Give Me a Fast Ship

by Tim McGrath

  Back in Philadelphia, Congress formed a committee to a resolve Bellew’s request for a proper chaperone to escort his wife to Marblehead. Then they waited silently in the State House for the sound of the guns. Fog kept them silent until the afternoon. By then the throngs of onlookers had reappeared, and the row galleys were back along the Pennsylvania riverbank.35

  The Wasp became the first American vessel to find the Roebuck free of the sandbar. Alexander was heading upriver from Wilmington when a sudden breeze began clearing the fog, and he saw the two frigates right ahead of him. He was surprised; Hamond was ready. A fierce barrage of gunfire sent the Wasp across the river to the row galleys, who covered her with their own cannonade. Round two had commenced.

  Once the Liverpool caught up to the Roebuck, Hamond called over to Bellew: he had “reconnoitred” enough this trip, and if they headed south and the row galleys followed, they could turn and fight where the river was wider, and take the Americans one vessel at a time. Bellew agreed.

  Almost immediately the wind picked up force to near-gale strength—perfect for Hamond’s plan. The frigates made an easy sail downriver, with the American ships, now twenty-two in number, blasting away from a safe distance. For two hours, the Americans kept up a smart fire but did not close in; Read and company could see what Hamond was up to. By nightfall the firing was sporadic; the Roebuck and the Liverpool anchored off Wilmington, and the Americans sailed home.36

  The third day’s hostilities were confined to Bellew’s cabin. That morning, a rowboat flying a flag of truce brought Captain Walter Stewart of Pennsylvania’s Third Battalion alongside the Liverpool. Once in Bellew’s cabin, Stewart extended Congress’s offer to provide an escort for Mrs. Bellew. But her husband’s heart had hardened, and he would not let her go—not after the rebels’ “damned gondolas” had treated him so roughly these past two days. Any chance of further diplomatic pleasantries vanished. Bellew chastised the Americans for their “deceit, rancour, & Malice” and would not risk his wife’s safety to anyone, with the possible exceptions of Mrs. Hancock and Lieutenant Boger. After a few choice words of his own, Stewart returned to Philadelphia, leaving Mrs. Bellew without an escort, just like the Widow Gibbs. The first battle for the Delaware was over.37

  Philadelphians welcomed the news of Hamond’s departure with mixed emotions of euphoria and dread. Hancock wrote Washington that Hamond had returned to the capes, while John Adams informed Abigail how the battle “diminished, in the minds of the People . . . the Terror of a Man of War.” All the same, a perceptible number of Philadelphians began leaving town. Hamond, on the other hand, realized how lucky he was. “Had the commanders of the row-galleys acted with as much judgment as they did courage,” he later remarked, the Americans would have taken his ship.38

  The battle also showed Congress the need to crack down on Esek Hopkins. Already peeved that he had given those Bahaman guns away—Congress’s property, after all—it reiterated previous orders that Hopkins send them to Philadelphia without delay.

  In Providence, Hopkins busied himself with getting what ships he could back out to sea. He was sending the Andrew Doria and Cabot on a cruise, with Nicholas Biddle as senior captain, to be followed by another joint cruise of the Columbus and the Providence. That left Hopkins, Saltonstall, and the Alfred with just a few sailors and officers. The unrelenting “Malignant Fever” kept adding to Hopkins’s sick list, while frightening the few recruits who considered enlisting, and Washington’s men were departing. Last, but not least, the lucrative money offered by privateers made Congress’s penurious pay scale (one-third of the take distributed to the crews for prize shares, paid in near worthless Continental scrip) a laughingstock among sailors. Why did Congress allow this? Because many congressmen invested in privateers.39

  By this time Nicholas Biddle was nearly stir-crazy from inactivity. “Good God of Heaven I am out of all patience with being kept so long in port,” he sputtered to his brother James in Congress. Wallace’s squadron had been replaced by HMS Cerberus, the frigate that had earlier brought to Boston the three major generals: William Howe; Charles, Lord Cornwallis; and “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne. Unlike during his stay in New London, Biddle paid no attention to the admiring ladies of Providence. At long last, Hopkins ordered Biddle to sail forth and “annoy the Enemy.” To accompany him, Hopkins sent the Cabot, replacing his wounded son with forty-four-year-old Elisha Hinman. With Biddle as senior officer, the two brigs headed out to sea.40

