Naval History of the American Revolution - Chapters XVIII-XIX



CHAPTER XVIII
NAVAL PRISONERS

The lot of the prisoner of war has always been an unhappy one at best; in 
early times put to the sword, at a later day enslaved, and even in modern 
wars sometimes unavoidably subjected to most unfavorable conditions in the 
exigencies of a campaign. Civilized countries have at times permitted a 
treatment of prisoners unnecessarily harsh and even cruel. At the outset 
of a civil war the question arises whether or not the rebel shall be dealt 
with as a traitor and criminal, but fear of reprisals soon forces the 
virtual if not explicit recognition of belligerent rights. Lord George 
Germain, writing to General Howe, February 1, 1776, in regard to some 
American officers captured on a privateer by the British, says: "It is 
hoped that the possession of these prisoners will enable you to procure 
the release of such of his majesty's officers and loyal subjects as are in 
the disgraceful situation of being prisoners to the rebels; for although 
it cannot be that you should enter into any treaty or agreement with 
rebels for a regular cartel for exchange of prisoners, yet I doubt not but 
your own discretion will suggest to you the means of effecting such 
exchange without the king's dignity and honor being committed or His 
Majesty's name used in any negotiation for that purpose." (Hist. Mag., 
March, 1862.) Here may be noted an intimation of the bitterness commonly 
exhibited in civil strife, which is sometimes conveniently visited upon 
the helpless prisoner. This should impose upon governments and officers of 
rank an increased sense of responsibility for the acts of subordinates. 
The accounts of the treatment of prisoners in New York, unquestionably 
authentic though perhaps colored by privation, are difficult to reconcile 
with the undoubted humane character of some of the British officers in 
command. The situation of the British at that place and their resources 
could hardly have been such as to prevent the proper care of prisoners.

At New York many buildings were converted into prisons and several prison-
ships were moored in the harbor, especially in Wallabout Bay, where the 
Navy Yard at Brooklyn now is. Most of the prisoners taken at sea were 
confined in these hulks. There were probably prison-ships in most British 
harbors frequented by cruising vessels, and other ships were at times 
temporarily used for the purpose. The best known places in England where 
Americans were confined were Mill Prison at Plymonth and Forton Prison at 
Portsmouth.

The treatment of American prisoners by the British gave rise to much 
discussion in Congress and to a voluminous correspondence between 
commanding officers and commissaries of prisoners. January 18, 1777, 
General Washington wrote to Admiral Howe "on the subject of the cruel 
treatment which our officers and men in the naval department, who are 
unhappy enough to fall into your hands, receive on board the prisonships 
in the harbour of New York." To General Howe on the same day he wrote: 
"Those who have been lately sent out give the most shocking account of 
their barbarous usage, which their miserable, emaciated countenances 
confirm . . . Most of the prisoners who have returned home [by exchange] 
have informed me that they were offered better treatment provided they 
would enlist into your service. This I believe is unprecedented; and what, 
if true, makes it still more unnecessary for me to apologize for the 
freedom of expression which I have used throughout this letter." 
(Washington, v, 166,169,170.) Washington threatened retaliation. Admiral 
Howe replied, January 17, that the reports of ill treatment were 
exaggerated, that some prisoners having escaped, less liberty was allowed 
than formerly and crowding made necessary, that the prisoners had the same 
ration and medical attendance as British sailors. May 28, Washington wrote 
to the President of Congress that many of the prisoners released by the 
British were unfit for exchange by reason of the severity of their 
treatment and that a deduction should be made on their account. This was 
before the Jersey, a dismantled sixty-four-gun ship, was brought to New 
York and moored in Wallabout Bay, and became the most notorious of all the 
prison- ships. In 1779, there was an improvement on board these ships at 
New York, acknowledged by Washington and confirmed by a letter from one of 
the prisoners. This was only temporary, however, and a year or two later 
conditions were at their worst, although an attempt at reform seems to 
have been made by Admiral Graves in 1781 (Jour. Cont. Congr., resolves: 
December 7, 1776, June 10, 1777, April 21, 1780, September 4, 18, 1781; 
committee reports: December 7, 1776, January 7, 9, 1777; Pap. Cont. 
Congr., 152, 3, 505, 4, 113 (Howe to Washington, January 23, April 21,
1777), 5, 221 (Washington to Howe, November 23, 1777), 10, 233 (Affleck to 
Washington, August 30, 1781); Washington, v, 170, 394, 423, vi, 193, viii, 
121, 338, ix, 119; Boston Gazette, September 17, 1781.)

In addition to the practice, alluded to by Washington, of tempting 
prisoners to enlist in the British service by promises of better 
treatment, they were sometimes impressed, and on board cruising ships 
also, at times, they were forced to bear arms against their countrymen. In 
1776, William Barry, a prisoner on the Roebuck in Delaware Bay, and Elisha 
Cole, an American shipmaster on the frigate Milford, were compelled to do 
this, and both afterwards made depositions to the fact. In retaliation 
Congress authorized Captain Biddle to take British prisoners from jail to 
fill his complement. There are several accounts, however, of humane 
treatment on board British cruising ships and on prison-ships at Halifax 
and elsewhere. Captain Daniel Lunt of Newburyport was well treated on 
board the British cruiser Lively, which captured him off Cape Ann in 1776, 
although afterwards, when transferred to the Renown, he and other 
shipmasters were robbed of their money and put at hard labor. Joshua 
Barney was treated with marked kindness on three different cruising ships 
and with an equal degree of severity on two others. Nathaniel Fanning, who 
was several times a prisoner, was robbed and maltreated on two British 
vessels, but on other occasions fared very well. In 1777, Captain Stephen 
Hills was well treated on a prison-ship at Halifax, and in 1782 eighty-one 
Americans at the same place, and others in a hospital there, had the best 
of care. In 1781, Captain Tucker of the privateer Thorn escaped from the 
Island of St. John's (Prince Edward Island) and reported that he had been 
very kindly treated there. The same year some prisoners who. arrived in 
Salem from Newfoundland acknowledged "the very humane and benevolent 
treatment which they received from Admiral Edwards." The next year nearly 
three hundred Americans were brought home from there in a cartel (Am. 
Arch. IV, v, 759, vi, 809, V, ii, 538; Pap. Cont. Congr., 19, 3, 581 
(December 7, 1776); Barney, 51, 66, 70, 86; Fanning, 14-18, 144-148, 229-
238; A. Sherburne, 49-76; Tucker, 163; Boston Gazette, September 30, 1776, 
July 28, 1777; Mass. Spy, September 11, 1776; Independent Chronicle, 
February 5, 1778; Continental Journal, August 23, 1781; Salem Gazette, 
November 15, 1781, July 18, October 17, 1782.; Boston Post, July 20, 1782; 
Hunt's Mag., February, 1857.

Many years after the war Nathaniel Bowditch told the following 
Revolutionary anecdote, which had been related to him by his father: 
"Capt. Tuck of Manchester in a small privateer was taken by a British 
vessel of war, & his crew was carried on board & detained as prisoners. 
Cruising afterwards on the eastern shore, the vessel struck on a sunken 
ledge at some distance from a small island then in sight and soon bilged. 
Their situation soon became extremely dangerous, the greatest confusion 
prevailed on board, and the British seamen finding that none of the stores 
on board the ship could possibly be saved, procured from the store room 
considerable quantities of rum & drank so freely that they soon became 
incapable of doing their duty, and in getting out the boats bilged & lost 
them. Their situation now became desperate, they seemed to have no chance 
of saving their lives, as the crew were so disorderly and incompetent of 
doing their duty. Capt. Tuck then proposed to the British commander to 
make a raft out of the spars, yards, &c. of the ship and offered his 
services in doing it, provided he could have it under his own direction, 
with none to assist except the American prisoners, most of whom were free 
from intoxication. This offer was cheerfully accepted & he made out to get 
the crew safely ashore without losing a man, but before anything else 
could be got from the ship, she went to pieces. The British Commander on 
the Halifax Station liberated Capt. T. and his crew without parole or 
exchange, on account of his services." (Pickering MSS., xxx, 415.)

