by Tim McGrath
There were 121 half barrels left when the bombardment became too much for Barry to ignore, and he sent all hands to the boats. As they went over the side, Barry and Montgomery set several half barrels in the captain’s cabin, filled a spare sail with gunpowder, and ran it between the hold and the cabin as a makeshift fuse. Barry lit it with a hot coal, and the two captains climbed down to the boats. They were just pushing off when someone noticed the Nancy’s colors still flying aboard. Suddenly, a “daring but foolhardy seaman” named John Hancock scaled the ship’s side, snatched the colors off the staff, and jumped overboard. The boats rowed smartly for the beach, where their comrades had hurriedly built a breastwork of wood and sand, and put at least two swivel guns in place.
While they abandoned ship, British longboats from both the Orpheus and the Liverpool were again rowing furiously towards the brigantine for a second attack. The Americans on the beach fired unremittingly at them, while the British rowers briefly slowed their boats, allowing the marines to balance themselves, stand, raise their muskets, and fire back at the rebels. When the Americans fired another volley of muskets and swivel guns, some marines and sailors fell into their boats or over the side and into the shallow water.
Finally, one of the longboats reached the Nancy. Immediately the men climbed hand over hand up the side. Seeing them reach the deck, their comrades watching from the ships gave a loud cheer. That very second, as their exultant cry was still in their throats, the burning fuse reached both cabin and hold. With a deafening roar that could be heard in Philadelphia, the Nancy exploded.
Both American and Englishman watched dumbstruck as debris and bodies flew more than a hundred feet into the air. Even when the smoke from the blast cleared, the sky was still raining down remains of ship and man: “Eleven bodies, two laced hats, and a leg with a white spattered dash” fell among the plummeting wood that had once been a ship. The men on both sides, their ears ringing and mouths agape, watched in silent horror until this most unnatural cloudburst subsided.
For a few seconds Turtle Gut Inlet was deathly quiet, and then a monstrous cannonade roared from the British ships. Suddenly the beach was all flying sand and iron. Only one American was hit, a cannonball taking half his chest away just as more men from the Reprisal showed up, led by Lambert Wickes. The crowd kneeling around the mortally wounded man parted; Wickes arrived just in time to watch the man die. It was his brother Richard.
Seeing any further resistance as futile, Barry ordered the men into the woods behind the beach. Lambert Wickes helped carry his younger brother’s body away from the battle in which Richard had so desperately wanted to participate. As the Americans brought their valuable cargo inland, Barry posted a rear guard to ward off another British attack. He did not have to. The enemy ships soon departed. Neither side had any fight left in them that morning.
The next day—Sunday—American sailors bore Richard Wickes’s coffin into the Cold Spring Meetinghouse. After the parson’s simple, heartfelt sermon, they shuffled past the wooden pews and out to the cemetery. Under the same misty skies as the day before, they buried their comrade.
Richard’s death haunted his brother. Like Barry, Biddle, and Jones, Lambert was young, confident, and patriotic. He hailed from Maryland’s Eastern Shore, already legendary for supplying the colonies with hearty sailing stock. No portraits or descriptions of Lambert exist. By eighteen he was already a ship’s master, and he proved his patriotism in 1774 when he refused to carry a cargo of tea ordered by his Loyalist-leaning bosses. When Congress chose him to command the Reprisal, he was a proven master whose courage and patriotism set an example for his crew—and also his brother Richard.
After Richard’s burial, Lambert faced the sad task of informing his family back home of the tragic news, writing about the desperate battle and saving the news of the death of “a dear Brother & good officer” for the end. Wickes enclosed the letter to his family with a bag of captured coffee, placing the items with his and Barry’s dispatches on July 2.51
Congress busied itself that day as well. Hopkins, Saltonstall, and Whipple had reached Philadelphia, and the Marine Committee was ordered “to enquire into the complaints exhibited against them.” They sent Barry back to sea. And they resolved “that these United Colonies are, and, of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States.”52
The debate over the Declaration of Independence was a long one, with many similarities to the earlier one concerning the creation of the Continental Navy. Initially, New England congressmen were nearly unanimous in favor of independence, the mid-Atlantic colonies were split evenly, and most southerners—with the exception of Virginians—were opposed to the idea. As with the navy, it was John Adams who led the charge, until finally the combination of his passion, Thomas Jefferson’s eloquent words, and Benjamin Franklin’s behind-the-scenes orchestration carried the day.