  For a week they cruised under calm conditions; then, on May 19, they sighted the Cerberus off the island named No Mans Land. Signaling Hinman to split up, the Americans parted company. Both successfully eluded the frigate. Two days later Biddle’s brig was off Nantucket when another sail was sighted and chased: the Two Friends, bound for Nova Scotia from the Virgin Islands, her hold full of rum, sugar, and salt. Her captain made all sail to escape, but the freshly careened Andrew Doria easily overtook her. “So ends the day,” a contented Biddle entered in his log.41

  After sending his prize back to Newport, Biddle headed north to Nova Scotia, hoping to intercept what troop passports might be heading that way from England. A series of squalls from the east sent the Andrew Doria bobbing precariously on huge swells like a toy boat in the surf. The gales were so strong they tore the brig’s barge off its chocks, nearly killing a sailor sleeping underneath while taking the brig hundreds of miles off course.

  At four a.m. on May 29, the mastheader hailed the quarterdeck—two ships to the northward. Roused from his slumber, Biddle came on deck and immediately gave orders to pursue. The Andrew Doria sped over the water; by sunrise she was on top of the first ship, her sixteen guns run out. Biddle hailed the British captain: “Heave to or be Sunk!” The man obeyed. In the growing daylight the Americans saw that the ship’s “guns” were actually painted logs.

  She was the Scottish transport Oxford out of Glasgow, with a hundred Scottish Highlanders aboard. Soon Biddle took the other one, too: the Crawford, another transport carrying Highlanders, officers, and their wives. The ships were part of a fleet of thirty transports bound for Boston. Biddle made his captures without firing a gun, writing Charles that “I took them with the Speaking Trumpet.”

  Pleased as he was with his captures, they created a logistics problem for Biddle: he had eighty-two men to divide among three ships and watch over more than three times that many prisoners, along with so many ladies that Marine Lieutenant Trevett could not count them all. Biddle transferred all arms and every British sailor to the Andrew Doria. He placed all the enemy soldiers aboard the Oxford with nine Americans under Third Lieutenant John McDougall along with Trevett. He turned the Crawford over to the capable Lieutenant James Josiah, along with four of his best sailors. The transferring went well enough until a heavy blow came up and swamped one boat, but no one was lost. The three ships set sail for Newport.42

  The ships sailed together without incident until June 11. They were off Martha’s Vineyard when five large sail were sighted from the northeast, heading their way. As with the Cabot, Biddle split the ships up, sending the Oxford westward, the Crawford southeast, and the Andrew Doria eastward. He could not know that he was flying from the HMS Merlin, a sloop acting as convoy to four merchantmen. Biddle easily got away, but in doing so he lost sight of his prizes. He reached Newport two days later, finding Hopkins there as well. The captured supplies in the Andrew Doria’s hold included everything a Highlander needed for fighting, from muskets to bagpipes.

  As days passed, Biddle gave up hopes of seeing his prizes again. What befell Lieutenants McDougall and Josiah was not atypical of the times, and adds an ironic coda to this cruise. Once the southeast-bound Oxford went over the horizon, the Highlanders saw their chance and overcame their captors, an action Lieutenant Trevett understood; he would have done the same. Lacking a navigator among them, the Scotsmen did their best to make for Hampton Roads and Lord Dunmore.

  Remarkably, they succeeded, rea
ching the Virginia Capes two days later, where two boats approached them. Believing their visitors to be Loyalist pilots, they asked of Dunmore’s whereabouts and were told he was just up the James River. The Highlanders became delirious with joy: their odyssey was over. They continued upriver, where they were happily met by ships and sailors of the Virginia Navy, every man jack a rebel. Lord Dunmore was forty miles away. After some tedious negotiations with Congress over paying their way, McDougall, Trevett, and company headed home to Philadelphia.43

  The Crawford was also back in British hands, but with a different twist, chased and taken by the Cerberus on June 12. Captain John Symons put Josiah and his four sailors aboard his frigate and sent the Crawford to Sandy Hook, New Jersey, a nautical way station for the Royal Navy throughout the war. She did not get far; on June 19, she was intercepted by one of Washington’s sloops, the Schuyler, off Fire Island. Her supplies were now the property of the Continental Army, just as Biddle intended.44

  Josiah and his men were not as lucky as the Americans aboard the Oxford. For several months, they remained prisoners aboard the Cerberus, where Symons treated them brutally—especially Josiah. They were eventually transferred to the Whitby, a prison ship anchored in New York harbor. Enraged at the news of his friend’s treatment, Biddle fired off two letters: one to the Marine Committee, exhorting them to arrange an exchange for Josiah, the second a vociferous protest to Lord Admiral Howe. Biddle and other American captains treated their prisoners humanely, and as a former Royal Navy officer he expected the same for his comrade. As we will see, that would hardly be the case.45