In June, 1778, Robert Sheffield, a shipmaster of Stonington, Connecticut, 
made his escape from one of the New York prison-ships after a confinement 
of only six days. There were three hundred and fifty men on board confined 
below, although it is to be presumed that they were allowed on deck in the 
daytime, as was the custom. Sheffield says the heat was "so intense that 
they were all naked . . . Their sickly countenances and ghastly looks were 
truly horrible, some swearing and blaspheming, some crying, praying and 
wringing their hands and stalking about like ghosts, others delirious, 
raving and storming; some groaning and dying, all panting for breath; some 
dead and corrupting, air so foul at times that a lamp could not be kept 
burning, by reason of which the boys were not missed till they had been 
dead ten days." There were five or six deaths a day (Conn. Gazette, July 
10, 1778, quoted in Onderdonk's Revolutionary Incidents, 227, 228.) 
Captain John Chester wrote to General Webb, January 17, 1777: "The inhuman 
treatment our prisoners met with while in New York is beyond all 
description. Humanity cannot but drop a tear at sight of the poor, 
miserable, starved objects. They are mere skeletons, unable to creep or 
speak in many instances. One vessel lost 27 in her passage from New York 
to Milford [Connecticut], and 7 died the night they were put ashore; and 
they are dying all along the road." (Correspondence of General Webb, i, 
184.) According to a report from Boston, February 4, 1779, "a cartel 
lately brought 136 prisoners from prison-ships in N.Y. to N. London. Such 
was the condition in which these poor creatures were put aboard the 
cartel, that in this short run 16 died on board and 60, when they landed, 
were scarcely able to move, and the remainder greatly emaciated." 
(Onderdonk, 229.) The most favorable account comes from Daniel Stanton, 
who writes from Stonington, August 28, 1779: "I was taken with a number of 
others on or about the 5th of June last in the ship Oliver Cromwell, 
carried into New York and put on the Prison Ship Jersey. There was nothing 
plundered from us, we were kindly used by the Captain and others that 
belonged to the ship. Our Sick were attended by Physicians who appeared 
very Officious to recover them to health. Our Allowance for Subsistance 
was wholesome and in reasonable Plenty, including the Allowance by the 
Continental Congress sent on Board. About three or four weeks past we were 
removed on board the Prison Ship Good Hope, where we found many sick; 
there is now a hospital ship provided, to which they are removed and good 
Attention paid, and doubt not the same Hospitality is used towards those 
of the Enemy, where the Fortune of War has cast into our hands. On the 
whole we were as humanely treated as our Condition and the Enemy's Safety 
would admit." (Conn. Gazette, September 1, 1779, quoted in Papers New 
London Hist. Soc., IV, i, 44.) Another good account is given by Captain 
Thomas Dring and others who escaped from the Good Hope (N. J. Gazette, 
October 12, 1779, quoted in Onderdonk, 230.) According to Joshua Barney, a 
prisoner in 1778, Admiral Byron during his short stay on the station took 
great pains to improve as far as possible the conditions on New York 
prison-ships (Barney, 74.) These conditions probably varied from time to 
time according to the characters of different officers and subordinates in 
charge, and according to the weather and other circumstances, especially 
the number of prisoners on board. The Continental Congress provided the 
means for supplying the prisoners at New York with extra food and 
appointed a merchant named Pintard as agent to look after them (Pap. Cont. 
Congr., 37, 322 (October 6, 1780).)

Philip Freneau, the poet, was a passenger on the armed ship Aurora of 
Philadelphia, which was captured after an hour's engagement by the British 
frigate Iris, May 26, 1780, and taken to New York. Freneau was sent on 
board the prison-ship Scorpion in the North River, where he was "almost 
suffocated with the heat and stench." He relates that on the night of June 
4 "about thirty-five of our people formed a design of making their escape, 
in which they were favored by a large schooner accidentally alongside of 
us . . . We were then suffered to continue upon deck, if we chose, till 
nine o'clock. We were all below by that time except the insurgents, who 
rushed upon the sentries and disarmed them in a moment," and drove them 
into the cabin. "When the sentries were all silent they manned the ship's 
boat and boarded the schooner, though the people on board attempted to 
keep them off with hand-spikes. The wind blowing fresh at south and the 
flood of tide being made, they hoisted sail and were out of sight in a few 
minutes . . . As soon as the sentries got possession of the vessel again, 
which they had no difficulty in doing, as there was no resistance made, 
they posted themselves at each hatchway and most basely and cowardly fired 
fore and aft among us, pistols and musquets, for a full quarter of an hour 
without intermission. By the mercy of God they touched but four, one 
mortally." The next morning "all that were found wounded were put in irons 
and ordered to lie upon deck, exposed to the burning sun. About four 
o'clock P.M., one of the poor fellows who had been wounded the night 
before died. They then took him out of irons, sent him on shore, and 
buried him. After this no usage seemed to them severe enough for us. We 
had water given us to drink that a dog could scarcely relish; it was thick 
and clammy and had a dismal smell. They withdrew our allowance of rum and 
drove us down every night strictly at sunset, where we suffered 
inexpressibly till seven. o'clock in the morning, the gratings being 
rarely opened before that time. Thus did I live with my miserable 
companions till the 22d of June. When finding myself taken with a fever, I 
procured myself to be put on the sick list, and the same day was sent with 
a number of others to the Hunter hospital-ship, lying in the East River. 
Here was a new scene opened. The Hunter had been very newly put to the use 
of a hospital-ship. She was miserably dirty and cluttered. Her decks 
leaked to such a degree that the sick were deluged with every shower of 
rain. Between decks they lay along, struggling in the agonies of death, 
dying with putrid and bilious fevers, lamenting their hard fate to die at 
such a fatal distance from their friends; others totally insensible and 
yielding their last breath in all the horrors of light-headed frenzy." 
(Freneau's Capture of the Aurora, 15-41.)

In the fall of 1780, Captain Silas Talbot was confined on the Jersey. 
There were then about eleven hundred prisoners on board, with no berths to 
lie in nor benches to sit on; many were almost without clothes. Dysentery 
and fever prevailed. The scantiness and bad quality of the provisions, the 
brutality of the guards, and the sick pining for comforts they could not 
obtain, altogether furnished one of the greatest scenes of human distress 
ever beheld. The weather was cool and dry, with frosty nights, so that the 
number of deaths was reduced to an average of ten a day, which was small 
compared with the mortality for three months before. The human bones and 
skulls still bleaching on the shore of Long Island as late as 1803, and 
daily exposed by the falling of the high bank on which the prisoners were 
buried, was a shocking sight (Historical Sketch of Silas Talbot, 106-109.) 
A few years after that these bones were collected and buried and a 
monument erected over them.