But the euphoria of crying, “We are independent!” was short-lived, and with good reason. In April, the Continental Army had arrived in New York City. Morale was high, Washington’s forces having just ejected the Lobsterbacks from Boston after a prolonged siege. Following the reading of the Declaration on July 8 in New York, a boisterous mob of soldiers and civilians took down the lead statue of a mounted George III, under the disapproving gaze of the many Loyalists in town. The deposed statue was melted into musket balls. The army’s swagger was not shared by its commander-in-chief, who daily looked for the British armada he knew was coming. Already more than one hundred ships were massing off Sandy Hook.53
Congress daily awaited news from South Carolina, where forces under General Sir Henry Clinton and a fleet commanded by Rear Admiral Sir Peter Parker attempted to gain entry to Charleston harbor by attacking Forts Sullivan and Jones. Clinton had been assured that upon his arrival, southern Tories would rally and help defeat their rebellious neighbors, but a spirited defense by patriot forces—Christopher Gadsden among them—resulted in utter defeat for the British.54
Back in Philadelphia, Gadsden’s colleagues returned to naval matters the week after independence was declared. They had already assigned commanders to the thirteen frigates being built from Massachusetts to Maryland. Now they sent out orders, requisitions, and requests to procure supplies, ordnance, and manpower. They approved the recommendations of sailor-turned-soldier Benedict Arnold to build a fleet of schooners and row galleys on Lake Champlain, where Arnold expected an attack by a British fleet from the St. Lawrence River in the coming weeks.55
The Marine Committee began its inquiries into the accusations leveled against Hopkins, Saltonstall, and Whipple. After exhaustive testimony from their subordinate officers present in Philadelphia, the committee ruled in favor of Saltonstall and Whipple, warning the latter to “cultivate harmony with his officers.” They delayed Hopkins’s inquiry for a month. The postponement did nothing for Hopkins’s cause; his daily appearances on the streets of Philadelphia only added to the growing anti–New England sentiment in Congress. Southerners recalled his unwillingness to sail to their rescue in the spring, the middle-states’ representatives still begrudged their missing cannon, and New Yorkers fretted as daily dispatches arrived, listing more and more British ships arriving off Sandy Hook.
The Marine Committee finally summoned Hopkins on August 12. His opening statement was read, a perfect example of humble pugnacity: “The Reputation of the Navey has Not Sufford by aney misconduct of myne” in the carrying out, or not carrying out, of his “odors.” Then the grilling began. Saltonstall and Whipple, still in town, were called in to defend their commodore. Standing and sweating before the committee, Hopkins never swayed from his already documented defense pertaining to his inactions along the southern coastline. Then Hopkins was excused, and the debate over his future began.
Once again, John Adams rose to speak for New England in general and Hopkins in particular. “The Commodore was pursued and persecuted by that Anti New England Spirit” which Adams found in countless congression
al arguments, whether the sentiment was there or not. In this case, it was. Ever his region’s champion, Adams became Hopkins’s knight-errant, exerting “all the Talents and Eloquence I had, in justifying him where he was justifiable, and excusing him where he was excusable.” Defending Hopkins as if in a courtroom, Adams admitted the man’s “Experience and Skill might have been deficient . . . But where could We find greater Experience or Skill?”