  In Newport, Biddle made his official report to Hopkins, and a long, personal one to his brother Charles. He opened this letter with the sentence that has been felt by every serviceman: “It is with the greatest Pleasure imaginable I Received letters from home as it convinces me that I am not intirely forgot.” He humorously regaled Charles with his latest adventures. After praying that Hopkins would “not send me to that out of the way Place, Providence,” instead of another cruise, Biddle inquired of his friends in the Pennsylvania Navy. Then he added a postscript—a rare, serious statement about himself, obvious by now to anyone who had seen Nicholas in action:

  I fear Nothing but what I ought to fear. I am much more Afraid of doing a foolish Action than loosing My Life. I aim for a Character of Conduct as well as courage And hope never to throw away the Vessel and Crew merely to convince the world I have Courage. No one has dar[e]d to impeach it yet. If any should I will not leave them a Moment to doubt.46

  As Biddle’s deeds sent his stock skyrocketing with both Congress and the public, Esek Hopkins’s reputation was sinking daily. Following the Andrew Doria’s return, the Cabot brought another prize into port, but the accomplishments of Biddle and Hinman could not offset the growing accusations made against their commodore. When Congress considered Hopkins’s disregard of their initial orders (and, as southern congressmen saw it, disregarding their colonies’ needs), it was easy to see why southern representatives saw the new navy just as they had feared they would: as a New England enterprise for New England, paid for by all thirteen colonies.

  The old tar defended himself in endless letters to Washington, Hancock, John Adams, and anybody he could sway. He did not infect his sailors; he did not set up the miserly pay scale for his officers and men. Yes, he gave the guns to New England sea towns, but it was they who needed them in April, not Philadelphia. And, as disastrous as the Glasgow affair was, it proved Hopkins correct in his original assumption that any engagement by the Continentals against the Royal Navy was pure stupidity, regardless of the locale—be it off Rhode Island, Virginia, or South Carolina. Add to this the envy and ambition exhibited by his captains in “getting higher Stations in the new Ships”—those thirteen frigates—and Hopkins requested his brother Stephen to replace him. “Get a good Man in my Room,” he begged.

  While awaiting Stephen’s reply, Hopkins continued sending out his ships on convoy assignments. On June 18, the Columbus had just cleared Newport when she was pounced on by the Cerberus. Watching from town, Hopkins sent the Andrew Doria and Providence down to assist Whipple. The ships were scarcely under way when their captains saw the Cerberus break off the engagement; a strong flood tide was running towards the harbor, pushing the frigate toward the nearby reefs. Biddle’s subsequent cruise brought more misfortune, capturing a prize only to lose her to the Cerberus again.47

  Days later, Hopkins’s letters were answered, not by Stephen but by Hancock. Hopkins, Saltonstall, and Whipple were ordered to Philadelphia. “Come prepared to answer for your general Conduct,” the President of Congress added. Hancock was less tactful to Washington, complaining about “the shameful Inactivity of our Fleet.” Before departing, Hopkins turned command over temporarily to the senior officer, Nicholas Biddle.48

  Except for Charles Alexander, the Continental captains present during the repulse of the Roebuck and Liverpool were spectators in that encounter, but they were now about to reenter the fray. Their ships—John Barry’s Lexington, Lambert Wickes’s Reprisal, Alexander’s Wasp, and William Hallock’s Hornet—were under orders from the Marine Committee to escort merchantmen safely through the Delaware Capes. The Roebuck had departed for Virginia, leaving the Liverpool as chief watchdog of the Royal Navy.

  And Captain Bellew, with or without his wife, was more than up for the assignment, capturing merchantmen and pursuing the smaller Continental vessels. It was a hazy morning on May 27 when Bellew sighted the Lexington, Reprisal, and Wasp, fresh from one of their escort services. Clapping on all sail, he sent his frigate boldly after them. Three hours later, Barry ordered his ships to heave to, and they stopped dead in the wind. Seeing this, Bellew ran out his guns and began thinking of how to successfully take these rebels. For a half hour, Barry waited, waited, and waited, until the ships were within range of the Liverpool’s bow chasers. A gale started blowing when he ordered the ships to make way for the Overfalls, his favorite refuge.

