Introduction

At the opening of the War of the Revolution Beverly numbered about 3000 inhabitants. Its sea coast extended for six miles along the north shore in alternate sections of rocky point and sandy beach. Back from the shore line, from Manchester on the east to Wenham on the north and Danvers on the west, the land, broken and rolling, was dotted with farms and partly covered with pine woods. The soil was fairly fertile for New England and watered by numerous brooks. The inhabitants were farmers tilling their own farms, fishermen, mariners, merchants, professional men, and the mechanics and middlemen necessary in every village. Manufactures were only such as commerce and fishing necessitated, rope making, sail making and probably some ship building. There were five small distilleries where molasses from the West Indies was converted into rum.

The harbor was for vessels of the size used in those days, a safe, convenient and fairly deep one. In the harbor between the Point and the site of the bridge now connecting Beverly and Salem lay the wharves, the first, counting from the ocean side, Union wharf, now Guffey’s, next Bartlett’s and Glover’s, later occupied by Colonel Israel Thorndike. At the head of this wharf on Water Street was a large storehouse with an archway entrance from the street. Next Lovett’s and Standley’s wharf, then Stephen Nourse’s wharf, later occupied by Nourse & Stephens, next followed in order, Pickard and Woodbury’s, J. & H. Morgan’s, Foster and Lovett’s, Picket’s, Ober’s now Preston’s, Deacon John Safford’s, and Distillery wharf. There were also a few wharves in Bass River, used during the war for captured prizes. At the head of the wharves and along Water Street were the warehouses of the Beverly merchants, and along the shore from the Point toward the Cove were the fish flakes where the salted cod were dried in the sun. Most of the merchants and importers did a retail as well as wholesale business, selling to the fishermen, salt, nets, lines and clothing, and exchanging dress goods, rum, sugar, linen and flour for fish, grain, lumber and country produce.

Prior to the Revolutionary War Beverly was essentially a fishing village and all its commerce was based on this staple. In 1772 the fishing fleet consisted of 30 vessels of the following ownership, tonnage and value:

The whole value of the fishing industry is given as 17,825 pounds. Most of the fishing vessels were schooners and all small enough to trade, when not fishing, with the West Indies, a trade restricted by both France and England to vessels of seventy tons or under. The best cod fish were sent to Spain, the inferior to the West Indies.

The total value of the exports from Beverly in 1772 is not obtainable, but besides fish the merchants of Beverly exported masts, spars, and manufactured lumber in its various forms. Vessels engaged in foreign trade were as follows:

There was also a coasting trade to Maine for lumber, to Maryland and Virginia for flour, and to Carolina for rice, not to mention the West India trade, which was large, and both coasting and fishing vessels were used in this. The total tonnage of the town, probably underestimated, is given as 2406 tons.618 In 1772 the value of the real estate in Beverly is given as 113,000 pounds, personal property 45,000 pounds, making the total valuation 158,000 pounds. In 1775 the fishing fleet consisted of 35 schooners manned by over 300 men. In 1775 Beverly was only surpassed in Essex County by Salem and Newburyport in the wealth, and by Ipswich, Marblehead, Salem, and Newburyport, in the number of its inhabitants. It had many stores, seventy is the number given, and rivalled or surpassed Salem in the quantity and quality of the merchandise offered. This was chiefly due to the large importing house of J. & A. Cabot. The firm doing business under this name consisted of George Cabot,619 Joseph Lee,620 John and Andrew Cabot, and they had gradually built up a large business making the Spanish trade a specialty. Their agents and correspondents in that country were the firm of Joseph Gardoqui & Sons and as early as 1770 their vessels, under command of George Cabot, Stephen Cleveland, and Benjamin Lovett, were shipping the catch of the Beverly fishermen to Bilbao and bringing back salt, iron, cordage, silks, linen, and liquors to the home port. Occasionally they sent vessels to Charleston for rice and to Virginia for tobacco and shipped thence to their correspondents in Bilbao.

Next in importance to the Cabots was the firm of Brown & Thorndike. The senior partner, Moses Brown,621 moved to Beverly in 1772 and a few years after formed a partnership with his brother-in-law, Israel Thorndike.622 Mr. Brown was a public spirited man, enthusiastic in the cause of American independence, a sergeant in Larkin Thorndike’s company at Lexington, and an officer in several of the battles of the Revolution. His partner, Israel Thorndike, was a young man of great virility and ambition and as an officer of the State navy and commander of several privateers did good service to the public cause. The firm dealt largely in broadcloths, velvets and dress goods, and also sold supplies to the fishermen.

One of the oldest houses was that of John & Thomas Stephens. They were of old Beverly stock, descendants of John Stephens who came over in 1700. The firm owned several merchant and fishing vessels and did a general importing business. Other prominent business men were Josiah Batchelder, Jr.,623 mariner, captain, merchant, shipowner and politician; William Bartlett,624 first Naval Agent in Massachusetts for the new republic; Larkin Thorndike, soldier, merchant and shipowner; John Dyson, William Homans,625 Thomas Davis,626 Jonathan Lovett, William Leach,627 Livermore Whittredge628, Benjamin Lovett, Thomas Woodberry,629 and Ebenezer Ellingwood.

Although the above names appear most often in the mercantile and privateering history of Beverlyas owners of vessels and privateers, it must be remembered that they were by no means sole owners of the vessels credited to them. As a matter of policy and insurance a merchant preferred to own only a sufficient share of a vessel to give him control and the balance, often a half interest, was held by men whose names do not appear. Most of the vessels sailing from Beverly in the first three years of the war were manned by Beverly crews and always included a strong contingent of Lovetts, Herricks, Gages, Thorndikes, Batchelders, Ellingwoods, Fosters, Obers, and Wood-berrys, and the two latter families could have officered and manned a large privateer with men of their own name.

The citizens of Beverly had been zealous in resisting what seemed to them the tyranny of Great Britain, had, like all the other sea port towns, evaded the Navigation law, applauded the destruction of tea, sympathized with Boston over the Port Bill and contributed liberally to the poor of that city. Their Committee of Correspondence included such names as John Leach, Benjamin Jones, Henry Herrick, Samuel Goodridge, Josiah Batchelder, Joshua Cleves, Nicholas Thorndike, Andrew Cabot, Joseph Wood, Livermore Whittredge, Israel Thorndike, Edward Giles, William Dodge, William Taylor, John Lovett, 3rd, Thomas Stephens, and Josiah Batchelder, Jr. These men and many like them made Beverly a town whose naval history stands second to none in the records of the American Revolution.

In writing a history of the privateers of Beverly, one encounters certain difficulties which lead to unavoidable omissions and occasional confusion. Salem and Beverly had one custom house and one naval officer, and vessels really belonging to Beverly were often credited to Salem. The Salem Gazette, the natural source of information about Beverly vessels, was not published from soon after the beginning of the war until 1781.630 The petitions for commissions for commanders of private armed vessels in the Massachusetts Archives were usually signed by agents and do not necessarily give information of the real owner, and in addition are themselves defective. A paucity of nomenclature, so that for example there were 24 Dolphins and 14 Fortunes sailing as privateers during the war, and the curious custom of giving a new vessel the name of one lost or taken by the enemy, add to the confusion. Changes of name, rig, and ownership occur with startling rapidity, and these, with a general looseness of statement and an astonishing inaccuracy of description, characteristic of the times, make the puzzle a hard one to unravel. For these and other reasons there were probably more privateer and letter of marque vessels sailing from Beverly during the war than are described in these pages. The spelling of family names follows as far as possible that found in the Massachusetts Archives, but as names are sometimes spelled in two ways in the same petition it hardly seems necessary to be particular. No vessels have been included unless sailing from or partly owned in Beverly.

I

It is the opinion of some critics, including such an authority as Captain Mahan, that privateering as a means of injuring the enemy is inferior in its results to the use of state and national vessels. This is probably true, but it presupposes that the money spent in equipping private armed vessels would be expended on the navy and that the men manning the vessels would enlist in the national service. As a matter of fact in the Revolutionary war it would have been impossible to raise by taxation a tithe of the money spent on private armed vessels and had the State owned the vessels they could have been filled only by impressment. The red tape and rigid discipline of a public vessel did not appeal to men as did the freer life of a privateer; and state ownership was regarded by shipowners as less efficient than private control.

George Washington took command of the army at Cambridge, July 3, 1775, but it was not until September that he found time to take up the question of warfare upon the sea. Already Rhode Island and Connecticut had ordered the equipment of armed vessels, South Carolina and Georgia had cruizers afloat, and a sloop from Philadelphia had taken the magazine at New Providence. It is probable that privateers from Massachusetts without commissions were already cruizing, but it was not until September 2, 1775, that the first regular commission was issued. On that date, acting under general powers, General Washington writes to Nicholas Broughton of Marblehead: “You being appointed captain in the army of the United Provinces of North America are directed to take command of a detachment of said army and proceed on board the schooner Hannah at Beverly lately fitted out with arms, ammunition and provisions.” The Hannah was an ordinary fishing schooner belonging to Colonel John Glover, who, although a resident of Marblehead, owned a wharf in Beverly and conducted his fishing business from that place. In accordance with these orders Captain Broughton, taking a detachment from Colonel Glover’s regiment of Marblehead fishermen, men well fitted for the purpose, hoisted his flag on the Hannah and sailed on his first cruize. On September 7, 1775, he writes to Washington: “I beg leave to acquaint your Excellency that I sailed from Beverly last Tuesday with a fair wind and proceeded oh my course. Took a ship off Cape Ann and sent her into Gloucester.” This prize, the first taken by a regularly commissioned Massachusetts vessel, was the English ship Unity.

Colonel Glover and Stephen Moylan, the latter acting secretary to Washington, had been appointed a committee to secure vessels by purchase or charter for the service of the United Provinces, and on October 9, 1775, Colonel Moylan writes Washington that the owners of the Hannah object to putting extra sails on the vessel, it being customary to provide only foresail, mainsail and jib. “Col. Glover,” he continues, “has given the strongest proof of his good opinion of the schooner by putting his brother and favorite son on her. We have hired a schooner from Marblehead. She is noted for her good qualities and will be ready to take in the Hannah’s company in 12 or 14 days if any misfortune should follow. She is taken on the same terms as the other two, four shillings per ton per month or five shillings, four pence, lawful money.”

At the time the Hannah sailed from Beverly, there were two vessels lying at the wharves of that town which had been hired for the same service, the Lynch and the Franklin. On the return of the Hannah, Captain Broughton was ordered to take command of the Lynch and Captain Selman, also of Colonel Glover’s regiment, of the Franklin. The Lynch carried six guns and 75 men, the Franklin four guns and 60 men, the crews of both vessels being drawn from Colonel Glover’s regiment. The two vessels were ordered when ready to cruize in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and intercept two English transports bound for Quebec and expected about this time.

The provisioning and arming of these vessels proceeded slowly, but by October 19 they were ready and Stephen Moylan writes to General Joseph Reed: “Capt. Broughton and Capt. Selman will be ready to sail tomorrow. The latter is in want of a surgeon and we believe it will be difficult to prevail on the captain and crew to sail without one. Please send one.” General Reed writes in reply: “Dr. Spofford agrees to go. Please fix on colors for a flag. What do you think of a flag with a white ground, a tree in the middle, with ‘Appeal to Heaven.’” Dr. Spofford came as agreed, but they did not sail until the 24th, and then without the new colors. Their signal was ensign at main-toppinglift. On November 2, 1775, Captain Broughton writes from the White Head, four degrees west of Canso: “Have taken a ship with a cargo of provisions belonging to Enoch Rust of Boston and sent the vessel to New England.” Although some ten prizes were taken by Captain Broughton, nothing was seen of the two transports and the Lynch and the Franklin returned to Beverly.

Washington had not been pleased with the leisurely way in which the Lynch and the Franklin had been fitted out at Beverly and in a letter to Colonel Moylan questions Colonel Glover’s management of the affair. On October 24 Moylan writes in reply:

On the same day Colonel Moylan writes to Joseph Reed:

Washington, an aristocrat by birth and a soldier by avocation, regarded with indignation the lawless acts of some of the early privateersmen and felt only contempt for their evident desire to imitate the showy externals rather than the discipline of the navy. On November 6, 1775, at his direction, Colonel Moylan writes a rather sarcastic letter in regard to Captain Martindale of the brig Washington, then fitting out at Plymouth: “The General is apprehensive that Capt. Martindale will make the outfit of his brig too expensive. The intention of fitting out these cruisers is not to attack armed, but take unarmed, vessels. I don’t see the use of a drum and fife but if it will give Capt. Martindale any pleasure he shall have them.” Again in November he writes: “Our rascally privateersmen go on mutinously if they cannot do as they please. Those at Plymouth, Beverly and Portsmouth have done nothing worth mentioning in the way of prizes.” Early in December he writes again: “The plague, trouble and vexation I have had with the crews of all the armed vessels are inexhaustible. The crews of the Washington and Harrison have actually deserted them.”

