CHAPTER VII
Theactivity of American privateers as well as Continental ships in British waters during 1777-1779 was very great, that of theReprisal,Lexington,Dolphin, andRevenge(the first two, Continental brigs) being particularly notable.
France was at this period (1777) made a basis for the fitting out of Continental vessels and privateers, and for the supply of men in a way which would be far from possible to-day. Captain Lambert Wickes of the Continental brigReprisaland Gustavus Conyngham of the Continental luggerSurpriseand cutterRevenge, both of which latter were bought and fitted out by our commissioners in France, were two of those most active and prominent in the operations on the British coast. Their names have come down to this day as specially brave and adventurous men. The former had cruised very successfully on our own coast and in the West Indies in 1776, and had been the first, as mentioned, to carry a ship of the regular navyto Europe, December, 1776, though privateers had preceded him. Two prizes taken into Nantes caused strong protests from Great Britain. The treaty of Utrecht, 1713, expressly closed the ports of either power to the enemies of the other, so that the British case had a very sound basis. Vergennes unquestionably, before our alliance, had to hold a course favoring the Americans which was full of difficulties. The details of the diplomacy of the moment cannot be entered upon. Suffice that theReprisalrefitted went to sea early in 1777, and brought in five prizes to add to Vergennes’s difficulties. The British Ambassador, Stormont, demanded their release. He was answered that both captor and captured had been ordered to leave port and were probably already at sea, to which Stormont was later able to make reply that theReprisalwas undergoing repairs at Lorient, and that the five prizes had been sold. The questions were bandied to and fro between the American commissioners, the French Minister, and the British Ambassador, with the result that theReprisalreceived orders not to cruise near the French coast, but apparently the prizes remained in the hands of the purchasers. On May 28thWickes sailed in theReprisalfrom St. Nazaire with the Continental brigLexington, Captain Henry Johnson, and the cutterDolphin, Captain Nicholson, all under Wickes as senior officer, for a cruise through the Irish Channel. They were back in St. Malo on June 27th, having captured twenty prizes, of which three were released and seven sunk. In July the commissioners were obliged to give orders that theReprisalandLexingtonshould return directly to America, for which theDolphinhad already sailed as a packet, and to cruise no longer in Europe. They left in September; when only two days out theLexingtonwas captured. TheReprisalwas lost on the Newfoundland Banks, but one man being saved. The loss of her enterprising captain was keenly felt and deplored.
Gustavus Conyngham had been selected to command the luggerSurprisefitting at Dunkirk, and was given one of the commissions, of which a number had been sent out in blank signed by Hancock, President of Congress, and dated March 1, 1777. He got to sea by May and, returning almost at once with two prizes, was, on the demand of the British Ambassador, with most of his crew, put in prison. His vessel was seized and the prizes released. His commissionwas taken from him and not returned. Released, he was at once put in command of a newly purchased cutter, theRevenge, with a crew of 106 men. He was given a new commission which was dated May 2, 1777. He cruised off the coast of Spain with remarkable success and then went to the West Indies. He was reported to have captured, by the time of his arrival there, sixty vessels, twenty-seven of which had been sent into port and thirty-three sunk or burned. After cruising successfully in the West Indies he arrived at Philadelphia on February 21, 1779. TheRevengewas sold, but the purchaser fitted her out as a privateer with Conyngham in command, using his Continental commission, dated May 2, 1777; this nearly caused Conyngham to lose his life, for he was captured by a British frigate in April, taken to New York, confined in irons, and was sent to England under an accusation of piracy in that his cruise and captures in theRevengeearly in 1777 had been before the date of this commission. In November, 1779, he escaped from Mill prison, where he had been confined. His active career, however, was ended.[8]
In 1779 occurred one of the great naval disasters of the war. Some 800 British troops convoyed by ships-of-war had in June taken possession of Penobscot Bay to establish there some of the many loyalists who had gone to Halifax, their chief refuge during the war. Maine was then a part of Massachusetts, and it was this state which took on the burden of dislodging the enemy. The Navy Board at Boston lent theWarren, 32; theProvidence(sloop), 14; and theDiligent, 12. These and three state brigantines, of 14 or 16 guns each, and thirteen privateers (insured by the state) made up the naval part. In all they mounted 324 guns and were manned by over 2,000 men. Captain Dudley Saltonstall was in chief command. There were about 1,000 militia commanded by General Solomon Lovell. This carefully prepared effort was a complete failure through the incompetency and want of push of Saltonstall. Arriving in the bay on July 25, 1779, the attack on three British vessels present and on the fort which was now ready was so dilatory and ineffective that at length, on August 13th, a British fleet which had had time to come from New York appeared and drove the American vessels up the river, where all except two, which werecaptured, were burned. The American loss was 474 men. The remainder had to find their way back with great hardship through the Maine woods. This humiliating affair cost Massachusetts a debt estimated at $7,000,000.
The year 1779, however, had been the most brilliant of the war for the small American navy. The exploits of John Paul Jones, of Gustavus Conyngham and Lambert Wickes in European waters made an undying page of history; nor should those of our small frigates, theQueen of France,Deane(later theHague),Warren,Boston, andRangeron our own coasts as well as of the swarms of privateers in this year (289 of which were commissioned by Congress alone) and whose sweeping captures of the enemy’s commerce went so far to supply the needs of our ever-dwindling army, be forgotten.
American affairs were now (at the beginning of 1780) at their lowest ebb. The struggle had lasted nearly five years. It was with difficulty that an army, nominally of 6,000 men, could be kept together. The men were “half-starved, imperfectly clothed, riotous, and robbing the country people ... from sheer necessity. Desertion was continual, from one to two hundredmen a month going over to the enemy.... Only a miracle, thought Washington, could keep America from the humiliation of seeing her cause upheld solely by foreign arms. Throughout the land there was a weariness of war, a desire for peace at any price.”[9]
At least a third of our population is estimated to have been loyalist, and another third lukewarm. At several periods there were more loyalists in the British service than in our own. Nor was this situation wholly confined to the army, for in 1779 there were fitted out at New York one hundred and twenty-one privateers in British employ, thirty-four of which carried from twenty to thirty-six guns. The whole were manned by between 9,000 and 10,000 men.
The navy was reduced almost as much as the army. TheBoston,Providence,Ranger, andQueen of Francehad arrived at Charleston on December 23, 1779. The first three fell into the hands of the enemy on the surrender of Charleston on May 11, 1780, and became part of the British navy, the fourth along with the South Carolina shipsBricole, 44; theTruite, 26;General Moultrie, 20, andNotre Dame, 16, had been sunk in the river, as also two small French ships-of-warL’AventureandPolacre. There thus remained in the latter part of 1780 but one of the original thirteen frigates, theTrumbull, which with theDean,Confederacy,Alliance, andSaratoga(the last a sloop-of-war), formed in this year the entire Continental navy in service. TheDeane(renamed theHague) and theAlliancewere the only two of these to survive the year.