Ebenezer Fox, describing the Jersey as she was in 1781, says: "Her 
external appearance was forbidding and gloomy. She was dismantled; her 
only spars were the bowsprit, a derrick that looked like a gallows, for 
hoisting supplies on board, and a flagstaff at the stern. The port-holes 
were closed and secured. Two tiers of holes were cut through her sides, 
about two feet square and about ten feet apart, strongly guarded by a 
grating of iron bars." (Fox, 96.) Fox and his shipmates upon their arrival 
"were ordered to ascend to the upper deck of the prison ship. Here our 
names were registered . . . Each of us was permitted to retain whatever 
clothing and bedding we had brought, after having been examined" for 
weapons and money; "and then we were directed to pass through a strong 
door on the starboard side, down a ladder leading to the main hatchway. I 
now found myself in a loathsome prison, among a collection of the most 
wretched and disgusting looking objects that I ever beheld in human form. 
Here was a motley crew, covered with rags and filth, visages pallid with 
disease, emaciated with hunger and anxiety, and retaining hardly a trace 
of their original appearance." (Fox, 99.) "The various messes of the 
prisoners [of six men each] were numbered, and nine in the morning was the 
hour when the steward would deliver from the window in his room, at the 
after part of the ship, the allowance granted . . . Each mess received 
daily what was equivalent in weight or measure, but not in quality, to the 
rations of four men at full allowance; that is, each prisoner received two 
thirds as much as was allowed to a seaman in the British navy. Our bill of 
fare was as follows: on Sunday, one pound of biscuit, one pound of pork 
and half a pint of peas; Monday, one pound of biscuit, one pint of oatmeal 
and two ounces of butter; Tuesday, one pound of biscuit and two pounds of 
salt beef; Wednesday, one and a half pounds of flour and two ounces of 
suet. Thursday was a repetition of Sunday's fare, Friday of Monday's and 
Saturday of Tuesday's. If this food had been of a good quality and 
properly cooked, as we had no labor to perform, it would have kept us 
comfortable, at least from suffering. But this was not the case. All our 
food appeared to be damaged." (Fox, 101-102.) "The cooking for the 
prisoners was done in a great copper vessel that contained between two and 
three hogsheads of water, set in brick work. The form of it was square and 
it was divided into two compartments by a partition. In one of these the 
peas and oatmeal were boiled; this was done in fresh water. In the other 
the meat was boiled in salt water taken up from alongside the ship. The 
Jersey, from her size and lying near the shore, was imbedded in the mud
. . . All the filth that accumulated among upwards of a thousand men was 
daily thrown overboard and would remain there till carried away by the 
tide. The impurity of the water may be easily conceived; and in this water 
our meat was boiled." (Fox, 105-106.)

"In the morning the prisoners were permitted to ascend the upper deck, to 
spend the day till ordered below at sunset. A certain number, who were for 
the time called the 'working party,' performed in rotation the duty of 
bringing up hammocks and bedding for airing, likewise the sick and infirm 
and the bodies of those who had died during the night; of these there were 
generally a number every morning. After these services it was their duty 
to wash the decks. . . . About two hours before sunset, orders were given 
to the prisoners to carry all their things below, but we were permitted to 
remain above till we retired for the night. . . . At sunset our ears were 
saluted with the insulting and hateful sound from our keepers, of 'Down, 
rebels, down,' and we were hurried below, the hatchways fastened over us 
and we were left to pass the night amid the accumulated horrors of sighs 
and groans, of foul vapor, a nauseous and putrid atmosphere, in a stifled 
and almost suffocating heat. The tiers of holes through the sides of the 
ship were strongly grated, but not provided with glass, and it was 
considered a privilege to sleep near one of these apertures in hot weather 
... But little sleep, however, could be enjoyed even there, for the vermin 
were so horribly abundant that all the personal cleanliness we could 
practise would not protect us from their attacks." When the dead, sewn in 
blankets, were taken ashore, some of the prisoners went with them, "under 
a guard, to perform the labor of interment . . . Here in a bank near the 
Wallabout a hole was excavated in the sand, in which the body was put and 
then slightly covered, the guard not giving time sufficient to perform 
this melancholy service in a faithful manner. Many bodies would, in a few 
days after this mockery of a burial, be exposed nearly bare by the action 
of the elements." (Fox, 109-111.)

Thomas Andros was also on the Jersey in 1781, and says: "When I first 
became an inmate of this abode of suffering, despair and death, there were 
about four hundred prisoners on board, but in a short time they amounted 
to twelve hundred. And in proportion to our numbers the mortality 
increased." (Andros, Old Jersey Captive, 12.) Dysentery, smallpox, and 
yellow fever were prevalent. "Now and then an American physician was 
brought in as a captive, but if he could obtain his parole he left the 
ship, nor could we much blame him for this. For his own death was next to 
certain and his success in saving others by medicine in our situation was 
small. I remember only two American physicians who tarried on board a few 
days. No English physician or any one from the city ever to my knowledge 
came near us." (Andros, 15.) "Our water was good, could we have had enough 
of it; our bread was bad in the superlative degree. I do not recollect 
seeing any which was not full of living vermin; but eat it, worms and all, 
we must or starve." (Andros, 17.) Andros eventually escaped. Attempts to 
escape from the prison-ships were frequent and not uncommonly successful. 
The crew of the Jersey consisted of a captain, two mates, a steward, a 
cook, and about a dozen sailors, besides a guard of ten or twelve invalid 
marines and about thirty soldiers. By eluding the vigilance of these 
guards, or perhaps bribing a sentry, it was sometimes possible to get away 
from the ship in a boat or by swimming. Upon reaching shore, however, 
fugitives had many difficulties to encounter, especially the 
unfriendliness of the tory population of Long Island (lbid., 24 et seq.; 
Fox, ch. viii. For other experiences of prisoners, see Dring's 
Recollections of Jersey Prison Ship; Taylor's Martyrs in the Prison-Ships; 
A. Sherburne, ch. v; Hist. Mag., July, 1866 (Suppl.); Mag. Amer. Hist., 
March, 1878, Matthewman's narrative.)

The method of exchange for the relief of the prisoners' sufferings was not 
as generally applicable as could have been wished, partly because the 
supply of British in the hands of the Americans was inadequate. British 
prisoners were released in large numbers by their American captors, 
especially privateersmen, because they had no means of supporting them, 
often, apparently, neglecting to take their paroles. Washington stated his 
views on the subject in a letter to the President of Congress, February 
18, 1782, saying: "Mr. Sproat's proposition of the exchange of British 
soldiers for American seamen, if acceded to, will immediately give the 
enemy a very considerable reinforcement and will be a constant draft 
hereafter upon the prisoners of war in our hands. It ought also to be 
considered that few or none of the naval prisoners in New York and 
elsewhere belong to the Continental service. I however feel for the 
situation of these unfortunate people and wish to see them released by any 
mode which will not materially affect the public good. In some former 
letters upon this subject I have mentioned a plan by which I am certain 
they might be liberated nearly as fast as captured. It is by obliging the 
captains of all armed vessels, both public and private, to throw their 
prisoners into common stock, under the direction of the commissary-general 
of prisoners. By these means they would be taken care of and regularly 
applied to the exchange of those in the hands of the enemy. Now the 
greater part are dissipated and the few that remain are applied 
partially." (Washington, ix, 444. See negotiations for a general cartel 
for the exchange of prisoners, in Webb, ii, 19-85.) Washington 
corresponded with various British naval commanders during the last two 
years of the war and received replies from Admiral Arbuthnot, Captain 
Affleck, and Admiral Digby, expressing concern at the prisoners' plight 
and a purpose to apply remedies. General Carleton also made plans in 1782 
to correct abuses. The American and British commissaries of prisoners, 
Abraham Skinner and David Sproat, also corresponded freely on the subjects 
of treatment and exchange of prisoners. Whether or not as a result of 
these efforts, conditions seem to have improved in June, 1782, according 
to the report of six American shipmasters on parole, "that they had been 
on board the prison and hospital ships to inspect the state of the 
American naval prisoners and found them in as comfortable situation as it 
is possible for prisoners to be on board ships and much better than they 
had an idea of." This report was published about two weeks after a letter 
from Washington to Digby on the subject (Almon, xiv, 262, 263; Onderdonk, 
233-235, 240-244; Mar. Com. Letter Book, 261, 262; Mass. Spy, August 8, 
1782.)