The schooner hired by Colonel Glover to take the place of the Hannah was named the Lee, and Captain John Manly of Marblehead was appointed her commander. Captain Manly was one of the few naval officers who seemed to suit Washington and he held during the whole war a deserved reputation for conduct and courage. Born at Torquay, England, in 1733, he settled in Marblehead when a young man and during the Revolutionary War commanded in rapid succession the schooners Lee and Hancock, the privateers Cumberland and Jason, and the frigate Hague. The good fortune of his early career did not continue and he was three times taken prisoner and confined in English prisons.631 On October 28, 1775, he sailed on his first cruize with a crew drawn from Colonel Glover’s regiment. On November 30th Washington writes: “I hear good accounts of the schooner Lee, Capt. Manly, he has taken a large brigantine from London for Boston and sent her into Cape Ann. Capt. Adams in the Warren has taken a schooner laden with potatoes and turnips.”

The Franklin after her cruize under Captain Sellman had remained in Beverly harbor and Captain Samuel Tucker was appointed her commander. On February 9, 1776, he sailed from Beverly on a cruize in company with the Lee, Captain Waters, and in conjunction with the Defence and several other privateers was fortunate enough to take the transports George and Annabella. In his instructions to Captain Tucker, Washington had written: “Treat prisoners with kindness and humanity. Their private stock of money and clothes must be returned to them.” It is to the credit of the officers of American privateers that these instructions, especially the first, have usually been observed; but privateering is rough business, and a disposition to make free with the property of prisoners has characterized the privateers of every nation.

The officers and crews of the vessels commissioned by Washington received the same pay632 as officers and privates in the army of the United Provinces and in addition one-third part of the value of every vessel and cargo taken, after condemnation in the Courts of Admiralty. If the vessel was armed, one-half, instead of one-third, was given as prize money. As afterwards construed this meant sufficiently armed to attempt resistance and not a mere technical armament. Of this prize money the captain received six shares, the 1st lieutenant five shares, the 2nd lieutenant four shares, the master two shares, the master’s mate one and a half shares, the gunner the same, and the mariners each one share.

On December 20, 1775, Congress resolved that the seized vessels carried into Massachusetts should be proceeded against by the law of nations and libelled in the Courts of Admiralty of that state. Such courts had already been established, and on December 12, 1775, Colonel Timothy Pickering writes:

The first sitting of the court was held March 16, 1776.

About November 1, 1775, William Bartlett of Beverly was appointed first prize agent in Massachusetts for the United Colonies with instructions to libel all prizes in his jurisdiction and after legal condemnation sell them at auction and distribute the proceeds.633 Mr. Bartlett entered on his duties with a high respect for the dignity of his office and considerable doubt as to what his duties were. As some Massachusetts privateers were probably cruizing without commissions and as courts had not yet been erected to try prizes regularly taken, he was naturally at a loss what to do and disposed to seek General Washington’s advice. His letters to the General, and Washington’s terse, caustic and somewhat impatient replies are rather amusing. Mr. Bartlett’s first letter to Washington bears the date of November 4, 1775:

Four days later Mr. Bartlett writes again to know what he shall do with a schooner from Ireland brought in by five Beverly men who put out from shore and seized her. Colonel Moylan replies for Washington:

There were a number of illegal seizures, by boats from the shore, one of them, probably the earliest, by Hugh Hill, afterwards commander of the Beverly privateers Pilgrim and Cicero.

A month later Colonel Moylan writes Mr. Bartlett in regard to the brigantine Hannah,635 a vessel sent into Beverly by Captain Manly: “There are oranges, lemons and limes aboard which you had better sell immediately. The General will want some of these as well as the sweetmeats and pickles aboard as his lady will be here tomorrow. You will please pick up such things aboard as you think will be acceptable to her and send as soon as possible, but he wishes to pay for everything.” Mr. Bartlett sent the General the fruit and other dainties he had asked for from the cargo of the Hannah, but they were not satisfactory, and on investigation it was found that the crew of the Lee, Captain Manly’s schooner, had looted the best in the vessel. Colonel Moylan notified them that the value of what they had stolen would be deducted from their prize money.

Mr. Bartlett had been requested to bid in the Hannah, if she went low enough, and on May 27, 1776, General Artemas Ward writes to Washington: “I beg to inform you that your Agent at Beverly has purchased the brig Hannah at four hundred and twenty pounds. This day Capt. Bradford of Boston, having represented to me that he had an order from Robert Morris, Esq., one of the Maritime Committee, to procure a good sailing vessel for the Continental service and that the brig would answer his service. Mr. Morris writes that the brig is wanted to go on a particular service immediately.” The particular service was to convey dispatches to our Commissioners in France, and the Hannah was taken into the Continental service, given letters of marque papers, loaded with a cargo of fish, renamed Despatch and placed under command of Stephen Cleveland of Salem. Captain Cleveland’s instructions were to avoid all vessels at sea, make his way to Nantz or Bordeaux, sell his cargo, deliver his dispatches and bring back arms and ammunition. He was also to arm his vessel abroad and fit her for a privateer. Captain Cleveland, with William Herrick of Beverly as lieutenant or mate, sailed soon after. The sale of the Hannah was one of the last official acts of Mr. Bartlett, and on June 14, 1776, he was succeeded by Captain Bradford as Agent for the United Provinces.

Besides the so-called privateers already mentioned the State of Massachusetts was building an armed fleet of its own and three of these vessels, the Tyrannicide building at Salisbury, and the Freedom and the Republic at Swansea, were constructed under the supervision of a committee consisting of Josiah Batchelder, Jr., of Beverly and Richard Derby of Salem. Captain Batchelder from his practical knowledge of navigation was a very influential member of the Massachusetts Legislature and much of the direction of naval affairs was put in his hands. Through his influence, on May 7, 1776, two 18-pound cannon, left by the British when they evacuated Boston, were turned over to the town of Beverly to mount on their defences, and a month later, sixty 18- and twenty 9-pound cannon balls were sent them.

The defences of Beverly harbor in 1776, besides the fort at Salem, consisted of a sand bag battery armed with two field pieces and other works on which were mounted two 18- and two 12-pound cannon. A committee of the General Court sent to view the sea-coast with reference to defensive works, recommended a seven gun battery at Thorndick’s Point, a five gun battery at Barret’s Point, and a three gun battery at West Beach. This elaborate systern of fortification was too costly to be carried out, but batteries were erected at several of the places.

These works were manned at first by a local coast guard and later by Continental and State troops. On June 28, 1776, a resolve was reported in the Provincial Congress to provide forces for the defence of the sea coast, each company to consist of 50 men under direction of the Committee of Correspondence of the town in which they were stationed.636 One company was stationed in Beverly. Besides the coast guard, Colonel Glover’s regiment was ordered to Beverly and remained there until July 22, 1776. When the news reached Beverly that the regiment was ordered to New York, the selectmen petitioned:

In response to this petition, Colonel Henry Herrick637 and his regiment were ordered to man the lines at Beverly. Why it should have been thought necessary to keep so many troops at the small town of Beverly does not appear, and the Council evidently thought it uncalled for and on October 25, 1776, ordered Colonel Herrick to discharge officers and private soldiers of his regiment that by order of July 20th had been ordered into the lines at Beverly and discharged the selectmen of the town from furnishing them provisions. The town remained unguarded until November 14th, when the Council ordered that a company of 25 men, including one lieutenant, two sergeants and two corporals, be raised and stationed in the town until further notice. On November 21, 1776, the House requested the Council to give orders to Lieutenant Joseph Wood to take command of 25 men and ordered the selectmen to provide rations as had been done for officers and men stationed there before, not exceeding five shillings a man per week. November 27th the Council ordered Lieutenant Joseph Wood638 to enlist 25 men, sergeants to receive forty-four, corporals forty, and privates thirty-six shillings a month. Lieutenant Wood was to receive three pounds twelve shillings a month. On December 12, 1777, the Council voted that hereafter at Beverly be stationed one lieutenant, one sergeant, one gunner, and eleven matrosses, the lieutenant to receive five pounds, the sergeant and gunner two pounds and the privates one pound and ten shillings, monthly.

In the autumn of 1779 the Council commandeered one of the 18-pound guns in the batteries at Beverly, and in February, 1780, took two of the 9 pounders for their new State vessel, the Protector. On October 4, 1780, the coast guard at Beverly was reduced to one corporal and three matrosses, and this force was continued until the close of the war.

So far as the writer can ascertain, there were but four cases in the Revolutionary War where British armed vessels came within range of the sea-port towns included in the Bay from Marblehead to Cape Ann. The first, August 9, 1775, when the boats of the Fakon were so roughly handled at Gloucester; the second, August 29th of the same year, when the prize ship Isaac was chased into Marblehead harbor and the fort opened fire on her pursuer, the Milford frigate; the third, the affair of the Nautilus in Beverly harbor; and the fourth, when the privateer Starks was chased into Salem harbor by two frigates.

II

As early as November 1, 1775, an act was passed by the Massachusetts Legislature empowering the Council to commission with letters of marque and reprisal any person or persons within the colony, to fit out and equip at their own expense, for the defence of America, any vessel, and general authority to take all vessels of the enemy. The master of the private armed vessel was required to give bonds as principal with two good names as securities in order to satisfy any claim that might be made for illegal capture. The bond was $5,000 for vessels under 100 tons and $10,000 for vessels of 100 tons and over. Later it was found that deserters from the Continental army often enlisted on private armed vessels, and such vessels were put under bond not to take on board any soldier from the Continental army or any man not a citizen of Massachusetts. Bonds were also required that the crews of any vessel captured should be brought as prisoners into the State and not, as was often done, set free on some worthless prize to avoid expense. This was really in the interest of the privateersmen themselves and if faithfully carried out would have saved many of them long confinement in English prisons, but prisoners were a dangerous freight to carry and the bond was often evaded, although English prisoners were needed in Massachusetts as material for exchange. It is from these bonds, necessarily signed by some of the owners, that much of our information about the vessels is obtained.

The first private armed vessels commissioned under the authority of the State were privateers as distinguished from letters of marque. That is, they were empowered and used to cruize against the enemies of America, and not merely merchant vessels armed to resist aggression and authorized to take prizes. A privateer was in most respects, except ownership, a close imitation of our state and national vessels, and its officers received the same titles as in the regular service. A letter of marque was a merchant vessel cleared for some port with a cargo, though she might sail in ballast, but armed to resist aggression and authorized to take any of the enemy’s vessels that came in her way. The officers received the same titles as were used in the merchant service. With the letter of marque the capture of prizes was incidental, with the privateer it was the business of the cruize. The letter of marque was usually lighter armed and carried a much smaller crew than a privateer of the same tonnage.

The first private armed vessels sailing from Massachusetts in 1776 were small craft taken from the merchant service and not especially adapted to the work in which they were engaged. Many were sloops, some were schooners, but the favorite rig was the brigantine. These carried a large spanker with a square, instead of a gaff, topsail on the main mast. They were armed with light cannon, old fashioned swivel guns, blunderbusses, and a few muskets and pikes. The cannon used were long guns, as distinguished from carronades, and so far as the writer can ascertain, with one exception, no carronades639 were used on American private armed vessels during the war. The uniform of the officers and men on Massachusetts privateers was white and green, and the flag first carried was a green pine on a white ground.

The rations allowed a privateer’s crew were what the owner pleased, but as private armed vessels were obliged to compete for seamen with the State vessels, it is probable that the fare on the two did not materially differ. The allowance of provisions for each officer and mariner as prescribed by the State October 12, 1776, was as follows: one pound of bread, one pound of beef or pork, one gill of rice and one gill of rum daily. Peas or beans to the amount of half a pint or a pound of potatoes or turnips might be substituted for the rice. Three-quarters of a pound of butter and one-half a pint of vinegar was allowed weekly. Division of prize money was usually made in the proportion of two parts to the owners and one to the officers and crew of the vessel, but there was no arbitrary rule. It is a disputed question whether the officers and crew of a privateer received wages in addition to their share of the prize money; they undoubtedly did receive wages on a letter of marque.

