Volume 4, Chapter 50, The War at Sea
The entrance of France into the war at first redressed the balance of forces at sea by
bringing a great naval power into the fray and depriving the British of their accustomed
absolute command of the waters.
Now that the war was worldwide, moreover, the British were forced to scatter their fleet
to the West Indies to reinforce Gibraltar, to protect Britain itself from possible invasion
and to battle in the Indies. American privateers had had a hard time during 1777 from British
coastal blockades and convoys of merchant men across the Atlantic. Now they re-entered
the fray and soon 10,000 Americans were engaged in privateering. Over 400 privateering ships
American privateers emerged and they severely damaged British trade and shipping.
By the end of the war, American privateers had captured 2,000 British ships and 12,000
British sailors, as well as $18 million in ships and goods.
The small American Navy was properly allowed to dwindle to only two ships by the end of
the war.
These were cheaper and more effective and they placed no burden upon the taxpayer.
The feats of the American Captain John Paul Jones in capturing two British ships in the
fall of 1779 and Captain John Barry in seizing four British warships the following spring
were spectacular but of little intrinsic importance.
By the end of 1778, however, the French fleet sailed away from United States waters to the
Caribbean and there they stayed for over two years.
Thus, by 1779, the British were again in control of American coastal waters and were even able
to bottle up the French forces at Newport.
Furthermore, American shipping and ports suffered almost as much as the British, from the Royal
American troubles caused by British naval operations redoubled when the British suddenly seized
the Dutch island of St. Eustatius in the West Indies.
Especially since the French entry into the war, the neutral Dutch moneylenders to the
The world had become highly important suppliers and financiers of imports to America and St. Eustatius had become the great entrepôt for European trade with the United States, not only for the substantial amount of Dutch shipping to America, but also for the other countries as well, for the Dutch shrewdly made St. Eustatius a free port open to all nations. Even British traders happily, though illegally, sold goods,
Goods to American importers here, and the Americans were happy to purchase, though illegally,
the British goods.
Much respectable opinion realized that trading with the enemy benefited both parties and both
countries and was therefore valuable.
Benjamin Franklin had demonstrated in 1774 that trade benefits both countries, even with
This was the wartime enemy, and now Congressman Joseph Jones pointed out that if the southern states could sell their surplus agricultural output even to the enemy, it would greatly relieve economic distress in the United States.
This happy and prosperous idol of St. Eustatius, however, was not destined to last.
Great Britain decided to declare war on the Dutch, who were neutral and prosperous, but lacking in warships for defense, and to pounce upon St. Eustatius.
For this coup, King George selected Admiral Sir George Rodney, a dashing sea captain of unquestioned Tory views, but a bankrupt at cards, who had fled England to escape his creditors.
In the early years of the 17th and early 18th centuries, Rodney had brought back from exile by the king in 1779. Rodney had quickly relieved Gibraltar from siege and checked the superior French fleet in the West Indies.
In early February 1781, Saint Eustatius did not yet even know that the two countries were at war.
Capturing the island by a ruse, Rodney fell upon it without mercy, to savage the merchants for their perfidy.
Seizing nearly fifty Dutch ships, he sacked them as well as all the warehouses and property on the island.
Millions of pounds of loot were seized, and Rodney settled down to enjoy his newfound bonanza of plunder.
A plunder, that he insisted, was his personal prize.
So thoroughly was St. Eustatius devastated that its usefulness to the Americans or Dutch was over.
Benjamin Franklin's comment on Britain's making war upon the Dutch was apt.
The English have got another war upon their hands.
They are making large strides towards becoming what pirates are said to be, enemies to all mankind.
Rodney's predation was condemned by the British liberals and merchants.
Horace Walpole condemned the plunder as setting a savage and dangerous precedent and the West
Indies planters and merchants protested that the seizure injured several contracts which
are founded on the law of nature and which form the most sacred bond of society.