  To Barry’s pleasant surprise, the Liverpool kept coming. She was inside the shoals when Bellew’s leadman cried from the bow—the ship was in less than three fathoms of water—about eighteen feet. “Wear Ship!” Bellew roared, changing course seconds before she would have run aground, and been taken as a prize herself. The Liverpool made for Cape Henlopen. She soon sailed for New York, but the cat-and-mouse game would continue with the next British ships assigned the task of keeping watch over Delaware Bay.49

  By the end of June, a dozen merchantmen were inside Cape May, awaiting escort. Barry was reluctant to take them out, since two new warships now prowled the bay’s entrance—the frigate Orpheus, Captain Charles Hudson, and the sloop-of-war Kingfisher, Captain Alexander Graeme. Barry was not afraid, just cautious. He preferred convoying his charges out when fog or bad weather came his way. On June 28, another challenge presented itself.50

  That morning, the Orpheus was anchored off Cape Henlopen when two sail were sighted in chase. Hudson recognized the pursuer as the Kingfisher, coming fast after an American brigantine. She was the Nancy, Captain Hugh Montgomery, an old friend of Barry’s. Her hold was full of gunpowder from St. Croix, and Congress was anxiously awaiting her arrival. Hudson instantly joined in the chase. Montgomery was in his home waters now, and he made for the Overfalls. Barry’s mastheader saw them as they came up by Cape May. The Lexington was with the Reprisal and the Wasp (the Hornet was being refitted in Philadelphia), waiting for an opportune time to get the merchantmen out and to provide any assistance in bringing the Nancy safely into Philadelphia. At dusk, Barry signaled for Wickes and Hallock to join him for a council of war.

  Inside his lantern-lit cabin Barry and the other officers reviewed their options. They decided to send their barges around the cape in the morning, to reinforce Montgomery’s crew and get the gunpowder ashore. Barry would assume command of the action. The Wasp’s barge was placed under the teenage Lieutenant Joshua Barney while, with reluctance, Wickes bo
wed to the pleas of his young brother Richard to command the Reprisal’s barge. Unbeknownst to them all, Montgomery was making their coming task easier. Once in the shoals, he sailed above Cape May to the oddly named Turtle Gut Inlet, just as his pursuers anchored safely off the cape.

  A fine mist and gray skies greeted the adversaries on Saturday, June 29. The three American barges started up the Jersey shoreline, with the Reprisal in the lead. Before weighing anchor to resume pursuit, Hudson called all hands aboard the Orpheus to witness punishment (Hudson frequently let the cat out of the bag). Then he joined Graeme in pursuing the Nancy. It was now a race to see who would reach her first. As Graeme and Hudson kept their ships out of the shallows, the Nancy remained anchored outside Turtle Gut Inlet.

  Richard Wickes reached the Nancy first. After relaying Barry’s plans to Montgomery, they cut the Nancy’s hawser (the stout anchor rope) and sailed the brigantine into the inlet. Just before running her onto shore, Montgomery turned the ship so that her port guns faced the inlet’s entrance. The other barges joined them shortly.

  Once aboard, Barry immediately took command, sending the Lexington’s gunners to man the 3-pounders, while those marines brought by the barges waited behind the bulwark, reloading their muskets with dry powder. Barry then ordered the rest of the men to start unloading the gunpowder. Working like a bucket brigade, they passed the first half barrel out of the hold, up the hatch, over the side, and into one of the Nancy’s boats. One unloaded, 385 to go.

  The Kingfisher, her draft lighter than that of the Orpheus, led the tenders to the inlet’s entrance, turning as the Nancy did to line up their broadside for maximum effect. As soon as the guns were run out, Graeme yelled “Fire!” and British iron flew over the Nancy, the cannonballs thudding into the dry sand beyond her. Graeme ordered marines and his best fighting sailors into his longboats. Within minutes they were lowered. Sailors bent their backs and pulled strongly in unison, heading into the inlet and straight for the Nancy. During the initial onslaught Barry kept the Nancy’s guns silent. But once the longboats came in range, the Americans let fly with an accurate broadside, damaging one boat beyond repair and driving the British back to their ship. They reached the Liverpool just as the Orpheus joined the fighting. With the frigate’s longer guns for cover, Graeme sent the Kingfisher and the tenders in another three hundred yards. In half an hour the British gunners found their range. With each broadside, the Nancy was being blasted to bits, but miraculously, no American had been killed. The Lexingtons fired back, the Nancy’s 3-pounders spitting defiantly at the enemy.