental Navy or a state navy would share no more than a third of the value of their prize, unless that prize was an enemy warship, in which case the portion rose to a half. A privateer owner and crew shared the full value of their prize, whatever the prize, and they were more than happy to sell any black sailors they might capture as slaves or to keep them to boost their own crew.57 The risk was certainly worth running. One privateer owner explained the maths: ‘It is well worth risquing largely for one arrival will pay for two, three or four losses. Therefore its best to keep doing something constantly.’58
Ship-owners were also cunning in making their ship financially attractive in other ways. Debt-ridden sailors were an easy target and could be lured into service by pre-selling the shares of a cruise for a given figure. The investor, often the ship-owner himself, would then keep any prize money received over and above the figure paid.59 Prize courts were set up in Baltimore and Philadelphia to process the claims quickly and efficiently, in no more than a matter of weeks, so the privateer sailors could plainly see a commitment to realizing their dreams of rapid wealth. The system was transparent and visibly worked, in direct contrast to that surrounding the Continental Navy in this period. Put simply, you were more likely to get paid if you were serving on a privateer, and when you were paid, it was likely to be more than if you were on a navy vessel. This tension between
the private interest and the collective interest would create problems for American sea power throughout the war.
By the spring of 1776 the Americans were sufficiently committed to privateering that it had become streamlined, with pre-printed and even pre-authorized privateering commissions, and it was not long before the number of privateers in each colony exceeded the number of craft in its navy.
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If considered together, the combined potential of whaleboats, state navies, the Continental Navy and privateers was now significant. The British had a serious problem on their hands. The question remains, then: what did these various strands of American sea power actually achieve in this early period?
It would be more than possible to write an entire chapter on the frustrations and failures of early American sea power. There were manning problems, arming problems, logistical problems, tactical problems, shipbuilding and seamanship problems, political interference, personal enmity, insubordination, unwarranted aggression, fraud, bribery, mutiny, litigation, lightning strikes, ship fever, rotten victuals, drunkenness and greed. It is not a period or topic that reflects well on the Americans. John Adams said that officers scrambled for rank and pay ‘like apes for nuts’ and worried one another ‘like Mastiffs’; Washington noted that the crews caused him inexpressible ‘plague, trouble and vexation’ and that ‘licentiousness & every kind of disorder triumphantly reign’ in the navy.60 It is a wonder they achieved anything at all until one considers their targets.
At this early stage, most British supply vessels destined for American waters sailed unprotected.* Neither were they armed nor did they sail with an armed escort. They were sourced, loaded and crewed in British waters 3,000 miles away, where there was no conception of the danger posed by the rise of American sea power. Upon their arrival they were then too far removed in both distance and time for administrators to react sufficiently quickly to the changing situation. The problems were exacerbated by confusion at the level of the British government that supervised the sending of stores and supplies to America. In 1775–6 the operation was supervised by three different agencies of the British government: the Treasury, responsible for army provisions; the Ordnance Board, responsible for artillery, arms, munitions and engineers’ stores; and the Navy Board, responsible for army clothing, camp equipment, naval stores and presents for the native Indians. These three agencies worked without supervision or co-ordination and often in direct competition with each other for scarce resources. Administrative confusion in London was the inevitable result.61 Although the Americans were beginning to bristle at sea, most British supply ships continued to sail unarmed and without escort, arriving off the eastern seaboard in blissful ignorance of the threat they faced. This all caused utter consternation for the British in America.62
British merchant ships in British waters were also unprotected. Hitherto the public focus of the war in Britain had been beyond the distant horizon. It seemed to be a war of principle and ideology, not of bullets, blood, bandages, death and property theft. British merchant ships pootled around the British coast undefended and unescorted, sailors whistling and smoking pipes as the sun set and rose on their never-changing routine. They were at peace with their traditional enemies, France, Spain and Holland. There was no threat, only profit. Life was idyllic.
The situation in the Caribbean was different because of its proximity to America. Here the war at sea felt far more vivid. French, Dutch and Spanish ships carried supplies to their islands, and American merchant ships hovered around the coasts ready to smuggle those supplies to America. British merchant ships, meanwhile, carried on their trade along well-known routes at predictable times of year. Anyone with an ounce of maritime and local knowledge would be able to target them. There were insufficient British ships stationed in the Caribbean to protect them. They were vulnerable and they knew it.
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For all this British weakness, the primary story of American naval operations in this period is one of disappointment. The Hannah, the first ship hired by Washington, the great maritime hope of the rebel army, failed to meet the expectations heaped upon her. Seven of her first eight captures were American vessels that had to be returned to their American owners with damages paid for goods pilfered by the crew.63 None of the thirteen frigates, which were supposed to be at sea by the spring of 1776, were ready until 1777, and four never got to sea at all. There was, however, the occasional startling success that was sufficient to maintain momentum behind the great expectations of American sea power that so coloured this period.