The Americans captured in European waters and many also from this side of 
the ocean were sent to prisons in England. The American Commissioners in 
Paris began early to interest themselves in the welfare of these 
prisoners, and Franklin especially, until the end of the war, was untiring 
in his efforts to mitigate their hardships. February 23, 1777, began a 
correspondence of the commissioners with Stormont, the British ambassador, 
in regard to the exchange of prisoners, which defined the positions of the 
two nations on the subject at that time. They wrote: "Captain Wickes of 
the Reprisal frigate, belonging to the United States of America, has now 
in his hands near one hundred British seamen, prisoners. He desires to 
know whether an exchange may be made for an equal number of American 
seamen now prisoners in England? We take the liberty of proposing this 
matter to your Lordship and of requesting your opinion (if there be no 
impropriety in your giving it) whether such an exchange will probably be 
agreed to by your Court. If your people cannot be soon exchanged here, 
they will be sent to America." (Sparks's Franklin, ix, 166.)

No reply was received to this and on April 2 they wrote again: "We did 
ourselves the Honour of writing some time since to your Lordship on the 
Subject of Exchanging Prisoners. You did not condescend to give us any 
Answer and therefore we expect none to this. We however take the Liberty 
of sending you Copies of certain Depositions, which we shall transmit to 
Congress, whereby it will be known to your Court that the United States 
are not unacquainted with the barbarous Treatment their People receive, 
when they have the Misfortune of being your Prisoners here in Europe. And 
that if your Conduct towards us is not altered, it is not unlikely that 
severe Reprisals may be thought justifiable, from the Necessity of putting 
some Check to such abominable Practices. For the sake of Humanity it is to 
be wish'd that Men would endeavour to alleviate as much as possible the 
unavoidable Misseries attending a State of War. It has been said that 
among the civilized Nations of Europe the ancient Horrors of that State 
are much diminished, but the Compelling Men by Chains, Stripes & Famine, 
to fight against their Friends and Relations, is a new Mode of Barbarity 
which your Nation alone has the Honour of inventing. And the sending 
American Prisoners of War to Africa and Asia, remote from all Probability 
of Exchange and where they can scarce hope ever to hear from their 
Families, even if the Unwholesomeness of the Climate does not put a speedy 
End to their Lives, is a manner of treating Captives that you can justify 
by no Precedent or Custom, except that of the black Savages of Guinea." 
(Smyth's Franklin, vii, 36.) The following message, unsigned and undated, 
was received in reply: "The King's Ambassador receives no applications 
from rebels but when they come to implore His Majesty's Mercy." The 
commissioners then closed the correspondence: "In answer to a letter which 
concerns some of the most material interests of humanity and of the two 
nations, Great Britain and the United States of America, now at war, we 
received the inclosed indecent paper as coming from your Lordship, which 
we return for your Lordship's, more mature consideration." (Sparks, ix, 
167.)

Stormont sent copies of the letter of April 2 and his unsigned reply to 
Lord Weymouth and with them the following: "I send your Lordship a Copy of 
a very Extraordinary and Insolent Letter, that has just been left at my 
House by a Person who called himself an English Gentleman; I thought it by 
no means Proper to appear to have received and kept such a Letter, and 
therefore, My Lord, instantly sent it Back by a Savoyard, seemingly 
unopened, under Cover to Mr. Carmichel, who I discovered to be the Person 
that had brought the Letter." (Stevens, 1507; Smyth, vii, 36.) Weymouth 
wrote to Stormont April 11: "I entirely approve of the note Your 
Excellency sent to Mr. Carmichael with the Letter you returned to him. The 
Style and Subject deserved no other treatment." (Stevens, 1503, 1507, 
1515; Almon, v, 371, 372, 511; Hale, i, 194-198.)

The brig Dalton of Newburyport was taken in December, 1776, by the sixty-
four-gun ship Raisonable. The crew were sent to Plymouth, England, where 
after a while they were transferred to the Burford of seventy guns, 
Captain George Bowyer. Here their fortunes, which had been hard, made a 
great change for the better. Each man was given an outfit of clothes and 
bedding, provided by the captain at his own expense. They were well fed 
and kindly treated. This was also the case in the hospital on shore, where 
the sick had the best care. After several weeks on the Burford they were 
transferred to another ship and early in June, 1777, to Mill Prison, near 
Plymouth, which had been prepared for them. They were committed on the 
charge of high treason, to await trial, and could only be released on 
receiving the King's pardon. Two members of the Dalton's crew, Charles 
Herbert and Samuel Cutler, kept journals in prison. Cutler says the ration 
"is 3/4 lb. beef, 1 lb. bread, 1 qt. very ordinary beer, and a few greens 
per man for 24 hours. The beef when boiled weighs about 6 oz. This is our 
allowance daily, except Saturday, when we have 6 oz. cheese instead of the 
beef. To sleep upon, we have a hammock, straw bed and one very thin rug
. . . We are allowed every day to walk in the airing ground from 10 to 12, 
then locked in till 3 o'clock, then we are let out again till 7 o'clock, 
then in and locked up for the night." (N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., April, 
1878.)

Herbert wrote, August 31: "Many are strongly tempted to pick up the grass 
in the yard and eat it and some pick up old bones in the yard that have 
been laying in the dirt a week or ten days and pound them to pieces and 
suck them. Some will pick up snails out of the holes in the wall and from 
among the grass and weeds in the yard, boil them and eat them and drink 
the broth . . . Our meat is very poor in general; we scarcely see a good 
piece once in a month. Many are driven to such necessity by want of 
provisions that they have sold most of the clothes off their backs for the 
sake of getting a little money to buy them some bread." (Livesey's 
Prisoners of 1776, 65, 66.) Some of the prisoners were able occasionally 
to earn a few shillings with which to buy extra food and other 
necessities. Andrew Sherburne, who was in Mill Prison in 1782, says there 
were between eight hundred and a thousand men confined there at that time 
(A. Sherburne, 85. For an English account, see Annual Register, xxi 
(1778), 78.)

In September, 1777, an improvement began and continued for more than a 
year. This was due to outside causes and did not indicate any relaxation 
of severity on the part of the government or prison authorities. The 
sympathies of charitable people in London and elsewhere had been aroused 
and a fund was subscribed which furnished extra food and clothing 
(Livesey, 68, 70, 91, 92, 96.) Jonathan Archer wrote to his parents from 
Mill Prison, September 25, 1778: "The time seems long and teagous to me; I 
shall embrace every opportunity of writing. We have plenty of provisions; 
the gentlemen have raised a large sum of money for the relief of the 
Americans." (Essex Inst. Coll., June, 1864.) Letters of Franklin to 
correspondents in England also did much to excite interest in the 
prisoners (Wharton, ii, 409, 410, 448, 492.) When the money that had been 
raised for their benefit had become exhausted, about the end of 1778, the 
old conditions returned. The prisoners hunted for rats, and if a dog 
strayed in, he was immediately killed and eaten. To be put upon half 
allowance, as many frequently were for punishment, was to be reduced 
nearly to the last extremity. Nevertheless, the health of the prisoners as 
a rule was good, and the death rate, at least for the first two years, 
compared with that of the New York prison-ships, was very low. Early in 
1782, however, there was much sickness (Livesey, 109, 123, 166, 175, 186, 
196, 201, 203, 207, 216, 218; A. Sherburne, 91.)