No privateer sailing from Beverly received a commission from the Massachusetts Council prior to September 4, 1776, but several were so commissioned in which Beverly capital was interested. The earliest of these was the Revenge, owned by Joseph Lee of Beverly and Miles Greenwood of Salem and commissioned May 14, 1776.

The Revenge was a sloop of 90 tons burden, armed with twelve four- and six-pounders, and carrying a crew of 60 men. She was commanded in rapid succession by Joseph White, Benjamin Warren, Edward Gibaut, and Benjamin Dean, all of Salem. Her first two prizes, the ships Anna Maria and Polly, were among the first cases tried in our prize courts. On April 29, 1776, at the same term of court, Bartholemew Putnam and Andrew Cabot libelled the ship Lord Dartmore of 300 tons, seized and taken in Danvers between high and low water mark. A little later, August 9th, John Gardiner of Salem commissioned two schooners, the Gen. Gates and the Harlequin in which Andrew Cabot of Beverly was interested. One of them, the Harlequin, under the name Sally, had been employed by Mr. Cabot in the Spanish trade.

The first privateer owned in and sailing from Beverly was the brigantine Retaliation owned by Josiah Batchelder, Jr., and others of Beverly. She was of 70 tons burden, carried ten two- and four-pound guns, nine swivels, and 70 men. Her commander, Eleazer Giles of Beverly,640 was commissioned September 4, 1776. The petition for the commission, dated September 2, 1776, states that the Retaliation has on board 50 barrels of beef and pork, 4000 pounds of bread, 500 pounds of powder, 25 muskets, 30 cutlasses, and 10 lances. While the Retaliation was fitting out in Beverly, Josiah Batchelder, Jr., had petitioned the General Court for an order on Samuel Phillips at his mill in Andover for 500 pounds of powder at five shillings a pound. A lack of powder was one of the perplexities of the new Republic and on January 6, 1776, the Massachusetts Council, in order to encourage its manufacture in the Colony, agreed to furnish Samuel Phillips at his mill in Andover sulphur and saltpetre at cost and give him a bonus of eight pence a pound on all powder manufactured. In order to obtain powder it was necessary to petition the General Court, which fixed the price and did not always allow the quantity asked for.

Captain Giles on his first cruize headed for the West Indies and was lucky enough to fall in with the Jamaica fleet and take four rich prizes, the brigantine Hiram and the ships Success, St. Lucie, and Alfred.641 The largest ship, the St. Lucie of 350 tons, carried 500 hogsheads of sugar and 20 puncheons of rum, and the wharves of the Beverly merchants once more presented a busy spectacle.

Other privateers were equally successful, and so much sugar was brought into the State that on January 3, 1777, the General Court granted permission for vessels to export sugar to the amount of twelve hogsheads for every 100 tons the vessel registered. The people began to feel need of food rather than sugar and rum.

The Retaliation, as a letter of marque, sailed for Charleston with a full cargo of sugar, bringing back rice and naval stores. Some time in the autumn of 1777 the Retaliation was taken by an English vessel and carried into Halifax. Eleazer Giles was the first Beverly captain taken prisoner, but he did not remain long in confinement, and in April or May of the following year returned to Beverly in the cartel Industry. We shall hear of him again in connection with other vessels.

In the history of Beverly privateers no name occurs so frequently as that of Andrew Cabot, but in 1776 he seemed to confine his investments to vessels sailing from other ports. Besides those already mentioned he was part owner in the Sturdy Beggar, Rover and Reprisal.

The Sturdy Beggar was a schooner of 90 tons, carrying 6 guns and 20 men, owned by Mr. Cabot’s friend, Elias H. Derby of Salem. Her first captain was Peter Landen of Salem, followed in a few weeks by the celebrated Allen Hallet, later by Edward Rowland. On February 24, 1777, the Sturdy Beggar, Captain Rowland, is reported taken by an English vessel, and in June the crew were committed to Mill Prison. A few years later another Sturdy Beggar, this time a brigantine, under Philip Lefavour of Marblehead, was sailing from Salem in which there is reason to suppose Mr. Cabot was also interested. The second Sturdy Beggar was reported wrecked on the coast of France.

The Rover, owned by John Derby, Andrew Cabot and others, was a sloop of 60 tons, armed with eight carriage and ten swivel guns and two cohorns. Her first captain was Simon Forrester, also a part owner, and her early cruizes were very successful. The New York Mercury of October 22, 1776, reports that the sloop Rover, Captain Forrester, during a calm, by the aid of sweeps overtook and captured the English ship Mary and James from Falmouth, England. She was a rich prize and her captain on his arrival at New York complained bitterly of the treatment he had received on board the Rover. “Worse than pirates” he calls his captors. The Mary and James, 129 tons, the brigantine Good Intent, 100 tons, and the Sarah Ann, 100 tons, prizes to the Rover, were all libelled October 24, 1776.642

On September 20, 1776, Job Prince and Samuel White of Boston, agents for themselves and Jacob Fowler, Andrew Cabot, John Coffin Jones and Benjamin Hichbourne, owners of the brigantine Reprisal of 70 tons and 8 guns, petition that John Wheelwright be appointed commander of said vessel. How large an interest Mr. Cabot had in the Reprisal is not stated.

The second privateer owned in and sailing from Beverly was the brigantine Washington of 90 tons, carrying 12 six and four-pound cannon and a crew of 80 men.643 She was owned by John Dyson,644 Thomas Davis and others of Beverly, and commanded by Elias Smith. Elias Smith, though a resident of Beverly, was a native of Virginia, possessing all that courtesy of manner, carelessness of dress and fiery pugnacity which characterized the men of the Old Dominion. “Are you the Captain of this vessel?” was the rather contemptuous inquiry of the commander of a conquered ship, come aboard to surrender his sword. “In default of a better,” replied Captain Smith, drawing himself up to his full height — he was only five feet tall — and bowing low. The story is told that after the war a relation of his who felt himself insulted asked his advice as to fighting a duel. “Fight him!” said the old veteran, “Fight him! Fight him!”

Captain Smith sailed from Beverly soon after he was commissioned, to join the fleet under Captain Manly. These cruizes with Captain Manly were quite a feature during the first two years of the war, and were not very popular with the owners and officers of private armed vessels. The idea was that five or six vessels could cover a large extent of water and still be within supporting distance of each other and take more prizes proportionally than when cruizing singly. Under the articles of agreement, however, the privateer became a sort of contract vessel and for a specified time passed out of the control of her owner. The officers, too, of these privateers by no means relished being under the orders of a man whom they refused to consider as their superior, and much complaint and bickering ensued. The articles of agreement between the State and the owners of the Washington are a type of all these contracts:

After his cruize with Captain Manly, Captain Smith returned to Beverly and then cruized on his own account, sending in eight prizes. The Washington was reported taken by the Levant in 1777.

The only other privateer sailing from Beverly in 1776 was the schooner Warren. She was owned by Josiah Batchelder, Eleazer Giles and others of Beverly and commanded by Israel Thorndike, who remained in command until the next spring, when he was succeeded by Nicholas Ogleeby. Captain Ogleeby made two cruizes in the Warren, and was succeeded by John Ravell of Salem.

Soon after sailing, December 27, 1777, Captain Ravell fell in with the English letter of marque Tom, Captain John Lee, mounting 26 six-pounders, and after a spirited defence of three hours was obliged to surrender. As the Warren carried only five guns and ten swivels she was, of course, no match for her powerful adversary. The Tom received little damage, but the Warren had lost her mainmast and was so much cut up that Captain Lee did not consider her worth taking in but threw her guns and ammunition overboard and left her to her own crew. The Warren lost one man killed and two wounded. For nine days Captain Ravell and his men worked hard to repair damages and had made some progress, but on February 6th were again captured by the English ship Fanny, from New York for Liverpool, and were carried to that city and confined in Mill Prison.

Some time in the spring of 1776 Robert Haskell646 of Beverly obtained permission from the Council to sail for Nova Scotia in his fishing schooner, the Dove, with a crew of four men, taking with him as cargo one barrel of pork, 200 pounds of bread, sixteen gallons of molasses, two bushels of salt, and a half bushel of beans. The trade with Nova Scotia which went on throughout the war will be considered at length in another section, but this permission, like others, was really a blind to cover a secret expedition in search of information. Haskell had removed with his family to Nova Scotia in 1762, but returned to Beverly in 1774 to resume his fishing business. He easily obtained information without exciting suspicion and returned home having fully accomplished his purpose.

On July 2, 1776 the Council requested Josiah Batchelder, Jr., of Beverly to obtain for them a small vessel to be used as a spy vessel and a suitable man to command it. Captain Batchelder once more sought out Robert Haskell, and on July 13th sent him with the following letter to the Council:

Captain Batchelder finally found two vessels in Beverly, one of them the Dove, which answered his purpose, and for some months Captain Haskell remained in the secret service of the State.

On October 15, 1776, the General Court resolved that a Naval Officer be appointed for each port, to take manifests under oath of all cargoes imported and exported, give bills of health, and sign permissions to go to sea. On November 21, 1776, Warwick Palfrey of Salem was appointed Naval Officer of the port of Salem, which of course included Beverly.

III

The year 1777 opened gloomily for the young Republic. “Food is getting scarce and money scarcer,” writes George Williams to Colonel Pickering. The fishing industry, the basis of all exports from New England, was ruined and the sole hope of the seaport towns lay in privateering. The first vessel, owned in Beverly, commissioned in 1777, was the True American of 90 tons, carrying 10 four-pound guns and a crew of 70 men. She was owned by Andrew Cabot and on April 29, 1777, John Buffinton of Salem was commissioned commander. It may seem strange that a Beverly merchant should go outside his own town to officer his vessel, but Captain Buffinton and Andrew Cabot had long been associated in the Spanish trade and the captain of a privateer was usually allowed to pick his own officers. Moreover this was not the True American’s first cruize. She had sailed from Salem the previous year under Captain Daniel Hathorne, later under Captain William Carleton, on petition of Benjamin Goodhue and others, though it is probable that Andrew Cabot held an interest in her from the first. On her first cruize under Captain Hathorne, the True American sent in two prizes, the brigantine Anny and the Unity, but in an attack on an English packet was roughly handled and beaten off with the loss of three men killed and ten wounded. Captain Hathorne was wounded and gave up the vessel to Captain Carleton.

Under Captain Buffinton, the True American made her first cruize with Captain Manly, and on her return, with a crew of 25 men sailed as a letter of marque for Bilbao. This port was the Mecca at which, sooner or later, all American privateers cruizing in European waters finally arrived. Captain Lee of the Hawk, on his arrival at Salem in the autumn of 1776, reported 18 American privateers in that port when he left. Business relations between the merchants of Massachusetts and Bilbao had been close before the war, and now it was the most convenient port in which to sell their prizes and refit. It was also a place where most owners had an agent from whom money could be obtained on account, and a visit to Bilbao meant a chance for a spree.

The Spaniards did not look with approval on the wild privateersmen as they marched singing through the narrow streets or caroused in the wine shops, but if they did not love the Americans, they liked their money and contented themselves with silent cursing.

The True American was consigned to Joseph Gardoqui & Sons, Bilbao, and Captain Buffinton was directed to cruize awhile in the Bay of Biscay and take a prize or two if possible. While in Bilbao the rig of the True American was changed from that of a schooner to a brig. The next year the True American, still under Captain Buffinton, made another voyage to Bilbao, and on her return passed into other hands.

On April 26, 1777, some of the merchants of Boston, knowing the condition of the State treasury, started a fund to be lent to the State to build and fit out two cruizers to protect the coast, and to this fund Andrew Cabot of Beverly subscribed £1000.

One of the most successful privateers sailing from Beverly during the war was the Oliver Cromwell. As first commissioned, she was a brigantine of 162 tons, carrying 16 guns and 120 men. Her owners were George, John and Andrew Cabot, Joseph Lee and others. On her first cruize she was commanded by Captain William Cole and was very successful, sending in eleven prizes. The following extracts from her log show how some of them were taken:

The next year, 1778, Thomas Simmons of Salem was commissioned commander and she continued to send in prizes. While under Captain Simmons her rig was changed to that of a ship. On August 11, 1779, James Barr was commissioned commander and still she was successful. On her return to Salem September 30, 1780, however, she came in minus her main and mizzen mast which she had lost in a severe hurricane, and on January 15, 1781, her agent, Edward Allen, advertises the Oliver Cromwell for sale, “Stores, guns and provisions.” She was purchased by J. & A. Cabot, William Bartlett, Nathan Leach and others of Beverly, refitted and placed under the command of John Bray of Marblehead. On the back of the petition for Captain Bray’s commission at the State Archives is written: “John Bray, Commander of the within named ship is 41 years of age, 5 feet, 8 inches in stature, and dark complexioned. Thomas Brown, 1st Lieutenant, 34 years of age, 5 feet, 2 inches in stature and dark complexioned.” Under Captain Bray the wonderful luck of the Oliver Cromwell no longer continued, and in August, 1781, while “dogging” the Quebec fleet she was taken by an English frigate and carried into Newfoundland.