Adams finished his defense, and Congress postponed the decision. Afterwards, William Ellery of Rhode Island, as strong a naval advocate as Adams, told his colleague, “You have made the Old Man your Friend for Life.” That was true; more to the point, so was Jefferson’s opinion of the argument: the objection to Hopkins’s conduct was not over “an honest discretion in departing from his [instructions] but that he never did intend to obey them.” On August 16, Congress censured Hopkins, the first in a series of humiliations for the commodore.56
While Hopkins sweated out both his hearing and the Philadelphia humidity, his latest promotion sailed into town. John Paul Jones arrived with several colliers (strong round-bowed and broad-sterned coal-bearing ships) that he had been assigned to convoy from Boston, arriving on August 1, several days after John Barry’s latest prize, one of Lord Dunmore’s privateers, nuzzled against a Philadelphia dock. Aboard her was a young man who had joined the Virginia Navy as a lieutenant, only to be captured by this privateer. Rather than go to prison, Richard Dale joined the Loyalists. Seeing merit in the lad, Barry persuaded him to change sides again, making him a midshipman. Sailing home, the Lexington ran into a thunderstorm. The new recruit was on deck when lightning struck and knocked him senseless. Barry and the Lexingtons anxiously gathered around him, greatly relieved when Dale was “providentially restored” to consciousness. His remarkable career would be entwined with Barry and Jones for another thirty years.57
The Continental Navy was less than a year old, but that was enough time to show everyone from congressman to commodore all the personality traits contained inside the diminutive John Paul Jones. Only five feet five, he was handsome, some thought, to the point of prettiness: chestnut hair, hazel eyes, high cheekbones, a slender, hawkish nose, and a strong jaw ending with a cleft chin. He rarely smiled. Sloping shoulders were still broad enough to carry the chip that never fell from them. He looked every part the young, dour Scotsman.58
There was much in the vessel that was John Paul Jones: ambition, pettiness, courage, and vanity. He was born in 1747 on a prosperous laird’s estate on the Firth of Solway, a body of water that has forever been trying to cleave Scotland from England. He was the fourth child of the gardener, John Paul, and his wife, Mary, the housekeeper. The estate, Arbigland, ranged over 1,400 acres with beautiful gardens, thanks to John Senior’s talents. They adorned the palatial home for the laird, William Craik, who rewarded Paul’s services with a cottage that still stands today and can best be described as “charming.” Young John roamed through the gardens that sprang from his father’s fertile mind. They looked like something from a fairy tale, leading to both deep woods and a cliff overlooking the firth.
Craik was rich and overbearing, a “king’s man” who held no loyalty for the Jacobites who loved Bonnie Prince Charlie despite his losing the Battle of Culloden the year before John’s birth. Craik also had a reputation in the neighboring town of Kirkbean as an unfaithful husband; one of his illegitimate sons grew up to become George Washington’s physician, and rumors circulated that the laird, not the gardener, was father to John Junior—gossip that only fueled the simmering hostility John Senior barely kept under control when dealing with his master.59
The family cottage faced the firth, where young John watched merchantmen sail for the Irish Sea and thence to ports near and far. He was intelligent, particularly in mathematics (his childhood copy of Euclid’s Elements still exists). He was also bossy and contentious, rounding up the other children on the estate to reenact the adventures of Admiral Hawke defeating the French. John, of course, played Hawke. From childhood he longed to join the King’s Navy, but his humble origins were not enough to warrant a midshipman’s berth, and Craik was not inclined to pull any strings for the boy. The best that young Master Paul could get was a seven-year apprenticeship to John Young, owner of the brig Friendship out of Whitehaven—a port the boy would revisit years later.
Over the years he mastered everything about sailing, with the exception of developing a taste for rum. He would not abide any spirits, anything or anyone that distracted him from his tasks. When Young died in 1764, he was released from his contract. He rose in abilities and rank, becoming third mate on the ship King George out of Whitehaven. Few ships could be identified by smell, but the King George was one of them. She was a “black birder”—a slave ship—carrying seventy-seven Africans, chained together in the ship’s small hold. Throughout his life Jones wrote endlessly about his deeds and himself, never at a loss for words. But he wrote only once about his duties aboard the King George, which included the loathsome practice of “weeding”: unchaining the corpses found each morning in the reeking hold, then throwing them overboard as if they were nothing more than rotting cargo. Paul called the slave trade “abominable,” but kept at it for three years.