After France, Spain, and Holland had become involved in the war, the 
prisoners from those countries were better treated than the Americans, 
whose allowance of bread was a third less than theirs. In the House of 
Lords, July 2, 1781, an effort was made to place the Americans on an 
equality in this respect with the French, Spanish, and Dutch, but the 
proposal was defeated by a vote of forty-seven to fourteen. In the course 
of the debate on the question it was argued "that the diet of prisoners, 
as persons in a state of inactivity, ought to be sparing, and that just 
enough to sustain life ought to be the measure of it; for that if more 
than enough was allowed, it would render the prisoners unhealthy by 
producing gross humours if they eat it, or if they sold what was 
superabundant, it was probable they would buy spirits with it and thereby 
render themselves unhealthy and unhappy." (Almon, xii, 222, 223; Mag. 
Amer. Hist., June, 1882.) Very touching was this solicitude of the Lords 
for the health of the American prisoners. Their old enemies, the French 
and Spanish, might be encouraged to ruin their digestions by overeating, 
but in the case of their kinsmen from across the sea, it was not to be 
thought of.

Captain Conyngham's experiences in captivity have been alluded to. After 
his escape he wrote to Franklin from the Texel, December 1, 1779: "I shall 
acquaint you of the many favours I received since I became a captive. 1st, 
in New York, that Sir George Collier ordered irons on my legs, with a 
centry on board the ship. Mr. Collier going on an expedition ordered me to 
jaole, there put me into the condemned room. The first night a cold plank 
my bed a stone for a pillow. 2d night allowed a something to lay on; in 
this horrid room was kept for eight days without the least morsel of 
bread, or anything but water, from the keeper of the prison ... After 
expostulating of the impropriety of such treatment, [the jailer] told me 
he had such orders, but would take it upon himself to release me on my 
giving him my strongest assurances I would not make my escape. I readily 
consented, it not being in the power of man to get out of the condemned 
room . . . In the prison of New York I continued till that tyrant Collier 
returned ... Then I was told to get ready to go on board the prison-ship
. . . Then a pair of criminal irons put on my legs, weight 50 pounds; at 
the door, put into the hangman's cart, all in form as if bound to the 
gallows. I was then put into a boat and took alongside the Raisonable
. . . to be sent to England in the packet. In those Irons I was brought to 
Pendennis Castle. Then not contented, they manacled my hands with a new 
fashioned pair of ruffels fitted very tite. In this condition I was kept 
there 15 or 16 days, then brought to Plymouth and lodged in the black hole 
for eight days, before they would do me the honour of committing me on 
suspicion of high treason on his majesties high seas; then put into Mill 
prison, where we committed treason through his earth and made our escape. 
This, Sir, is an account of their favors, insults excepted. I must 
acquaint your excellency that the poor unfortunate prisoners in Plymouth 
are in a most distressed situation." (Hale, i, 349; Almon, viii, 340.)

Attempts to escape from Mill Prison were numerous, sometimes by climbing 
over the walls, sometimes by burrowing under them, and sometimes by 
bribing sentries, the last generally by officers who had money. Among the 
officers confined at this place were Captains Manley, Talbot, Johnson, and 
O'Brien, and Lieutenants Dale and Barney. Of these the last four escaped, 
besides Conyngham; Manley and Talbot made several attempts. Most 
prisoners' efforts in this direction failed, but in the aggregate a large 
number got off and made their way to Holland and France. At Paris they 
found a good friend in Franklin, who gave them money and assistance to the 
extent of his ability. Those who were caught after escaping were brought 
back, confined forty days in a dungeon called the "black hole," and put 
upon half allowance of food (Livesey, 56-60, passim, 209-213; Barney, 87-
102; O'Brien, 180-183; Port Folio, June, 1814; N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., 
October, 1878; Essex Inst. Coll., January, 1909; Lee MSS., February 28, 
1778; Adams MSS., July 16, 1780, June 5, 1781.) Some escaped by entering 
the British service, yielding to inducements constantly held out to them. 
Those doing so were comparatively few in number, and most of them were 
foreigners who had served on American ships. In December, 1778, over a 
hundred men in Mill Prison signed an agreement to remain loyal to their 
country and under no circumstances to enter the British service (Livesey, 
161, 163, 177, 183, 208, 221.) In June, 1778, rumors of exchange began to 
be heard, which for many months seemed only to hold out false hopes. In 
September, the American Commissioners in Paris wrote to their countrymen 
in English prisons that they had at last "obtained assurances from England 
that an exchange shall take place." They added: "We have now obtained 
permission of this government to put all British prisoners - whether taken 
by continental frigates or by privateers - into the king's prisons, and we 
are determined to treat such prisoners precisely as our countrymen are 
treated in England, to give them the same allowance of provisions and 
accommodations and no other. We therefore request you to inform us with 
exactness what your allowance is from the government, that we may govern 
ourselves accordingly." (Wharton, ii, 729, 730.) It was not until March 
15, 1779, that hopes of release were realized and ninety-seven of the 
inmates of Mill Prison embarked on a cartel bound for France (Livesey, 
139, 141, 179, 182, 199, 200, 219, 223, 224, 233; Wharton, iii, 188. For 
another account of conditions on board a receiving-ship in Plymouth Harbor 
and in Mill Prison, see A. Sherburne, 76-100; see also journal of William 
Russell in Ships and Sailors of Old Salem, chs. vii, viii.)

The brigantine Rising States sailed from Boston, January 26, 1777, and on 
April 15 was captured in the English Channel by the Terrible, 74, though 
only after a spirited resistance. Two weeks later the Terrible arrived at 
Spithead and the prisoners remained on board until June 14, harshly 
treated and on three quarters allowance. They were then removed to Forton 
Prison, near Portsmouth, being the first Americans to occupy it. Their 
experiences are told in the journal of Timothy Connor, one of the crew of 
the Rising States. The prison ration was three quarters of a pound of 
beef, a pound of bread, and a quart of small beer for twenty-four hours, 
and some cabbage every other day. Prisoners in the black hole, for trying 
to escape or other misdemeanor, had six ounces of beef, half a pound of 
bread, and a pint of beer. Five days after entrance the prisoners "made a 
large hole through the wall of the prison and eleven made their escape," 
two of whom were caught and brought back. During the first six months more 
than sixty escaped, about half of whom were retaken. December 25, Connor 
says: "Now the people begin to use humanity throughout England . . . They 
begin to use us better. There are subscription books opened in many parts 
of England for our relief." (N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., July, 1876.) The 
officers were given five shillings a week each and the men two shillings. 
The Reverend Thomas Wren of Portsmouth took a great interest in the 
prisoners and visited them daily. David Hartley, M.P., one of Franklin's 
English correspondents and an old friend of his, also visited the prison. 
Besides the fund raised in England, Franklin sent over what money he could 
spare, to be used for the benefit of the prisoners. Much of this was 
entrusted to an American merchant in London named Digges, who a few years 
later turned out to be a British spy and a defaulter and who embezzled 
nearly all the money he had received for the use of the prisoners 
(Wharton, ii, 492, iii, 523, iv, 623, 645; Hale, i, ch. xi; Adams MSS., 
July 10, 1778.) May 12, 1778, Connor wrote in his journal: "Nothing to eat 
these two days but stinking beef. All the men in the prison, or at least 
best part of them, carried their beef back and threw it into the cook's 
window, and left and went without any." The next day the bad meat was 
served again, "but by the Agent's orders it was sent back again and we got 
a little cheese in the room of it." (N.E. Hist and Gen. Reg., July 1876) 
Captain Hinman of the Alfred and his officers were brought to Forton 
Prison in July, 1778, and in less than a week he and several other 
officers escaped. September 8, fifty-eight prisoners escaped. In March, 
1779, there were two hundred and fifty-one Americans at Forton. July 2, 
one hundred and twenty of them were released by exchange (lbid., April, 
1876, to July, 1878; Essex Inst. Coll., April, 1889; Mag. Amer. Hist., 
March, 1878, Matthewman's narrative; Wharton, iii, 363. For another 
account of Forton Prison, see Fanning, 20-28.)