On petition of George Cabot and others, July 5, 1777, Benjamin Warren was commissioned commander of the brigantine Hampden of 120 tons, 14 four-pound guns and 120 men. She was largely owned in Salem and was fairly successful.

The last privateer commissioned from Beverly in 1777 was the schooner Scorpion of 50 tons, carrying 14 swivel and 2 carriage guns and a crew of 40 men. On petition of Joseph White and Miles Greenwood, Israel Thorndike was commissioned commander. The Scorpion was owned by Josiah Batchelder, Jr., Israel Thorndike and others, and was later commanded by Benjamin Niles, Perry Howland, and Benjamin Ives.

The year 1777 had been a fairly good one for the owners of Beverly privateers and those having money were prepared to make further ventures. The private armed vessels in 1776-1777 were necessarily merchant craft, by no means fitted for the business in which they were engaged, but as these were either taken or discarded, a larger and faster type took their place. The first Beverly privateer commissioned in 1778 was the Terrible Creature, owned by George and Andrew Cabot and others. She was a heavily armed vessel of unknown tonnage, carrying 16 six-pounders and a crew of 100 men. She was not a new vessel and had probably sailed under another name. Some say she was the Oliver Cromwell rechristened, but this does not seem possible. Her first commission does not appear in the State Archives, but we know from other sources that she made at least one voyage to Bilbao before March 9, 1778, the date of her commission at the State House. Nathaniel West of Salem was at Bilbao when the Terrible Creature touched there and returned on her as a passenger to Salem. On April 4, 1778, forty-two of the officers and crew signed the following order: “The undersigned, going on a cruize against the enemies of their State in the privateer Terrible Creature, Robert Richardson, Commander, do hereby appoint Simon Forrester and Isaac White jointly and severally our Agents.” The names of the 43 are given, and the only ones indicating a Beverly origin are John Picket, Charles Corning, Isaac Trask and William Homans. As the crew numbered 100 men, however, it is probable that those from Beverly preferred an agent in their own town. On her second cruize, March 9, 1778, the commander of the Terrible Creature was Robert Richardson of Beverly. On her third cruize under Captain West she was fortunate enough to strike a fleet of English merchant vessels soon after leaving Salem and took so many that she was obliged to return immediately to Salem to ship new men.

On April 20th of the same year a still more formidable vessel, but with a more pacific name, was put in commission by Beverly owners. This was the brigantine Franklin of 200 tons, carrying 18 six-pounders, and a crew of 100 men. She was owned by J. & A. Cabot of Beverly and Bartholomew Putnam of Salem. Her first captain was Thomas Connolly, followed the same autumn by John Leach, with Jacob Oliver, a Beverly man, as lieutenant. Captain Leach sailed from Salem November 4th and on the 17th took a snow with 300 quintals of fish. Four days later he engaged a brig mounting 16 guns, from England for Antigua, laden with dry goods, and captured her after a few broadsides. On the 25th he took another brig, and during the cruize sent in several other prizes.

In 1779 the Franklin was commanded by the famous Joseph Robinson of Salem, and while under his command her rig was changed from that of a brigantine to a ship. Under Captain Robinson, the Franklin cruized with varying success in the West Indies, and when, on March 24, 1780, he was promoted to the Pilgrim, John Turner of Marblehead took his place. The next year Allen Hallet of Boston, a man who held more public and private naval positions during the war than any other mariner in Massachusetts, was commissioned commander. On the back of Allen Hallet’s petition is indorsed, “John Allen Hallet, master of the within ship, is 37 years of age, 6 feet, 6 inches tall and of dark complexion. Silas Devol, 1st Lieutenant, is 6 feet tall, 40 years of age and dark.” On December 24, 1781, Captain Hallet for some reason left the Franklin, and Silas Devol took his place. In 1782, the Franklin, Captain Devol, cruizing in the West Indies, joined with several Beverly and Salem vessels in an expedition against Tortola. The vessels associated with the Franklin were the Porus, Captain Carnes; the Junius Brutus, Captain Brooks; the Pilgrim, Captain Robinson; the Mohock, Captain Smith; and the Fair American. It was intended to surprise Tortola, but the inhabitants were forewarned and the expedition was a failure. The only prize was the former Salem privateer, Maccaroni, which had recently been captured by an English vessel. A little later the Franklin was taken by the English frigates, Amphitrite and Assurance.

Although large and heavily armed vessels were necessary to encounter and capture the equally heavily armed English letter of marque ships, there was also a profitable field for vessels of small tonnage and light armament. Probably more than half the prizes taken by our American privateers were recaptured by the English, a small prize crew put aboard and the vessel ordered to some English port. These vessels and the lighter armed British merchant vessels could be taken by a privateer of very slight force. Such a privateer was the little sloop Fly, owned by Benjamin Lovett648 and Andrew Cabot of Beverly. She was only 50 tons burthen, armed with 4 carriage and 8 swivel guns, and carrying a crew of 40 men. August 29th, 1778, John Marsh was commissioned commander with Ezra Ober as 1st lieutenant, both Beverly men.

Another vessel of this class at one time owned in Beverly, though no record of it appears in the State Archives, was the schooner Centipede. For three years at least, perhaps longer, she sent in prize after prize and, run as she was at small expense, must have been immensely profitable to her owners. She was 45 tons burthen, carrying 16 swivel guns and 35 men. Her first commission was issued December 23, 1777, when on petition of Elias H. Derby, Joseph White and Miles Greenwood, William Langdon of Salem was commissioned as captain and the vessel called Cent. Peid. In her bond, however, given some days before, she is called Santape. On May 14, 1778, she libelled the prize schooner Betty under the name of Centi Pea. She was commissioned again in 1778 and this time she was called Cent. Pede, changed on her bond to Cent Pea, and on her libel against the schooner Bickford to Saint te Pee. August 12, 1779, Joseph Pratt was commissioned commander of the armed cruizer Centipie and August 12, 1779, Gideon Henfield libels several prizes sent in by schooner Centipede.649 In 1778 this vessel of many names was owned by Josiah Batchelder of Beverly, Livermore Whittredge being agent.

Some time in the autumn of 1777 a number of Beverly and Salem gentlemen gave an order to William Swett of Salisbury to build them a ship intended to be the largest, fastest, and most heavily armed privateer ever launched from our Massachusetts ship yards. The name given her was the Black Prince, a rather unusual choice at a time when most American privateers were named after famous republicans, local or Roman, and one that rabid patriots must have cavilled at. She was ship rigged, measured 220 tons, carried 18 guns and a crew of 130 men and was commissioned June 17, 1778, with Elias Smith of Beverly as commander. No other privateer sailed from Salem during the war in which so many Beverly men were interested. George Cabot, J. & A. Cabot, Moses Brown, Israel Thorndike, Larkin Thorndike,650 John Lovett, Josiah Batchelder, Jr., and Benjamin Lovett all held shares. Under Captain Smith she was fairly successful, sending in a number of prizes, but on October 19, 1778, Captain Smith was succeeded by Nathaniel West of Salem, and from that time, though not through any fault of her captain, her luck changed.

On June 30, 1779, the Black Prince, Captain West, had just returned from a long and unsuccessful voyage and was preparing in Salem harbor for a raid on the Quebec fleet, due the following month. The State, about to engage in the Penobscot expedition, sent George Williams and Jonathan Peele to Salem with a request, almost a command, that the Black Prince join the fleet they were forming. The owners, against their better judgment, yielded and June 19, 1778, the Black Prince, Captain West, joined the fleet at Boothbay and took part in the unfortunate expedition. The Black Prince shared the fate of the other American privateers, but her crew escaped to shore. The Black Prince was insured by the State to the amount of £100,000 and after some years’ delay her owners were paid, principal and interest. John Lovett received £272, George Cabot £224, Benjamin Lovett £464, the other Beverly owners received compensation in another way.

Two privateers in which Beverly gentlemen were largely interested, the Black Prince and the Defence, were in the unfortunate Penobscot expedition. The latter, a brig of 170 tons, armed with 16 six-pounders and carrying a crew of 100 men, was owned by Andrew Cabot and Moses Brown and commanded by Captain John Edmonds of Beverly. Both were run on shore and destroyed when the British fleet entered Penobscot harbor. Some of the Beverly merchants obtained or tried to obtain advances from the State prior to the general settlement, and on September 22, 1782, Larkin Thorndike of Beverly, “Part owner of the Black Prince and Defence, having met with misfortunes at sea which has reduced him of almost his whole trading stock exclusive of what he has loaned to the Government, having bought the forfeited estate of John Landell Borland, Esq. begs that you will loan him part of the money due from the State, which is 600 pounds, lawful money.” The estate bought by Larkin Thorndike was a tract of land situated in Danvers, Topsfield and Middleton, and the State allowed him £400. Andrew Cabot tried much the same plan. The State owed for the Defence £105,000. Mr. Cabot bought from the State the forfeited real estate of Lieutenant-Governor Oliver at Lechmere’s Point, Cambridge, and gave his note for the same. When the note came due he offered to give the State credit for the £94,000 he had paid for the property on the sum due him for the Defence, but the State refused. He finally received £4245 for his half of the Defence. September 20, 1779, Brown and Thorndike petitioned the Council:

Of all the privateers sailing from Beverly during the war, the Pilgrim was the most famous and probably the most successful. She was very fortunate in her commanders and is said to have been built for her owner, Mr. Cabot,651 at Newburyport under supervision of her first captain, Hugh Hill. She was ship rigged, measured 200 tons and carried 16 nine-pounders and a crew of 140 men. On September 12, 1778, Hugh Hill of Beverly was commissioned commander. Hugh Hill, the man chosen to command the finest privateer sailing from Beverly, was the beau ideal of a privateer captain.652 Born at Carrickfergus, Ireland, in 1741 he had come to this country when a young man, settling in Marblehead. He was of good family, a cousin of Andrew Jackson, the future president of the United States, and an enthusiast in the cause of American liberty. Of immense size, muscular beyond the common, courageous almost to rashness, courteous to the fair sex and not burdened with scruples, he had all the characteristics which might have made him a famous captain in the days of Drake. The story is told of him that on one occasion while at L’Orient, France, a French gentleman in a cabaret felt himself insulted by some word or action of the reckless privateersman. “I will send my seconds to you in the morning,” said the Frenchman. “What is the matter with here and now?” said Hugh Hill, drawing two pistols from his belt and offering one to the Frenchman. There was no duel.

Hugh Hill remained in command of the Pilgrim until March 24, 1780, and during that time sent into Beverly as prizes the ships Francesco di Paula of 250 tons, the Anna and Eliza of 120 tons, the bark Success of 120 tons, the brigantine Neustra Senora de Merced, of 120 tons, the Hopewell of 115 tons, the Three Brothers of 130 tons, the Pallas of 100 tons, the Gold Wire of 130 tons, the snow Diana of 160 tons, the Brandywine and Lord Sandwich. These were vessels which reached Beverly; more than double the number were sent into foreign ports, or retaken. One of these prizes, the Francesco di Paula, was the cause of long litigation and came near causing international complications with Spain. The case was one, common in war time, of an English-owned ship named Valenciano, rechristened Francesco di Paula and put under Spanish colors. Joachi di Luca was her nominal and Peter White her real captain. The Francesco was condemned in our State courts but the case was appealed to Congress, where the fear of offending Spain kept the case undecided for a long time. Finally the ship was condemned and the cargo returned to its owners.

While in command of the Pilgrim, Captain Hill had several sharp encounters with English vessels. March 14, 1779, the Pilgrim engaged the letter of marque brig Success, Captain Nixon, of 12 guns and 30 men. The Success was, of course, no match for the Pilgrim, but she put up a stiff fight and did not surrender until most of her officers were killed or wounded. After the battle, Captain Hill cruized on the Irish coast, taking several prizes, and then ran into Sligo Bay and set free all his prisoners. He had taken eight prizes in six weeks.