He was twenty-one when he was made captain of the John, a ship he had successfully brought home after the previous captain and first mate died at sea. As master, he was hard on careless sailors; halfhearted efforts reflected poorly on his leadership. He was no stranger to the brothels of West Indies ports, but spent most of his shore time reading Shakespeare and beginning a lifelong hobby of writing poetry, all the while trying to lose his Scottish burr. He did not suffer fools, or the slipshod in anyone, especially himself.60
Life for John Paul seemed to be a series of stories with one moral: connections matter. No one in the British Empire was more determined to better himself socially, only to have those above him in class—meaning caste—remind him of where they thought he belonged. On one voyage from the John’s home port of Kirkudbright, Paul’s crew included Mungo Maxwell, carpenter’s mate—an insubordinate malingerer from an influential family. A squall between the two was inevitable, and Jones had him flogged. When the John reached Tobago, Maxwell filed charges, showing the Admiralty court the welts on his back. To Paul’s relief, the court ruled in his favor—a victory of his authority over Maxwell’s sense of entitlement. Maxwell took another ship home. Weeks later, the John’s hold bursting with rum, sugar, cotton, and ginger, Paul sailed for home.
The ship had no sooner docked in Kirkudbright than the sheriff hauled Paul to “the Tollbooth”—the town jail. In between his protests, Paul learned that Maxwell had died at sea. His grieving and vengeful father believed the flogging caused his death. Paul also discovered that William Craik was in town, to offer his support—to Maxwell’s father. It was days before Paul could post bail. He sailed back to Tobago to collect the court records and affidavits proving his innocence. It took a full year to clear his name. He did not live long enough to forgive Craik’s coldhearted act. Years later he would repay it.61
The Maxwell affair slowed Paul’s ascent but did not stop it. Three years later he was master of the Betsy, a 300-ton three-masted merchantman sailing from London to Tobago. He wangled part ownership in the ship, and two years later he had earned £2,500—a handsome sum. Layovers in her home port gave Jones a taste of life in the world’s largest city, a chance to hobnob with Royal Navy officers (who rarely considered a merchant captain the equal of a lowly midshipman), and dalliance with the “Court Garden ladies,” especially one Miss Drew. Somewhere along the way he became a Freemason.62
Sailors are not meant for calm seas, and certainly John Paul was not. Beginning a voyage to Tobago in January 1773, the Betsy proved “so very Leaky” that her pumps were manned day and night, forcing Jones to put into Cork, Ireland, for repairs. While waiting for word from his insurance underwriters he was stricken with fever. The Betsy did not leave Cork until June.
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Once in Tobago he was obsessed with selling his goods, restocking his hold with Caribbean merchandise, and getting back to London: time was money, and Paul did not have enough, telling the crew they would not be paid until they reached London. Some hands grumbled. Some did more than that, taking direction from a giant whom Paul later would call “the Ringleader” in a letter he wrote to Benjamin Franklin. The ringleader and his followers demanded their pay; they had earned it, and the Tobago taverns and brothels beckoned.
Paul refused. Cursing and spitting threats, the ringleader grabbed a bludgeon and raised it over his head. He never finished the blow. Paul ran him through with his sword, and the ringleader fell, mortally wounded.
The other sailors carried their dead comrade away, and Paul immediately went into town to report the incident to the first magistrate he could find. He was not arrested, but his act, while in self-defense, nevertheless required a trial. The judge told Paul that an Admiralty Court gave him the best chance to be found innocent, while a civil procedure would as likely side with the crew as the master. It was Christmastide, and no Admiralty court was scheduled to sit for months. Jones’s presence in a port full of sailors made him a marked man, for the ringleader was an Islander, whose friends might decide to take Jones’s fate into their own hands. Seeing that leaving the island was the only way to stay safe, Paul fled. He would forever call the incident his “Great Misfortune.”63