John Howard, the English prison reformer, wrote of Forton: "At my visit, 
Nov. 6, 1782, I found there was no separation of the Americans from other 
prisoners of war, and they had the same allowance of bread, viz: one pound 
and a half each. There were 154 French, 83 Dutch and 133 Americans. Of 
these, 12 French, 25 Dutch and 9 Americans were in the hospital. The wards 
were not clean. No regulations hung up. I weighed several of the 6 lb. 
loaves and they all wanted some ounces in weight." (Essex Inst. Coll., 
April, 1889, quoting from Howard's History of Prisons.)

In the West Indies the unhealthfulness of the climate doubtless added to 
the tribulations of prisoners and increased the death rate. In 1782, the 
privateer brig New Broom of New London was captured by a British sloop of 
war and taken into Antigua. One of the brig's crew, in a narrative of the 
cruise, says: "We were all put on board of a prison-ship, which lay in a 
cove on one side of the harbor, where the heat was so severe as to be 
almost insupportable. We were allowed here but barely enough to sustain 
nature, and the water they gave us was taken out of a pond a little back 
of the town, in which the cattle and negroes commingled every sort of 
impurity, and which was rendered, on this account and from the effect of 
the heat upon it, so nauseous that it was impossible to drink it without 
holding the nostrils. I soon found that life was to be supported but for a 
short time here and set myself therefore about contriving some way to 
effect my escape from this floating place of misery and torment. The 
doctor came on board every morning to examine the sick, and three negro 
sextons every night, to bury the dead. Early one morning I swallowed 
tobacco juice and was so sick by the time the doctor came, that I obtained 
without difficulty a permit from him to go on shore to the hospital. I was 
soon ready to disembark, for I had been previously robbed of everything 
except what I had on. After arriving at the hospital, I was conducted into 
a long room where lay more than two hundred of the most miserable objects 
imaginable, covered with rags and vermin. I threw myself down on a bunk 
and after suffering extremely for some time from the effects of the 
tobacco, went to sleep, but was soon waked by a man-nurse, who told me 
that there was physic for me and immediately went off to another. I 
contrived unperceived to throw my dose out of the window and was not again 
disturbed, except during the following night, when I was waked several 
times by the carrying out of the dead. The sickness occasioned by the 
tobacco having now ceased, it was still necessary to keep up the 
deception, and accordingly the next morning I feigned lameness." A few 
days later this prisoner escaped with two others; getting possession of a 
boat they found their way to Guadeloupe (Hist. Mag., November, 1860.) In 
1779, the Marine Committee had called attention to the harsh treatment of 
prisoners at Antigua and urged efforts for their exchange (Mar. Com. 
Letter Book, 243 (October 26, 1779).)

There appears to be less available material for a study of the treatment 
of British prisoners by the Americans. Before France became involved in 
the war the disposal of prisoners taken by American cruisers in European 
waters was attended with difficulties, because the French government would 
not allow them to be brought into the ports of that country, regarding it 
as a violation of neutrality to receive them. It was, therefore, often 
necessary to release them. Franklin and Deane advised the commanders of 
American ships to take from their prisoners, before letting them go, a 
signed acknowledgment of the fact that they had been captured. They hoped 
to secure in return the release of an equal number of American prisoners, 
but the British government would not admit any obligation in such cases, 
and indeed refused to honor formal paroles, except under certain 
circumstances. After France had begun hostilities, American vessels could 
bring their prisoners into port, but there was no provision for their 
reception until, after long delay, they were admitted into French prisons. 
Meanwhile it was necessary to keep them on shipboard under conditions of 
great discomfort, if not of actual suffering. The prisoners brought into 
Brest by the Ranger in May, 1778, were confined many months on one of her 
prizes and made bitter complaints of their situation. Captain Jones 
exerted himself as far as possible for their welfare, but was very 
unwilling to release them without exchange. Franklin supplied as well as 
he could the wants of the British prisoners in France. In February, 1780, 
he wrote to one of his English correspondents, enclosing the account of 
his agent at L'Orient, "for clothing one hundred and thirteen English 
prisoners last April," and adding: "Not that I expect anything from your 
government on that account towards clothing such of our people with you as 
may be in want of it. The refusal of compliance with the paroles of 
prisoners set at liberty have taught me to flatter myself no more with 
expectations that a thing may be done because it is humane or equitable, 
and reasonable that it should be done. I only desire it may be considered 
as a small but grateful acknowledgment, all hitherto in my power, for the 
kindness shown by your charitable subscriptions to our poor people. It may 
perhaps be some satisfaction to those subscribers to know that, while they 
thought only of relieving Americans, they were at the same time 
occasioning some relief to distressed Englishmen." (Wharton, iii, 522.) 
When the exchange of prisoners had become an established procedure, the 
number of English in France must have been comparatively small and their 
stay short, for the British policy was to keep many American prisoners in 
England, bringing them from New York 9lbid., ii, 428, 581, 724, iii, 73, 
488, 491, 535, 536, iv, 410; Hale, i, 351-362; Sands, 104, 105, 148; Mass. 
Spy, January 4, 1781.)

The Continental vessels Reprisal, Lexington, and Dolphin made a cruise in 
the English Channel and Irish Sea in 1777 and took several prizes. 
According to a dispatch from Whitehaven, June 26, 1777, "the people in 
general speak in the warmest terms of the humane treatment they met with 
from the commanders of the Reprisal and Lexington, both of whom endeavored 
to make the situation of their prisoners as easy as their circumstances 
would admit." (Boston Gazette, October 6, 1777.)

Quite different from this was the treatment of Captain Richard Cassedy of 
the British ship Priscilla by a prize crew put on board his vessel from 
the American privateer General Mifflin, which captured the Priscilla off 
the Irish coast in July, 1777. All his men having been transferred to the 
Mifflin, he was left alone at the mercy of a brutal prize crew. "These 
sons of freedom seized all the captain's clothes that were worth anything 
and £88 in cash." He was "bound hand and foot and put into confinement. In 
this miserable situation he remained until the 19th of July, when his 
vessel was retook by the Union, letter of marque, of London . . . Captain 
Cassedy was in a very poor state of health ... and not able to stand, 
through the cruel treatment he received. His remaining so long bound 
occasioned his flesh to swell to a shocking degree. All his prayers and 
intreaties were in vain; the inhuman tyrants had no compassion." 
(Liverpool paper quoted in Williams, 210.)