The most spectacular success of the Continental Navy was the capture, in November 1775, of the unprotected British brig Nancy almost within sight of the British in Boston. We can only imagine the effect on Captain John Manley and the crew of the Lee when they opened Nancy’s hold and climbed down into her musty depths. They would have smelt the unmistakable aroma of dormant arms and ammunition, of latent energy, in enormous quantities. There were 2,000 muskets and cartridge boxes, 3,000 twelve-pound cannon-balls, 4,000 six-pound balls and 150 carcass shells, an incendiary projectile cunningly engineered to set fire to anything in its path. There was a mortar, a short and wide artillery piece for bombardment. There were also ropes, lanterns, saddles, harnesses, kettles, frying-pans, nails and countless other essentials for waging war. There were even seven dismantled ammunition wagons that the Americans used to steal their prize away to the rebel army camp at Cambridge.64 There was so much aboard her that it took two months to fully unload the cargo. Thousands cheered the haul, paraded through Cambridge. A capture that mattered both materially and symbolically, Washington called it ‘an instance of divine favour’,65 while Howe raged that Washington now had ‘all the requisites’ for burning Boston or the British ships that guarded it.66
Other successes were noteworthy. By December 1775 American whaleboats had secured control of the entire north shore of Massachusetts Bay, a key strategic advantage in their fight to drive the British out.67 Four major troop transports were captured off Boston* and nine victualling ships.68 The first notable fight between British and American naval ships was the engagement off Rhode Island between HMS Glasgow and the Andrew Doria in April 1776, in which the Glasgow was forced to flee ‘yelping from the mouths of her cannon like a broken-legged dog’.69 The first British warship to be captured – and therefore the first enemy ship captured by a United States naval vessel – was HMS Hawk, captured on 4 April 1776 by Abraham Whipple in the Columbus.70
In March that year American sea power really began to stretch its legs, and Esek Hopkins, with John Paul Jones in his crew, led a small squadron on a successful raid on Nassau in the Bahamas and captured seventy cannon and fifteen mortars. It was the first engagement of what later became the US Marine Corps.71 By the end of 1776, to the utter horror of British merchants, politicians and the public, American privateers were regularly conducting operations in the Caribbean and in European waters. One of the earliest captures in European waters, and possibly the first, was made by the privateer Rover of Salem, which seized four British merchant ships off Cape St Vincent in the summer.72
Captures close to home particularly stung, but far more numerous and economically significant raids occurred in the Caribbean. William Bingham, an emissary of the Continental Congress stationed on Martinique, orchestrated American privateering in the Caribbean. They cut out merchant ships and fishing vessels, raided towns and captured slaves. In one attack on Barbados they took goods valued at £2,000.73 In Bingham’s first six months on the island, 250 British ships carrying cargoes worth more than $10 million were waylaid in the West Indies.74 He took a skim from every capture and returned to America in 1780 one of the richest men in the nation; he became a founder member of the first bank in America, which was therefore financed by the profits of American sea power.*
These captures transformed the perception of the war in Britain. Everyone knew that the Caribbean was the source of the vast majority of Britain’s wealth, and the British were particu
larly sensitive about naval warfare of any type conducted off British shores. American privateers thus directly enfranchised the British population in the conduct of the war, expanding the scale of the political problem. Quite simply, American privateering changed both the nature and the development of the war.
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In yet one more and perhaps surprising way, American sea power was instrumental in the march towards independence. We have seen how the establishment of a navy and the issuing of letters of marque were, in their own way, declarations of independence, but the role of American sea power is also spliced into the actual history of the Declaration of Independence itself.
Just as, after Lexington and Concord, the Americans used their existing maritime infrastructure to rush their version of the news of the battle around the colonies and across the Atlantic, so did they when the colonies signed their Declaration of Independence in July 1776, a document which hardened the stance of the rebels and which outlined ideas whose spread would be crucial to the ultimate success of the revolution. The problem with the Declaration of Independence, however, was that it would carry only a fraction of its desired impact if none of the rebels’ potential allies – both at home and abroad – knew about it. It had to be broadcast to as wide an audience as possible and as quickly as possible, and American ships played a little known but major role in that dissemination – a role that is clearly demonstrated by a fascinating discovery, made in an English archive, in July 2009.
It is unknown exactly how many copies of the Declaration of Independence were made in its first run (the Dunlap broadside) – it has been suggested that there were around 200 – but we do know that, until 2009, only twenty-five copies were known to exist. Then, a researcher discovered a copy in the collections of the British National Archives in Kew, London. It was found in a section of British naval letters sent back to London in the summer of 1776.75 It is likely that the broadside was captured at the same time as an American merchantman or warship: for it to end up in the Admiralty archive, that copy of the Declaration must have been captured at sea.