On March 24, 1780, Captain Hill resigned command of the Pilgrim and was succeeded by Joseph Robinson of Salem. Captain Robinson, like Hugh Hill, was a man of imposing presence, a good sailor and a good fighter. Under him the Pilgrim was as successful as under her first commander, and up to October 12, 1782, had sent into Beverly twelve prizes besides numerous others sent into France, Spain, and Martinique. One of the prizes sent in in 1782 was the frigate built, copper bottomed ship Mars carrying 8 eighteen and 16 nine-pound guns and a crew of 84 men. The Mars was taken after a sharp battle lasting three hours in which the English vessel lost her captain and seven others killed and eighteen wounded.

One of the best contested privateer engagements of the war was the encounter between the Pilgrim and the English ship Mary. On January 5, 1781, when cruizing in the West Indies, Captain Robinson sighted a large ship and gave chase. The Pilgrim gained on the stranger, which made no effort either to seek or avoid an encounter. Captain Robinson, uncertain as to her real force, set English colors and by half-past four was within hailing distance of her starboard quarter. The usual questions were asked and answered, the strange vessel reporting herself as the letter of marque ship Mary, Captain Stoward, while the Pilgrim gave her name as the Success, Captain Robinson, from Barbados. Captain Robinson then set American colors and fired the first broadside. This was immediately answered by the Mary, and the two ships lay yard arm to yard arm, exchanging broadsides and plying each other with musketry. Unfortunately for the Mary, her captain early in the action received a musket ball in the shoulder; but still keeping his feet he encouraged his crew to renewed exertions, until, struck by a piece of langrage in the head, he fell to the deck mortally wounded. Captain Stoward lived but a few moments, and his last words to the mate bade him keep up the fight. This the mate did until midnight, but while the broadsides of the two vessels were almost equally effective, the musketry fire from the Pilgrim was the more accurate and deadly. Finally the Mary, with several of her guns dismounted, three feet of water in her hold, five men killed and seventeen wounded, was obliged to surrender. The Pilgrim had her spars and rigging much cut up, several shots between wind and water, and could be kept afloat only by constant pumping.

The English account of the engagement, published in Rivington’s Royal Gazette, states that the ship Mary, Captain Moses Stoward, sailed from Cork November 20 as a letter of marque. She was a vessel of 400 tons, armed with 22 guns and carried a crew of 82 men. December 28 she fell in with a Spanish frigate of 28 guns, and after an engagement of three hours the Spanish vessel sheered off. The Mary lost her fore and main topmasts in the action and had not completed repairs when she met the Pilgrim. According to the Gazette, Captain Robinson treated his prisoners with great kindness and courtesy, but the English officers and men left aboard the captured vessel were robbed of their watches, money and other personal effects. On their way to port the English prisoners plotted to retake the Mary and would have been successful, says the writer, had not the second mate decided to enlist in the American service, and betrayed the plan. As the prisoners on the Mary exceeded the prize crew in numbers, the Americans no longer felt safe with the Englishmen aboard, so the prisoners, officers and men, were bundled into the long boat and set adrift 100 leagues to the westward of Barbados. The boat was provided with mast, spars, sails, compass and provisions and the prisoners reached land in safety. In this encounter the Pilgrim had the advantage of the larger crew, though weight of metal and size of ship were against her. The English claimed that the crew of the Pilgrim were mostly Scotch and Irish, a statement exaggerated no doubt but with a considerable basis of truth, for the crews of American privateers from 1780 to the end of the war were largely recruited from English deserters and prisoners. The day before the battle the Pilgrim took a brig and two days after the ship Lord Howe.

On May 30, 1782, this advertisement appeared in a Boston paper: “A part of those fortunate and fast sailing ships, the Pilgrim and Mohock for sale. Inquire of the printer.” It would be interesting to know whether any sale was made, as within three months one was wrecked and the other captured by an English vessel.653 American papers of October 12, 1782, report that the privateer Pilgrim, Captain Robinson, was chased ashore on Cape Cod by the English frigate Chatham, “Men, guns and stores saved, but vessel in a dangerous position.” On October 23rd, “At Distil House Wharf, Beverly, all the stores lately belonging to that well found ship, the Pilgrim, including ten pairs of nine-pound cannon, will be sold at auction.” On December 4, 1783, Boston papers advertise: “Ship Pilgrim, from Beverly for Ireland, Capt. Hugh Hill. Apply for freight to A. & J. Cabot.” It is probable that this was not the original Pilgrim, but whether she left her bones in the sand of Cape Cod or was saved for further service she had made a record for Revolutionary privateers and captured some fifty prizes.

IV

The year 1779 was a disastrous one for the merchants of Massachusetts. During that part of the year when privateering was naturally most lucrative their armed vessels were employed by the State in an expedition654 which afforded neither honor nor profit, and its disastrous conclusion left them with little heart for new ventures or means to make them had they wished to. The story of the Black Prince and the Defence, the only two vessels of the expedition in which Beverly capital was invested, was alluded to in the last section. But two other new commissions were issued to Beverly privateers during the whole year, and these for vessels of trifling force.

On September 1, 1779, on petition of John Dyson in behalf of Josiah Batchelder, Jr., and others of Beverly, William Groves was commissioned commander of the sloop Fish Hawk of 50 tons carrying 8 guns and 50 men. The Fish Hawk made one cruize as a privateer and then under command of Samuel Foster, later of Israel Ober, both of Beverly, sailed as a letter of marque. In the list of officers and crew of the Fish Hawk who signed as from Beverly on June 6, 1780, the share of prize money each was entitled to receive was 5 shares for the commander, 2½ shares for the 1st lieutenant, 1 share each to the mariners, and ½ a share to the cabin boy.

How large a proportion of the prize money earned on the voyage of a letter of marque or cruize of a privateer went to each officer and mariner on the vessel, depended on what share went to the owners, and this was by no means uniform. The owners of the privateer Revenge took one-quarter of the prize money, the owners of the Rambler two-thirds, and there were cases where the division was two-fifths to the owners and three-fifths to the crew. There must, however, have been real equality of division and the apparent difference made up by other factors. The difference could only be adjusted by the payment of higher wages or giving a larger share of prize money to the men of the letter of marque. As a matter of fact, the share of prize money was usually less on a letter of marque than a privateer, and this must have been made up by high wages.655

There is considerable doubt whether any wages were paid the crew of a privateer, and whether the cruize was not a cooperative one. At any rate, whatever the proportion taken by the owners the balance was divided, one share to each mariner; 1½ to 2 shares to each petty officer, boatswain, gunner, carpenter, cooper; 2½ to 3 shares to the commander and 2nd and 3rd lieutenant of a privateer or mates of a letter of marque, and the share paid the first mate was usually one-half that paid the captain or commander, which might be 5 as in case of the Fish Hawk or 8 as in case of the Resource, or any number agreed on before sailing.

These shares were negotiable like certificates of stock and commanded a high or low price according to the reputation of the vessel, the skill of the captain, the season of the year, or the necessities of the seller. The spirit of gambling, always rife in times of war or inflated currency, made them an attractive speculation and they were divided like lottery tickets, as indeed they were, into halves, quarters and eighths and floated on the market. It was necessary for a married or improvident mariner, signing for a cruize on a privateer, to make some provision for his family or creditors, and as this could not be done on advance on his wages he was obliged to sell the whole or a part of his shares. The following is a type of a bill of sale very common in the war: “Beverly 1776, Hiram Brockhorn in consideration of 16 dollars paid in hand and a further consideration of 24 dollars at end of cruize of sloop Revenge, Captain Benj. Dean, sells John Waters one-half of his share of prize money and gives order on the Agent.” Mr. Waters seems to have dealt quite extensively in this kind of speculation and sometimes paid as high as one hundred dollars for one-quarter of a share. The last cruize of the Fish Hawk was made as a privateer under Captain Foster and she was taken while following the Quebec fleet in the summer of 1781.

The only other privateer commissioned from Beverly in 1779 was the little schooner Adventure belonging to Larkin Thorndike and Sewell Tuck. She was 45 tons burden, armed with 6 carriage and 8 swivel guns, carried a crew of 35 men and was commanded by Robert Newman. A few months later William James of Beverly was commissioned commander, and she made some fairly successful cruizes. While under command of Captain James, the Adventure is accused of having stolen from Mr. Trask of Cape Persue, Nova Scotia, 64 hogsheads of salt and a boat, and complaint to that effect was made to the Massachusetts Council. In his petition, Mr. Trask allows that the salt has been returned but wishes to recover the boat also.

The year 1780 opened under the most depressing conditions. “Our present state with respect to provision,” writes Washington, January 8th, “is the most distressing of any we have experienced since the beginning of the war. For a fortnight past the troops, both officers and men, have been almost perishing for want. They have been alternately without bread or meat the whole time, and frequently destitute of both.” The inhabitants of the seaport towns of Massachusetts were not so badly off as Washington’s starving troops, but from the early months of 1779 until the coming of the French in 1780 the growing scarcity of food excited the liveliest apprehension. On February 29, 1779, George Williams writes to Colonel Pickering:

Again on April 6, 1779, he writes: “We are in great distress for want of food. Flour 40 to 50 pounds a hundredweight and none to be had.”

George Williams was something of a pessimist, and it is not probable that the people of the seacoast towns suffered so much from hunger as they were inconvenienced by loss of their usual food. Although merchantable cod were hard to obtain, the ocean at their feet still offered inexhaustible supplies of small fish; lobsters and clams could be had for the gathering, and few families were so poor as not to have their own kitchen garden. By 1780 the cost of fitting out a privateer was so great, the chance of getting a prize into port so small, that most merchants preferred to send out their vessels as letters of marque. The firm of J. & A. Cabot, however, made one more venture and fitted out a new privateer, the Essex. The Essex was a ship of 200 tons, carrying 20 six-pound guns and a crew of 140 men. On May 6, 1780, John Cathcart of Salem was commissioned commander. The Essex sent a number of prizes into Beverly, but was taken by the English frigate Queen Charlotte June 10, 1781. A letter written by an officer of the Essex gives an account of the remarkable meeting on the high seas of several of Mr. Cabot’s vessels and the loss of the Essex:

All these vessels were at one time either owned or controlled by Mr. Cabot.

Another vessel in which Mr. Cabot was interested this year was the Junius Brutus of Salem. This was a ship of 200 tons, carrying 20 guns and 120 men. On May 23, 1780, on petition of Joshua Ward and Henry Rust, John Leach was commissioned commander. She was afterwards commanded by John Brooks and later by Nathaniel Brookhouse, both of Salem, and while under command of the former had a well contested engagement with the English ship Experiment, lasting three glasses. The Experiment mounted 18 long sixes and carried the then very valuable cargo of 1500 barrels of flour. The Experiment finally surrendered with a loss of two killed and two wounded. The Junius Brutus during her privateer life sent 890 tons of prizes into Salem and was captured in the autumn of 1782 and sent in to Newfoundland.

Another privateer said to have been owned in Beverly but whose commission does not appear in the State Archives, was the brig Eagle of unknown tonnage and armament. According to her return of officers and crew June 17, 1780, William Groves of Beverly was commander. The Eagle was taken by an English vessel July 21, 1780. She is said to have been owned by James Lovett and Moses Brown of Beverly.

The brigantine Active, 150 tons, 12 guns and 60 men, Nathaniel Swasey commander, owned by Andrew Cabot and others of Beverly, a former letter of marque, sailed this year as a privateer. In 1781 she was commanded by Captain John Patten of Beverly and was captured by an English vessel and carried into Halifax.

The year 1781 opened under brighter auspices. The arrival of the French fleet and army and the influx of gold consequent, served to steady our currency and improve trade. Privateering, however, was becoming every day more hazardous. The English merchant vessels either sailed as heavily armed letters of marque or under convoy of ships of war. The English fleet controlled our coast and made the departure and entrance of our vessels this time of greatest danger. Only five privateers, other than those already mentioned, sailed from Beverly during the year 1781 — the Scourge, Dolphin, Buccanier, Diana, and Mohawk.

The Scourge was a fine new ship of 240 tons, carrying 20 guns and 117 men, owned by Brown and Thorndike of Beverly. On May 24, 1781, Timothy Parker of Norwich, Connecticut, was commissioned commander. She sailed on her first cruize from Portsmouth, where she was probably built, June 14, 1781, her signal being ensign at main top gallant masthead, pennant at mizzen head.657 Most of her cruizing was done in the West Indies and she sent several prizes into Martinique, and the brig Neptune and sloop Crawford into Beverly. The Scourge was taken by an English vessel April 22, 1782, and sent into Barbados.

The Dolphin was a little schooner of 40 tons, 6 guns and 35 men, owned by William Homans and others of Beverly and commanded by Joseph Knowlton.

The schooner Diana, commissioned August 20, 1781, was one of the lightest armed privateers that sailed from Beverly during the war. She carried 4 guns and 20 men, was commanded by Richard Lakeman of Ipswich and owned by Joseph Swasey of Salem and several Beverly merchants.

