Volume 4, Chapter 21, Privateering and the War at Sea
It was clear to all that, militarily, the Americans were most vulnerable at sea, where Britain ruled the waves and no American population lived to support armed operations.
We have seen how Lord Dunmore was able to use the ocean with impunity as his base from which to raid and plunder the American coast.
and the entire coastline lay open to raids of this sort.
Soon after the outbreak of war, the separate colonies began to try to defend themselves at sea.
The first to react was Rhode Island, which chartered two vessels in June 1775
to try to save Newport and the coast from the depredations of the British fleet.
Massachusetts and Connecticut soon followed with two ships each
and, in mid-July, Congress correctly, but not very hopefully, urged each colony to defend its coastal areas.
It soon became evident that American ships might accomplish more by taking the offensive,
particularly in harassing the British supply lines to the Army at Boston.
At the end of June, Rhode Island again took the lead.
Indeed, its radical governor, Nicholas Cook, urged just one swift armed ship to seize arms
and supplies. Washington took the hint, and despite lack of congressional authorization,
appointed shipmaster Nicholas Broughton, a captain in the army, and presented him with
a schooner for that purpose. Broughton's successes led to more of the same, and soon Congress
The US began to give its tentative support. By the end of October, the continental fleet consisted of six schooners, which acquitted themselves ably against the British.
Particularly successful was Captain John Manley of the Lee, who cheered the Americans greatly by capturing several military ships filled with supplies and ammunition.
In addition to the schooners, the Americans around Boston organized a fleet of 300 private whale boats which conducted guerrilla-type night raids on the British lighthouses and other installations in Boston Harbor.
Nettled by his utter inability to cope with the American schooners and night raiders,
Admiral Samuel Graves, commander of the British fleet at Boston, decided to punish the Americans collectively in their ports and harbors.
In early October 1775, Graves sent out Captain Henry Mowat with two schooners and nearly
two hundred men on a savage terror raid of the coast north of Boston. He was ordered
to burn, destroy and lay waste every seaport town north to Maine, and to destroy all the
shipping at their harbors. Specifically, he was to concentrate on burning to the ground
The two port towns of Gloucester and Falmouth, now Portland, Maine, whose people, according
to Admiral Lord Howe, were distinguished for their opposition to government.
Finding it impractical to destroy Gloucester, Mowat entered Falmouth on the October 16.
Giving the townspeople one day to evacuate, he shelled and fired the town until it's
Over 200 houses, 11 ships, and wharves and warehouses were completely burned.
The wanton destruction of Falmouth spurred Congress into action.
By December, prodded by John Adams, it was ready to create officially a small marine
corps and a continental fleet of four vessels to name its officers and to establish for
its supervision what would become the Marine Committee.
As Commodore and Commander of the Little Fleet, Congress selected the Veteran General Essek
Hopkins, until then head of the Armed Forces of Rhode Island. By the following spring the
Continental Navy was ready for offensive exploits in the British West Indies. Commodore Hopkins
first operation was to raid Nassau on March 3, 1776 and to seize large stores of British
Gunpowder. Bermuda also proved a good source of enemy powder. Such large-scale raids were
exceptions, however, and usually the tiny Continental Navy was confined to forays by
individual ships. As we have seen in the case of the whale boats around Boston, the great
many privateers were far more important than the governmental fleet. As their name implies,
These ships were wholly private in ownership and operation.
An old tradition of private armed merchant men preying on enemy shipping during wars,
privateering had reached a peak during the 18th century and in America particularly during
the Seven Years' War.
As the Revolutionary War began, many hundreds of ships took to seizing supplies and arms
by capturing British vessels.
New England, particularly Massachusetts, its fishing and carrying trades ruined by the war
and by British control of the northern fishing banks, was an especially successful center
of privateering, as were Philadelphia and Baltimore. The inlet of Little Egg Harbor
on the New Jersey coast was a particularly attractive haven for privateer vessels. Privateering
has been flourished especially during 1775 and 1776, and it has been estimated that as many as 2,000 ships sailed against the British.
During 1776, half the Jamaica fleet was captured by American privateers, along with large quantities of ammunition and military supplies.
That year the British lost several hundred vessels to privateers with ships and cargo
worth over one million pounds sterling, a figure exclusive of government transports and
store ships. Privateering was not only a very effective means of naval warfare, it was a
far less costly and a far more libertarian method than building a government navy. Reliance
Reliance on privateers saved enormous sums and the time necessary to build new ships, since existing merchant ships were used.
Moreover, it saved the taxpayers, including inflation-payers, the expense of construction and operation.
As in all private operations, the costs were borne only by those who assumed the risks,
and their rewards were strictly proportionate to their successes.
And the war effort also benefited pari passu with the successes of the privateers.
Even Washington saw this, and when he created his small fleet in the autumn of 1775, he
We tried to approximate privateering conditions by granting to the seamen on each ship one-third
to one-half of the proceeds from the vessels they captured, about the same incentive pay
received by the crews of privateers. Not the least important advantage of privateers was
the fact that they automatically disappear with the arrival of peace and convert to peaceful
The public would not then be saddled with the burdens, bureaucracy, potential tyranny, and the nuclei for the formending of future wars that are inherent in a governmental navy.
Where in all this was the vaunted British Navy?
Fortunately for the American cause, the overconfident British did not bother to launch a serious naval effort against the rebels, and no attempt was made to blockade the American coast.
American Coast. In these critical first years of the war, only a few British warships were
stationed in American waters and the British did not bother to provide armed convoys to
their merchant shipping on the Atlantic. During 1775, the privateers proceeded happily even
though unauthorized by the governmental authority. In November, Massachusetts authorized the
Issue of Official Letters of Mark and Reprisal to Privateers and Other Colonies Followed
Suit, The Harsh British Prohibitory Act of late December 1775 denouncing the Americans
as traitors and rebels, prohibiting all ships from trading with any part of the thirteen
colonies and subjecting all American and foreign ships trading with them to seizure and confiscation
became known to the Americans by the end of February 1776.
The Prohibitory Act spurred the Continental Congress
to take further bold measures against Great Britain.
In March, Congress officially authorized privateers,
providing them with continental letters of mark and reprisal.