The treatment of British prisoners in America varied according to place 
and circumstances. There were prison-ships at Boston, New London, and 
doubtless other towns, and jails on shore were used (Boston Post, June 15, 
1782; Mass. Court Rec., January 20, 1778; Mass. Rev. Rolls, viii, ix, 
xliv.) Captain Henry Barnes and his crew, captured with his vessel on the 
passage from Barbadoes to England by the American privateer Montgomery in 
1776 and taken to Rhode Island, were "treated with the greatest kindness 
and civility." (Almon, iv, 159,160.) A letter from Boston, in 1777, says: 
"Hard as my case may appear to be, I bear it with patience. From the 3d 
day of my captivity I have, with near ninety others, been confined a close 
prisoner in a jail at this place lately erected, called the New-prison. 
The Americans treat us very cavalierly. The provisions we are allowed is 
barely sufficient to subsist on. My effects, to the amount of upwards of 
£300. have been taken from me and the bed I lie on is a bundle of straw." 
(London Chronicle, September 2, 1777.) A letter from New London, a few 
months later, says: "They behave very well to us." (lbid., January 6, 
1778.) A better reputation is given to Boston by an English shipmaster who 
had been exchanged. He writes: "The treatment of the English prisoners 
there is exceedingly humane and kind." (lbid., January 8, 1778.)

The situation of British marine prisoners at Philadelphia was possibly not 
always what it should have been, though as a rule not bad; their treatment 
was perhaps at times, but only in special instances, governed by a spirit 
of retaliation for the distress of Americans on the New York prison-ships. 
Admiral Arbuthnot wrote to John Jay, President of Congress, August 30, 
1779, complaining that two British officers were "in close and cruel 
confinement at Philadelphia. I request that you will assign satisfactory 
reasons for this treatment, that no improper retaliation may take place 
here on our part." (Pap. Cont. Congr., 78, 1, 313 (August 30, 1779) 
Congress investigated the case of these two officers and found the reports 
of their ill-treatment untrue. Just at this time, on account of the 
barbarous persecution of Conyngham in New York, the Marine Committee 
ordered against another British officer retaliatory measures which had 
recently been voted in Congress, after a vain appeal to Commodore Collier 
(Mar. Com. Letter Book, 230 (August 31, 1779); Almon, viii, 340, 341; 
Jour. Cont. Congr., July 17, 29, September 17, 1779.) Arbuthnot wrote to 
Washington, April 21, 1781, again complaining of the treatment of British 
naval prisoners, saying: "Permit me now, Sir, to request that you will 
take the proper steps to cause Mr. Bradford, your commissary, and the 
jailor at Philadelphia, to abate that inhumanity which they exercise 
indiscriminately upon all people, who are so unfortunate as to be carried 
into that place. I will not trouble you, Sir, with a catalogue of 
grievances further than to request that the unfortunate may feel as little 
of the severities of war as the circumstances of the time will permit; 
that in future they may not be fed in winter with salted clams and that 
they may be afforded a sufficiency of fuel." (Washington, ix, 120, 121. No 
further information relating to the treatment of British prisoners has 
been discovered.)

At last, in the spring of 1782, Franklin was able to inform Jay that the 
British Parliament had passed "an act for exchanging American prisoners. 
They have near eleven hundred in the jails of England and Ireland, all 
committed as charged with high treason. The act is to empower the king, 
notwithstanding such commitments, to consider them as prisoners of war, 
according to the law of nations, and exchange them as such. This seems to 
be giving up their pretensions of considering us as rebellious subjects 
and is a kind of acknowledgment of our independence. Transports are now 
taking up to carry back to their country the poor, brave fellows who have 
borne for years their cruel captivity, rather than serve our enemies, and 
an equal number of English are to be delivered up in return." (Wharton, v, 
326.) The British ministry now ordered the exchange of all American 
prisoners. A year later, April, 1783, came proclamations of the 
Continental Congress and the British commanders in New York, the latter a 
day or two in the lead, for the suspension of hostilities and the release 
of all prisoners of war 9lbid., 439, 512, 548, 556, vi, 369, 375, 377.)



CHAPTER XIX
NAVAL CONDITIONS OF THE REVOLUTION

In the study of so closely contested a struggle as the American 
Revolution, where even a comparatively trivial circumstance might have 
turned the scale, it is interesting to examine the factors which may have 
affected the result. In the events that took place on the sea perhaps many 
such factors will be found. Such conclusions regarding them as may be 
drawn from the preceding chapters, will be more clearly brought out if 
presented in the condensed form of a summary.

Both the Americans and the British, while favored in some ways, were 
burdened with encumbrances of various sorts. The preponderance of the 
British naval forces in American waters during the early years of the war 
was so great that for the colonists in rebellion to overcome it was out of 
the question; annoyance only was possible. Their control of the sea was 
complete until challenged by the French in 1778. The British had much 
larger ships than the Americans, which meant that they not only carried 
more guns, but far heavier ones; the thirty-two-gun frigate was the 
largest we had in commission. Ship for ship also we were overmatched by 
the British with their ships more fully manned and their officers and men 
thoroughly trained. The raw material for their crews was certainly no 
better and probably not as good as that furnished by the fishermen and 
seafaring population of New England and other colonies, but the immense 
advantage of organization, of centuries of military discipline, of naval 
tradition and esprit de corps, was theirs.

The British, however, were embarrassed with difficulties which in large 
degree offset their superiority in force. Operating in a hostile country, 
their naval stations, even those most securely and permanently held, as 
New York, were unable to furnish sufficient stores and supplies; and these 
necessities had to be brought from England, subject to capture by American 
cruisers and privateers and requiring the diversion of a considerable part 
of their armed force for convoy. Owing to the incompetency or indolence of 
some of the British fleet commanders, their available offensive force was 
used with less effect than might have been the case. Jealousy and quarrels 
among the admirals also contributed to this result. Official corruption in 
British dockyards and naval stations, defective organization, and the 
waste of money and supplies interfered seriously with efficient naval 
administration. The navy lost large numbers of men through desertion and 
death from disease. It will thus be seen that the circumstances 
surrounding the British navy during that period were sufficiently 
complicated. The entry of other powers into the conflict naturally 
increased very much the perplexities of England's situation (See Channing, 
iii, 279-283, 340-342.)

Turning to our own side, there was little to help out the slender 
resources of the Americans beyond the advantage of operating in home 
waters and along shores inhabited by a friendly people and of a general 
aptitude for the sea, no greater, however, than that of their adversaries. 
The poverty of the Continental government, if not of the country, 
precluded anything like a strong naval organization, and the weakness of 
Congress, together with lack of experience, made efficient administration 
practically impossible. For want of money and of available workmen the 
construction and repair of ships was painfully slow. On this account they 
were frequently kept idle in port months at a time, nearly a whole season, 
perhaps, while cruises planned for them were prevented, postponed, or only 
partially carried out. The obstacles encountered in manning the 
Continental ships were equal to those which hindered their fitting out. 
The needs of the army and the attractions of privateering, especially the 
latter, drew so heavily on the seafaring population that capable men for 
the regular naval service were scarce. The result was that after almost 
interminable delay a ship would be obliged to go to sea with a crew 
deficient both in numbers and in quality, made up of material in large 
part not only inferior, but sometimes dangerous, if, as was often the 
case, it included British prisoners who were willing to enlist. In such 
ships' companies a mutinous spirit prevailed, with occasional serious 
effects. Furthermore the officers of the navy, while generally good seamen 
and not lacking in courage, were without military training, and thus apt 
to be deficient in martial qualities and incapable of rising to the 
occasion at critical moments. The responsibility of an independent 
command, even of a single vessel on an important service, was often too 
much for such men. It is hardly necessary to add, however, that there were 
some notable exceptions.