One of the largest, finest and most fortunate privateers sailing from Beverly during the war was J. & A. Cabot’s ship Buccanier of 350 tons, carrying 18 nine-pounders and a crew of 150 men. The Buccanier was a new and fast ship built especially for privateering, and on August 3, 1781, Hoystead Hacker of Providence, Rhode Island, once commander of the Continental sloop Providence, was commissioned commander. She made one cruize in the English Channel under Captain Hacker, was coppered at L’Orient and then returned to Beverly. On March 22, 1782, Jesse Fearson of Salem succeeded Captain Hacker, and the Buccanier returned to her old cruizing ground where, in company with the Cicero and Revolution, she remained until the end of the war. The Buccanier sent many prizes into France and a few to the home ports, and arrived back in Beverly in the month of June, 1783.

November 8, 1781, on petition of William Leach, William Bartlett and others of Beverly, Elias Smith was commissioned commander of the ship Mohawk. This was a new vessel built especially for cruizing and carried 20 six-pounders, and a crew of 130 men. On her first cruize she sent three prizes into Martinique and one, the ship Daniel, formerly the Salem Packet, into Beverly. John Carnes of Beverly succeeded Captain Smith September 6, 1782, and when fourteen days out was taken by the English ship Enterprise and sent into New York.

The year 1782, though offering bright prospects for American patriots, brought little comfort to the owners of American privateers. The surrender of Cornwallis meant ultimate triumph, but general bankruptcy seemed still more imminent. Privateering had turned out badly and many merchants had had the same experience as George Williams, who writes to Colonel Pickering: “I have lost two ships and a brig at St. Eustasia by that old Rodney and now I am reduced to a brig.”658 Beverly had fared better than some of the seaport towns, and in the month of October, 1781, had owned the following vessels, as given in the Nathan Dane Papers:

The tonnage of the vessels in this list is much underestimated and was probably meant for the assessors.

It is probable that the Revolution was commissioned in 1781, but the first record of her commission in the State Archives is on March 6, 1782, when, on petition of John and Andrew Cabot, Stephen Webb was commissioned commander. The Revolution carried the heaviest armament of any privateer sailing from Beverly during the war. She was a ship of 330 tons armed with 20 nine-pound guns and carried a crew of 130 men. Immediately after his appointment Captain Webb sailed for France, had his vessel coppered at L’Orient and cruized in the English Channel until the close of the war. The Revolution sent many prizes into France and returned to Beverly after peace was declared. At a later period she was the cause of the severance of the friendly relations between the house of Cabot and the firm of Joseph Gardoqui & Sons of Bilbao, Spain. In 1785 some member of the firm of J. & A. Cabot writes to Joseph Gardoqui:

After much correspondence Gardoqui bought half of the Revolution for 1100 guineas on the understanding that she should be loaded on their joint account and sent to Europe. The Revolution, however, while fitted for a privateer, carried too little cargo to be profitable as a merchant vessel, and Gardoqui & Sons insisted that they had been imposed upon and resented it.

The Shaker has the distinction of being the only galley sailing from Beverly during the war, and one of the very few owned in the State. Like the galleys of the Mediterranean, these vessels spread a large amount of canvas and only used their sweeps in a calm or when going to windward. The Shaker measured 50 tons, and carried 6 four-pounders and a crew of 40 men. May 8, 1782, on petition of J. & A. Cabot, Samuel Stacy of Newburyport was commissioned commander. The next year Brown and Thorndike owned the Shaker and James Lovett659 of Beverly commanded her. The Shaker sent several prizes into Beverly and was sold at auction after the war.

During the war cases of the recapture of the prize vessel by her imprisoned crew were quite common, but for a captured crew to retake their own vessel and seize that of their captors is almost unique. Such, however, was the good fortune of the little brigantine Hope, owned and commanded by Herbert Woodberry of Beverly.660 Although brigantine rigged, the Hope was only 60 tons burthen, carrying 6 guns and 35 men. September 25, 1782, while cruizing on the coast of Newfoundland, the Hope, Captain Woodberry, was taken by the Prince Edward, a large Nova Scotia privateer, a prize crew put aboard the Hope, and Captain Woodberry and his crew confined on the Prince Edward. After the action the two vessels ran into a small harbor in Labrador, called Chateau, to refit, and while lying there Captain Woodberry and his men arranged a plan to rise on their captors, some sixty in number, and seize the vessel. All their plans were completed and the watchword “Liberty” given out, but the morning of the day chosen Captain Simmond of the Prince Edward decided to go on shore fishing and nothing would do but that Captain Woodberry must accompany him. After some excuses, afraid of exciting suspicion, Captain Woodberry consented and the two captains were rowed ashore. The plan still held, however, and during their absence the crew of the Hope suddenly rushed on the unsuspecting Englishmen, disarmed them, seized the Prince Edward and retook the Hope. When Captain Simmonds returned from his fishing trip he found himself on a hostile vessel and was obliged to surrender to his late prisoner. There were too many prisoners to risk taking them on the two vessels, so they were all set at liberty. The prize brig Prince Edward of 160 tons, armed with 16 four-pounders, and the little Hope reached Beverly in safety and the former was sold at auction. She proved to be the privateer Wilkes, late of Gloucester, which had been taken by the English and renamed Prince Edward.

That same summer the Hope was party to a less creditable action, the attack on the town of Lunenburg. There had been a number of cases where our privateers had plundered the defenceless people of Nova Scotia, but in almost every case brought to their attention the General Court had given redress.661 The attack on Lunenburg occurred, however, at a time when public opinion was running high against the inhabitants of Nova Scotia, some of whom were claimed to have acted as spies while trading with Massachusetts. Lunenburg was a small town in Nova Scotia containing four or five hundred inhabitants, defended by two blockhouses garrisoned by a few regular troops. Five small privateers, the brigantine Hope, Captain Woodberry, the schooner Dolphin, Captain Knowlton, both of Beverly, the schooner Scammell, Captain Stoddard, the schooner Hero, Captain Babcock, and the Swallow, Captain Tibbets, joined forces and raided the town. Ninety-two men from the privateers, under Lieutenant Bateman, landed at four in the morning about three miles from the town and marched undiscovered until they came to the first blockhouse which was garrisoned by a few soldiers and armed with an 18 pound cannon. The Americans had brought no artillery with them, but they succeeded in setting the blockhouse on fire and the garrison surrendered. One blockhouse still remained, but by this time the Hero had run into the harbor and a few well directed shots from her 4-pound guns ended all resistance.662 “The Americans now,” says an English account of the affair, “fell to plundering with a pleasing and natural vivacity.” The grocery stores were emptied of their contents and barrels of beef and pork, sugar and rum rolled down to the wharves. The shelves of the clothing stores were thoroughly rifled and when everything of value had been looted and the house of the commander burned, the town was ransomed for one thousand pounds. Goods to the amount of 8,000 pounds were brought away and libelled in the prize court at Boston. “On the side of the brave sons of liberty,” says a Boston paper, “three men were wounded, on the side of the abettors of despotism and oppression, one man was killed.” In retaliation for this attack the Chatham and two other English men of war were ordered to cruize on the bank and burn every American vessel taken, fishing vessels included, though these had previously been unmolested.

The last and also the smallest privateer commissioned from Beverly during the war was the schooner Hopewell, of 25 tons, carrying 10 swivels and 40 men. She was owned by William Homans of Beverly and commanded July 26, 1782, by Cornelius Dunham, later by Martin Brewster. On March 26, 1783, the official recall of privateers was made by the State of Massachusetts.

V

During the Revolutionary War commerce between the United States and neutral nations and their colonies, though carried on under great difficulties, by no means ceased. Practically there was a perpetual embargo on all vessels in American ports, except those engaged in fishing, but permission to sail with specified articles of export was usually granted in Massachusetts on petition to the Council. The exports from Massachusetts during the war were limited to lumber in its various forms, dry and pickled fish, and small amounts of New England rum. Provisions of all kinds were too much needed for home consumption to be used for export and even dried fish was often scarce. The Council therefore vacillated between the fear of high prices and destitution at home, and the necessity of allowing some articles of export in order to obtain supplies of another character. Under these conditions commerce was carried on by a system of frauds, to be explained later, which however was understood and winked at by the government.

Prior to the time when France became an ally of the United States numerous vessels laden with war materials and supplies reached this country from that nation, but this was political rather than mercantile trade, and was accomplished by means of fraudulent papers.663 French vessels cleared for the West Indies, and when near the American coast ran into some convenient port and discharged cargo. Commerce by Massachusetts vessels was carried on in three ways: first, by unarmed merchant vessels, mostly coasting voyages; second, by the State in State vessels, or ships chartered for that purpose; third, by means of armed vessels provided with letters of marque. The first method was carried on by small sloops and schooners and included a curious trade with Nova Scotia. The second was not an economic success, but enabled the State to obtain articles of which it had great need. The third, that by letters of marque, did the bulk of the commerce.

Trade by unarmed vessels consisted of coasting voyages to South Carolina for rice, or Maryland for flour, and was, of course, carried on in American vessels. The trade with Nova Scotia, on the other hand, was carried on by small craft belonging to that province. The towns of Barrington and Yarmouth were largely settled by people from Essex and Barnstable counties, in Massachusetts, and their trade and interest were chiefly with the Bay State.664 When war came they were shut off from trade with Halifax by the American privateers, and, neglected by the English, had no market for their fish and potatoes except New England. They made some attempts to be declared neutral, but these failed and they remained throughout the war ignored by the English and suspected by the Americans.

Out of these peculiar conditions arose a limited trade, illegitimate in its nature but winked at by the government of Massachusetts so long as it suited their purpose. This trade was carried on under two pretexts, the first, based on the fact that so many inhabitants of Yarmouth and Barrington came from Massachusetts and had relations in the States, and the second, on the relief and transportation of escaped and parolled prisoners. For example, May 14, 1777, Daniel Corning petitions the General Court that he may be permitted to remove his family from Yarmouth to Beverly, and also sell 200 quintals of fish which he had brought with him. This petition was accompanied by a letter from Josiah Batchelder, Jr., of Beverly, stating that Corning was a former resident of that town, who had emigrated to Nova Scotia before the war, and was a worthy person. Mr. Corning made a number of these voyages and as late as August 30, 1780, petitions for leave to sell 150 quintals of fish and carry back to Nova Scotia a certain amount of flour, rum and sugar. Incidentally, he states that he has not yet found time to transport his family. This petition is the type of many others, all based on the fiction that the petitioner wishes to remove his family from one country to another.

Another frequent visitor to Beverly was Thomas Flint of Yarmouth, who varies the formula somewhat. He writes the Council that he has arrived at Beverly in his schooner Hannah, bringing a number of escaped prisoners, ten hogsheads of salt and a quantity of dried fish, and asks permission to sell his cargo and invest the proceeds in supplies that he may be able to continue the good work and later bring his family to Beverly. The real object of these petitions, of course, was the trade and no removal of families took place, but Massachusetts merchants needed dried fish and salt and were glad to sell the sugar from their prizes and the fiery rum from their distilleries, and so the trade went on.

The State trade had one advantage, that against it no embargo held. If sulphur or saltpetre was needed for powder, blankets for the troops or rice and flour for rations, it had only to dispatch one of its own vessels and, barring the accidents of war and sea, the material was secured. The voyage of the sloop Republic, one of the State vessels, is chronicled in the State Archives. The Republic, under charge of Allen Hallet, afterwards commander of the privateer Franklin, sailed from Boston for Port Royal in the autumn of 1777, with a cargo consisting of 35 hogsheads of fish, 25 tierces of salmon, ten barrels of pork, an unstated amount of pickled mackerel, 56,000 shingles and 500 hoops, all consigned to Allen Hallet for sale. The Republic reached Port Royal in safety although pursued by an English cruizer, and on November 25, 1777, Allen Hallet writes to the Naval Board: “The fish being old and not well packed turned out so bad that I had to make an allowance of four livres. The salmon was exceedingly good, but are extremely unsalable here. The mackerel were spoiled and I was glad to get them out of the ship. Many of the boards were thrown overboard when we were chased on the voyage. The ox bows and yokes are little used by the French. After ballasting the vessel with rum and molasses I have employed the rest of the money in coffee.” The Republic reached Boston on her return voyage with a cargo consisting of 88 hogsheads and two tierces of molasses, 114 puncheons of rum, 38 barrels of coffee and three pieces of sheeting. This voyage shows quite clearly the lack of efficiency in public as compared with private ventures.

On March 22, 1778, George Williams writes to Colonel Pickering: “State expects a brig from France with clothing, another brig in about two weeks, also two large ships bringing salt and blankets. One brig gone to Bilbao for salt and cordage and a brig and a ship to Carolina and France.” Besides the State vessels many ships were chartered or bought from private owners, one at least from Beverly. On February 21st Nathan Leach of Beverly sells his ship Content, Captain William Langdell, to Captain Williams for the State service, to be delivered at Falmouth, and on March 18th receives this acknowledgement: “Received of Capt. William Langdell the ship Content which I am to load with masts by order of the Board of War. Signed, Wm. Frost.”

Sometimes when pressed for money the State entered into a limited partnership with rich merchants and divided the profits with them. February 25, 1779, the Board of War at Boston writes to Captain Batchelder at Beverly: “The Board being engaged to import rice and flour for the use of the State, would request you to use your influence among the monied men in Beverly and secure any sum of money they can advance to assist the public.” The letter then goes on to say that it will be necessary to find several sloops of 50 to 70 tons to go to Maryland for flour and to Carolina for rice, and the Board will allow one-half of the rice and one-third of the flour brought back in payment. Owners to pay insurance and all other charges.

Commerce, however, carried on by the State and unarmed vessels was inconsiderable, and it was by letter of marque vessels that most of the trading was done. A letter of marque had the advantage over the privateer in that she cleared for some port with a cargo on which, if safely delivered, there was a good profit, and she was also by her letters empowered to take any vessel of the enemy that came in her way. In the early days of the war most of the letter of marque vessels were lightly armed and manned, but after 1780 some heavily armed letter of marque vessels made the voyage an incident and cruizing the real object.

The commercial as well as the privateering history of Beverly is closely connected with the house of Cabot. Prior to the outbreak of the War of the Revolution the firm of John & Andrew Cabot carried on a large trade with Bilbao, Spain, their correspondents, as already stated, being the firm of Gardoqui & Sons. From 1770 to 1775 they employed the sloops Tryall and Sally, the brigantine Union and the ship Rambler. The captains in their employ were George Cabot, Benjamin Lovett, Stephen Cleveland, Zachariah Burchmore, and Thomas Simmons. On April 20, 1776, George Cabot writes to Gardoqui & Sons: “The bearer of this, my brother, Mr. Francis Cabot, is upon a plan of spending some four months abroad, and is desirous of being aboard the Rambler, Capt. George Cabot, where he may have the pleasure of his brother’s society. Please forward him letters of introduction and credit. I shall in a few days set out for Philadelphia where I have resided since these unhappy times commenced.” For some reasons, probably of a business and political nature, John and George Cabot both sailed for Europe that same spring. September 7, 1776, the three Cabot brothers were at Bilbao, prepared to return home. It did not seem prudent to risk so many members of the firm in one vessel, so George Cabot sailed for Newburyport on a vessel commanded by Captain St. Barbe, Francis on the privateer Hawk, Captain Lee, and John on his own ship the Union, Captain Burchmore. The Cabot boys all arrived safe and on March 27, 1777, Andrew Cabot writes the Council: “The Hector has recently arrived from Spain with a cargo of brandy. Your petitioners have furnished said vessel abroad with eight carriage guns and a due proportion of swivels and small arms. She carried these guns on her return trip and might have taken several prizes but for want of proper warrant. Your petitioners therefor request such warrant and a commission for Zachariah Burchmore.”

The Union, now bearing the more warlike name of Hector, of 150 tons, 8 guns and 17 men, was the first letter of marque to sail from Beverly. She was owned by the Cabots and William Bartlett of Beverly.

Another vessel owned by the Cabots at this time was the ship Rambler. Although no record of her commission as a letter of marque appears in the State Archives until 1779, there is a petition signed by Andrew Cabot of Beverly and George Dodge of Salem, dated February 18, 1777, asking that the ship Rambler be permitted to sail in ballast for Carolina, there take on a cargo of rice and sail for some neutral port in Europe, giving bonds that she will bring back salt, woolens and naval stores and give the State the first chance to purchase. This petition was granted July 18, 1777, and on October 18th Andrew Cabot writes Gardoqui & Sons:

Insurance at this time was very high and some merchants preferred to spread their risks and insure themselves. At a later date Benjamin Lovett insured the Rambler for $15,000 at the low rate of 35 per cent. It is probable that the ship Rambler here referred to was the same vessel afterwards commanded by Captain Lovett, but nothing more is heard or her until September 16, 1779, when on petition of Andrew Cabot and others of Beverly, Benjamin Lovett was commissioned master of the ship Rambler of 200 tons, carrying 14 six-pound guns and 50 men.665 From the date of her commission to the end of the war, Captain Lovett commanded the Rambler, and during that time she sailed between Beverly and Bilbao, Spain, with almost the regularity of a packet.

In 1781, the Defence, Captain John Edmonds, and the Rambler, Captain Lovett, sailed from Beverly for Bilbao. They reached that port, taking several prizes on the way, and after discharging cargo went on a cruize in company and among other prizes sent in to Bilbao two English privateers, the Snapper666 and the Snake. About this time Andrew Cabot wrote Gardoqui that he wished him to pick out one or two suitable vessels among the prizes to be used as privateers. Had his letter reached Bilbao in time it is probable that one or both of these vessels would have sailed from Beverly as privateers, but as it was, Gardoqui wrote to Mr. Cabot: “We are exceedingly sorry that the kind order for the purchase of one or two armed vessels had not reached us sooner, as we then would have had the opportunity of appropriating for your use the Snapper and the Snake, which we imagine would have been the only ones which might have suited your purpose. At present there is only the Mercury, and Capt. Lovett does not seem to encourage our taking her on your account.” In the same letter Gardoqui states that Captain Lovett talks of going on a cruize in the Rambler with Captain Robinson in the Pilgrim, and Captain Hill in the Cicero. It is probable that he did not carry out his intention, as the Rambler arrived at Beverly November 9, 1781. Besides the prizes sent into Bilbao by the Rambler, the prize brigantines Mary and Charming Polly were sent into the home port.

The Rambler sailed again from Beverly, March 6, 1782, and Andrew Cabot was evidently in doubt where to send her or what to do with her. In his letter of instruction for the voyage, dated February 12, 1782, Mr. Cabot directs Captain Lovett to proceed first to the Havana and leaves his subsequent course to his own discretion. He can go to Cadiz or any European port but he is on no account to return to the United States for one year. If he thinks best he can sell the Rambler abroad for $40,000 and invest the money at interest. When he returns home he is to head for Martha’s Vineyard and wait there until he can get information of any English cruizers in the bay. Two-thirds of the prizes are to be the property of the Rambler’s owners. The signal for the Rambler and her prizes is to be ensign and pennant at main top gallantmast head, ensign above pennant. What happened to the Rambler during the ensuing year does not appear, but on February 13, 1783, she was reported at Virginia with a cargo of sugar from Cuba, and on March 18, 1783, she was advertised to sail for Ireland, Hugh Hill, master. If the Rambler commissioned in 1779 was identical with the Rambler owned by the Cabots in 1775, then she has the distinction of being one of the very few vessels in active service during the whole war. But at any rate, the Rambler, next to the Cicero, was the most fortunate and successful of all the letter of marque vessels sailing from Beverly.

There were a number of small vessels owned in Beverly, not all letters of marque, whose names are only learned accidentally and which do not seem to have been included in the list in the Dane Papers. Such a vessel was the Sally,667 a sloop of 48 tons, owned three-quarters by Andrew Cabot and one-quarter by Thomas Bridges. The Sally ran regular trips between Beverly and Boston during all the war. From 1779 to 1784 she was commanded by Captain Arnold Martin, a native of Marblehead, and his wages for the five years amounted to £602.

Another vessel sailing from Beverly, of which there is no record in the State Archives, was the schooner Friendship, owned by Ebenezer Ellingwood, grandson of Ralph Ellingwood, one of the original settlers of Beverly. The Friendship was commanded in 1774 by Eleazer Giles, Mr. Ellingwood’s son-in-law, and there is in the Dane Papers the original insurance policy taken on the Friendship for a trip to the West Indies in 1774.

It should be said in explanation that considerable insurance was done by private individuals, usually for small sum. Joseph Lee and Henry Thorndike of Beverly and many of the Salem merchants did a little of this business, which was no doubt profitable and certainly exciting. The policy ran as follows:

Nothing more is heard of the schooner Friendship until February 2, 1778, when the New York Gazette and Mercury reports: “Ship Tom, Capt. Lee, fell in with the schooner Friendship, Capt. Ellingwood, from Salem for Surinam, loaded with fish and lumber. Took her and sent her into Liverpool. The day after, the Tom took the privateer schooner Warren of Beverly.” The ship Tom was a Liverpool letter of marque, carrying 22 six-pound guns, commanded by Captain John Lee, and four years later by a kind of retributive justice while on a voyage from St. Lucie, laden with sugar, the Tom, still under Captain Lee, was taken by the Porus, Captain John Carnes of Beverly. Ebenezer Ellingwood also owned in 1777 one-quarter of the sloop Beverly, the other three-quarters being owned by Eleazer Giles, John Hale, and Benjamin Waters.

The only other letter of marque sailing from Beverly in 1777 was the brigantine Starks, owned by John and Andrew Cabot. She was a vessel of 120 tons carrying 8 four-pound guns and a crew of 20 men. On December 8, 1777, Richard Quatermass was commissioned captain, who was succeeded on October 16, 1779, by Ezra Ober.

It was during this year, 1777, that the women of Beverly made their famous raid on the storehouses of the Beverly merchants and compelled them, for the time at least, to sell at the prices fixed by the State. The rise of prices which began in 1776 was due not only to depreciation of the currency but also to actual scarcity. There was plenty of rice in Carolina and flour in Maryland, but its distribution was a matter of difficulty. Codfishing, the staple industry of Massachusetts, was confined to the seacoast, or if carried on at the banks was attended with great danger of capture. Coffee, sugar, cocoa and molasses could only be obtained by hazardous voyages to the West Indies or by capture of the enemy’s vessels. Under these conditions prices were naturally high and ever rising. January 25, 1777, in accordance with previous conferences and agreements with other New England States, the General Court of Massachusetts passed an act to prevent monopoly and oppression.668 Farm labor was not to exceed 30 shillings per week in summer; wheat 7 shillings 6 pence a bushel; flour four and a half pence a pound; salt pork in proportion to the amount of salt used in curing; salt 10 shillings, or if made in the State 12 shillings.669 West India rum, 6 shillings 8 pence a gallon; New England rum 3 shillings 10 pence a gallon; sugar 3 pounds a hundred weight; butter 2 pence a pound; milk 2½ pence a quart; potatoes 1 shilling 4 pence a bushel. Beverly at this time rivalled Salem in the number of its stores and quality of goods displayed, and it was to Beverly that George Williams came September 23, 1777, to purchase shoes, blankets, stockings and yarn for the State, but would not buy on account of high prices. “Went to Beverly again Nov. 3rd,” he writes, “and found shoes 24 shillings a pair, blankets 9 pounds and stockings 20 shillings, would not buy.” The women of Beverly, however, were not like George Williams content with the refusal to buy but determined to make the merchants of Beverly sell at the fixed prices and, “One cold November morning,” says Mr. Stone, “a company of about sixty . . . marched in regular order down Main and Bartlett streets to the wharves, attended by two ox-carts.”670 With the assistance of some men who followed the procession, the doors of one of the sugar-houses were forced and two hogsheads of sugar rolled out and placed in the cart. At this juncture the Beverly merchants effected a compromise by which a certain amount of sugar should be sold at the fixed price and the incident was closed.

VI

The number of letter of marque vessels sailing from Beverly in 1778 was small, though doubtless there were more than are recorded in the State Archives. The first vessel commissioned was the brigantine Saratoga, of 120 tons, 8 guns and 30 men, owned by Andrew Cabot, Joseph Lee and others of Beverly. Her first captain was John Tittle671 of Beverly, best known for his successful defence against great odds while in command of a Marblehead vessel. In 1782 the ship Cato, Captain John Tittle, of 14 guns and 57 men, sailed as a letter of marque from Marblehead for Virginia. On the voyage she was attacked by three privateers, the Fair American, Digby, and Prince Edward, mounting 16, 14 and 8 guns respectively. For two hours the Cato fought the three vessels, nearly treble her strength, sometimes at long gunshot, often yard arm to yard arm, while Captain Tittle, now heading a rush to repulse boarders, now threatening to run any man through who flinched from the guns, manœuvered his vessel so skilfully that when night came he eluded his antagonists and escaped in the darkness. “The brave officer who defended the Cato,” says the Salem Gazette, “has the thanks of her owners and the applause of the public.” The Saratoga was afterwards commanded by Stephen Webb, Eleazer Giles, and Andrew Thorndike. While under command of Captain Giles the Saratoga had an encounter with an English vessel during which the captain lost his leg, the amputation being done by the ship’s surgeon, Dr. Elisha Whitney.672 On November 21, 1781 the brigantine Saratoga was reported condemned and sold at Beverly.