As a consequence of these impediments the Americans never possessed a 
regular naval force capable of acting offensively against the enemy in any 
effective way. The Continental navy, therefore, naturally resorted to the 
readiest means of injuring the enemy, that is, by preying upon his 
commerce. The state navies and privateers were of course engaged in the 
same pursuit; and this, with convoy duty upon occasion, formed the chief 
occupation of the entire sea force, public and private, of the country. 
Engagements with regular British men-of-war were exceptional and commonly 
accidental.

The futility of commerce destroying as a military measure of flrst 
importance has been pointed out by naval authorities. "It is doubtless a 
most important secondary operation of naval war, and is not likely to be 
abandoned till war itself shall cease; but regarded as a primary and 
fundamental measure, sufficient in itself to crush an enemy, it is 
probably a delusion." (Mahan, 539. See also Proc. U. S. Naval Inst., xxiii 
(1897), 472.) The injury inflicted upon England, though large in the 
aggregate, was not disabling. Part of this predatory warfare consisted in 
the interception of the enemy's transports, conveying troops and warlike 
supplies, which were a godsend to our army and the loss of which was 
severely felt by the British; this perhaps was of too nearly a military 
nature to be classed as ordinary commerce destroying. During the early 
years of the war especially, such captures were of the utmost value to the 
American cause.

There were probably more than two thousand American vessels employed in 
privateering during the Revolution. Privateers accomplished much 
independently in scouring the sea, but were ill adapted for cruising in 
squadrons and failed in nearly all attempts at cooperation with regular 
ships or with each other. One half the men, money, and energy absorbed in 
privateering, if it could have been put into a strong, well-organized 
Continental navy, would have provided a force able to act offensively 
against the British navy to some purpose. The other half, devoted to 
privateering, would have been able to accomplish more in destroying 
commerce than all the privateers actually did, and would have suffered 
fewer losses, because of the protection afforded by a strong, regular navy 
against British cruisers. Speculating as to what might have been has a 
practical interest and value when a choice of alternatives depends upon an 
accident or train of circumstances which might have happened otherwise. In 
the case under discussion, however, the fundamental conditions were such 
as to put any such rearrangement of naval power as that suggested so 
entirely out of the question that there remains no room for regret on the 
score of mistakes which could have been rectified. It is necessary to look 
at the events of the past from the point of view of the time and the 
persons concerned. In this case the temperament of the people, private 
interests, the sentiment of local independence and fear of centralized 
military power, the lack of authority on the part of Congress, the 
hopelessness of raising the necessary money, are at once evident to the 
student of this period of our history. Privateering, moreover, was 
thoroughly believed in as a means of striking at the enemy's vitals. Under 
the circumstances, therefore, it is obvious that a small, weak navy was 
one of the necessary conditions of the war and that a vigorous offense 
upon the sea was not in the nature of things.

When it is once admitted that an aggressive policy, aimed at the British 
fleets in American waters with any reasonable chance of gaining naval 
supremacy, was not to be expected, we are better prepared to understand 
and to accept philosophically the gradual dwindling of the Continental 
navy, always in the presence of a superior force, the loss of ship after 
ship, the almost inevitable recurrence of disaster; a dismal record, to be 
sure, but not discreditable, and relieved by a few successes and brilliant 
episodes. At the same time we can better appreciate what was actually 
accomplished by the American marine as a whole, how much it really 
contributed to the cause of independence. The injury to British commerce 
was sufficiently serious to aid materially in rendering the war unpopular 
in England; insurance rates rose to an unprecedented figure, and the 
available sources from which revenue might be derived by taxation were 
nearly exhausted. The shores of the British Isles were harassed as never 
before or since by the repeated visits of American naval cruisers and 
privateers, and the seacoast population alarmed. An active and regular 
commerce was carried on between the United States and continental Europe, 
providing the latter with American products and furnishing the new nation 
with much-needed money and supplies. Communication was kept open with 
France, diplomatic correspondence maintained, and public men of both 
countries crossed and recrossed the ocean repeatedly, Henry Laurens being 
the only one of prominence to be captured. All this intercourse, moreover, 
prevented the isolation of America, and kept alive the interest and 
sympathy of Europe. Continental ships aided this traffic by furnishing 
convoy through the danger zone off the American coast and also by taking 
an active part in it. Many a cargo of tobacco from America and of military 
stores from France, and many ministers and diplomatic agents, were 
conveyed in Continental frigates.

A rigorous blockade of the American coast from the beginning of the war, 
as was recommended by Lord Barrington, might have suppressed this 
commerce, and would probably have strangled the rebellion of the colonists 
in its infancy, without the help of the army. If at any time during the 
early years the English had been alert, enterprising, and aggressive in 
the use of their great naval resources, they should have been able to 
crush or at least greatly to cripple this traffic. Presumably the main 
reason for its comparative immunity is to be sought in the supineness of 
British admirals and in administrative vices of the Admiralty.

Although the fortunes of our American marine chiefly concern us, a glance 
at the general naval war of 1778 is essential to the completeness of the 
subject. With her control of the sea threatened, the policy for England to 
adopt was a matter of vast importance. A foremost naval authority has 
said: "The key of the situation was in Europe, and in Europe in the 
hostile dockyards." England's "one hope was to find and strike down the 
enemy's navy. Nowhere was it so certainly to be found as in its home 
ports; nowhere so easily met as immediately after leaving them." (Mahan, 
525. For discussion of this subject, see lbid., 416-418, 527-535.) But the 
opportunity was lost, and it was necessary for England to pursue her enemy 
to distant seas, leaving an inadequate force in home waters. Luckily for 
England, the European allies failed to take advantage of her mistakes. 
Instead of using their superior force for a vigorous offense, they seemed 
ever bent on a defensive attitude; justified, perhaps, and certainly so 
from their point of view, by ulterior strategic considerations. However 
that may be, the French and Spanish, through lack of cooperation, through 
dilatory tactics, and for various reasons, either avoided their enemy or 
failed to seize opportunities as they occurred. Their plans for the 
invasion of England came to nothing, and their operations in America and 
the West Indies were generally disappointing and abortive, because of 
their failure to seek out and strike the enemy (Ibid., 535-539; Proc. U. 
S. Naval Inst., xxii (1896), 578; Channing, iii, 297.) Their naval 
supremacy, therefore, was most of the time potential only, although by no 
means for that reason without effect. It finally became actual and 
decisive at one critical juncture, when a fortunate train of circumstances 
secured the control of Chesapeake Bay. Fortunate, indeed, was this event 
for the American cause, for whose success the temporary possession of sea 
power was indispensable.

To revert, in conclusion, to the maritime achievements of the 
Revolutionists, it would appear that keeping open the intercourse with 
Continental Europe, especially France, and the diversion of supplies from 
the British to the American army, were the most valuable services 
performed by the American armed forces afloat, public and private, during 
the war; the injury done to the British navy being almost negligible, and 
to British commerce far from disabling, to say the least, although not 
without effect in the general result. It is certain that the Revolution 
would have failed without its sailors. In spite of its shortcomings, the 
record of the American marine daring this critical period was an honorable 
one. Many officers, through the experience of naval warfare acquired on 
board regular cruisers and privateers, were qualified to enter the 
national service a few years later, upon the reestablishment of the Navy.