The first letter of marque commissioned from Beverly in 1779 was the brigantine Union, of 120 tons, 6 guns and 20 men. It is possible that this was the letter of marque Hector formerly the Union, under her old name. William Langdell was commissioned captain January 4, 1779. The petition of Moses Brown, January 23, 1779, reads:

Of the many captains who sailed for the firm of Andrew and John Cabot, Benjamin Lovett of Beverly stood first in length of service and continuity of employment. In 1779 he commanded the Sebastian, a name indicative of her ownership and was employed in the Spanish trade. In the autumn of the same year he took command of the Rambler and Benjamin Ellingwood, late captain of the schooner Friendship, just returned from an English prison, took his place. In 1780 Captain Ellingwood took command of the brigantine Active, and Ichabod Groves673 of Beverly was commissioned master of the Sebastian. The Sebastian is reported in the papers as lost or taken in 1780. If so, Mr. Cabot must have bought or built another Sebastian, as in 1784 the Sebastian, Captain Cleveland, returned to Beverly from a voyage to St. Petersburg.

On petition of George Cabot, Joseph Lee and others, John Porter was commissioned master of the brigantine Experiment, of 130 tons, 6 guns and 25 men, March 30, 1779. The Experiment was bound to the West Indies with a cargo of fish, and Ebenezer Ellingwood and Benjamin Waters make the following arrangement to spread their risks:

The brigantine Fortune, owned by Miles Greenwood of Salem and John Dyson of Beverly, sailed alternately as a letter of marque and privateer, and in both characters she was a fortunate vessel. On her first voyage she was commanded by Francis Bowman of Salem, later by Jesse Fearson of Salem and Benjamin Ives of Beverly. On November 7, 1781, Richard Ober of Beverly was commissioned commander. On the voyage under Captain Ober the Fortune, a 100 ton vessel, armed with 7 guns, carried a crew of only 15 men. This seems a very small number, but there was at this time a strong feeling that men shipped on private armed vessels to avoid serving in the Continental army and that letter of marque vessels should restrict themselves to commerce. So strong was the feeling that the attention of the General Court was called to it and a committee appointed which reported as follows:

The committee then went on to report a resolve which allowed crews to letter of marque vessels only in proportion to the tonnage of the vessel, eight men for every 100 tons, including master and mate, and the same proportion for larger vessels. Of course this was out of reason, for why arm a vessel if she could not carry men enough to man the guns? At a later period the distinction between privateer and letter of marque became one of name merely.

In the summer of 1779, there was a brigantine, of unknown tonnage and armament lying in Beverly harbor, commanded by a well known Beverly captain, Joshua Ellingwood. She was loaded with the usual cargo of fish and lumber and had been held up by the embargo on account of the Penobscot expedition as well as the standing one on provisions. Mark Lafitte of Salem, owner of the cargo, petitioned the Council that the Mars be allowed to sail and to the petition was appended this certificate:

This certificate illustrates a branch of trade that went on all through the war. There was a perpetual embargo on provisions, especially dried cod. But cod was the one export from Massachusetts which always commanded a ready sale. Consequently vessels loaded with dried cod, pickled mackerel, herring and menhaden, and then obtained certificates from the packers, selectmen of the town or committee of correspondence, that there was no cod in the cargo or that the cod were burnt or otherwise unfit for food. It was a fraud, understood by both parties, and to such an extent was it carried on that at one meeting of the Council four petitions from the merchants of the town of Newburyport to export spoiled cod were favorably acted on.

The other letter of marque vessels sailing from Beverly in 1779 were the sloop Driver, the snow Cato and the schooner Hawk, all vessels of which little is known. The Driver was commanded by Daniel Adams, later by Robert Haskell, the Cato by Eleazer Giles, and the Hawk by William Holland.

On October 6, 1779, occurred the adjourned meeting of the Concord Convention, held to take into consideration the prices of merchandize and country produce and make such regulations and restrictions as the public good might require. There were present from Beverly George Cabot, William Bartlett, Joseph Wood, and Moses Brown. The Convention resolved:

Then followed a long list of articles of less importance to which a maximum was fixed and the Convention further resolved:

The Convention also advised each town to appoint a special committee “To carry these resolutions into effect and denounce all those who refuse to sell at the prices fixed and should any do so the Committee are authorized to seize such person’s goods, sell them and return to the owner the fixed price.” It is hardly to be supposed that such men as represented Beverly in the Convention really believed that any such plan was practicable; they probably agreed with George Williams that the rise in prices was due to the “Dam paper money,” but public opinion on the subject was high and something had to be done to satisfy the people. The Resolutions of the Convention had no legal force and efforts to enforce them were soon abandoned.

The first letter of marque commissioned in 1780 was Andrew Cabot’s new brigantine the Defence, named after his vessel lost in the Penobscot expedition. She measured 150 tons and carried 16 four-pound guns and a crew of 50 men. March 22, 1780, John Edmonds of Beverly was commissioned captain. Like the Rambler, Andrew Cabot employed her in the Spanish trade. She sent a number of prizes into Spain and Beverly, but October 2, 1781, on a voyage from Bilbao for Beverly, she was captured in Boston bay by the English ship Chatham.

In the Massachusetts Archives is a list of the officers and crew of the brigantine Active on her voyage for Gottenburg. Mr. Cabot, her owner, had for some time looked forward to the Baltic trade which he afterwards engaged in and it would be interesting to know what success the vessel had, for no particulars of the voyage seem to have been preserved. If she reached Gottenburg she was one of the first American vessels to carry our flag into the Baltic.674 The Active afterwards sailed as a privateer, at first under Captain Swasey, later under Captain Patten and while under the latter was taken by an English vessel and carried into Newfoundland.

The ship Resource of 175 tons, 16 guns and 30 men, was owned by Thomas Woodberry, Ebenezer Parsons, and Brown & Thorndike. Her first captain, Israel Thorndike, was commissioned June 12, 1780. Captain Thorndike made one voyage in the Resource and then turned her over to his mate, Richard Ober.675 Captain Ober sailed for the West Indies and on the voyage was taken by an English sloop of war and carried into Jamaica.

The brigantine Fanny, owned by Livermore Whittredge, William Bartlett and others of Beverly, was probably the last vessel sailing from Beverly during the war which carried a distinctively Beverly crew. The Fanny, on a voyage from Beverly for Hispaniola with a cargo of fish, was taken May 28, 1781, by the English brig Providence and carried into New York.

There is in the Nathan Dane Papers a rough draught of a protest against the taxes assessed on the town of Beverly for the year 1780. The paper recites:

Beverly, like the other seaport towns, had been drained of her young men, some by death, more by the prison ships of New York and the jails of Halifax and England. Salem was no better off. September 30, 1780, the ship Viper sailed from Salem with a crew consisting of two merchants, 4 ship wrights, 1 joiner, 1 farmer, 1 cooper and 18 foreigners. The crew numbered 36, so that only 9 were mariners and half were foreigners. The ship D’Estaing of 150 tons, 10 guns and 25 men, owned by John Dyson and others of Beverly, commanded by Elias Smith,676 sailed a little later with a crew made up of foreigners.

The brigantine Freedom of 90 tons, 7 guns and 15 men, commanded by Benjamin Ober677 of Beverly, had a crew drawn from Beverly, Georgetown and Eastham with a sprinkling of foreigners.

The last letter of marque commissioned from Beverly in 1780 was the snow Diana, of 140 tons, 8 guns and 25 men. She was owned by Larkin Thorndike and others of Beverly, and September 19, 1780, William Herrick of Beverly was commissioned master. In the early part of the year the privateer Pilgrim had sent into Beverly the prize snow Diana, said to have been used as a gentleman’s yacht and very fast, and it is probable that she was bought and fitted out as a letter of marque. Captain Herrick was killed in action off Bermuda in 1780, and the Diana was taken by an English vessel in 1781.

The first letter of marque commissioned in 1781 was the brigantine Swift of 100 tons, 8 guns and 20 men. owned by William Homans and others of Beverly. January 3, 1781, Asa Woodberry678 was commissioned master. On June 5, 1781, John Tittle of Beverly was commissioned commander and she sailed as a privateer. On October 20th of the same year Captain Tittle was succeeded by Israel Johnson, and while under his command the Swift was captured by the English.

The year 1780 had been a hard one for the merchants of New England, privateering had been unprofitable, food and fuel scarce, and the cost of fitting out vessels almost prohibitive. Few men had the courage or means to risk new ventures in 1781, but the house of Cabot was an exception and they began the year by commissioning two new vessels on the same day, the Commerce and the Cicero. The story of the Commerce was a short one, for she proved as unfortunate as the Cicero was fortunate. She was a ship of 200 tons, carrying 6 nine- and 8 four-pound guns, and a crew of 50 men. On January 16, 1781, Stephen Webb of Beverly was commissioned master and on her first voyage, a few days out, she was taken by an English cruiser.

The Cicero was a new ship of 200 tons, armed with 10 nine- and 6 four-pound guns and carried a crew of 100 men. Her heavy armament, large crew and the captain chosen to command her, Hugh Hill, showed that despite her letter of marque commission, she was really a disguised privateer. She was commissioned January 16, 1781, and her first voyage was to the West Indies, where she took on a cargo of sugar and cocoa, and sailed for Cadiz, arriving there April 17, 1781. On the voyage she took several prizes and while waiting for her return cargo went on a cruize and was again very successful. One of her prizes, taken June 23rd, was the ship Mercury, Captain Dillon, of 16 guns, running as a packet to Cadiz. The Mercury, besides a valuable cargo including £15,000 in gold, carried a considerable passenger list, and on their arrival at Cadiz the passengers published a letter speaking in the highest terms of Captain Hill and the treatment they received on board the Cicero.

This cruize of the Cicero is referred to in John Trumbull’s account of his travels in Europe. Mr. Trumbull embarked from Amsterdam for America in the U. S. frigate Carolina, Commodore Gillon, and soon after sailing they ran into a violent gale. “Happily for us,” writes Mr. Trumbull, “Commodore Barney was among us, (he had just escaped from Mill prison in England,)” and he practically took command of the ship.679 After the gale was over the vessel was found to be short of provisions and headed for Corunna. Here they found the Cicero of 20 guns belonging to Mr. Cabot. As the Cicero was about to sail for Bilbao several of the passengers on the Carolina obtained permission from Captain Hill to make the voyage with him and transferred their luggage to the Cicero. Besides John Trumbull, son of Governor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut, Captain Hill’s passengers included Charles Adams, son of John Adams of Massachusetts, Major Jackson, and the celebrated Joshua Barney. The last had been taken from a prison ship in New York harbor and carried with 78 other American officers to England and there confined in Mill Prison. He had escaped from Mill Prison and made his way to Amsterdam, where he took passage on the Carolina for America.

On the voyage to Bilbao the Cicero, accompanied by the prize Mercury, had an unfortunate encounter with a Spanish vessel which she mistook for English in the darkness, and soon after her arrival at Bilbao she was libelled by the owners of the Spanish ship and deprived of rudder and sails. Damages were placed at $7000 and it was only after Gardoqui & Sons, Mr. Cabot’s agents, had given bonds to that amount that the Cicero was allowed to sail. Captain Hill and his passengers left Bilbao December 10, 1781, and after an uneventful passage of six weeks sighted the Blue Hills of Milton. That night, writes Trumbull, “we found we were close upon the rocks of Cape Ann,” and the next morning “we were safe in the port of Beverly, where we found eleven other ships, all larger and finer vessels than the Cicero — all belonging to the same owners, the brothers Cabot — laid up for the winter. Yet such are the vicissitudes of war and the elements, that before the close of the year they were all lost by capture or wreck, and the house of Cabot had not a single ship afloat upon the ocean.”680 This statement of Mr. Trumbull demands considerable credulity, for it is extremely doubtful whether eleven vessels larger than the Cicero entered Beverly harbor during the war, and while Mr. Cabot in common with all owners of armed vessels suffered severe losses in 1782, yet the Cicero, Revolution, and Buccanier were all profitably cruizing at the end of the year. Mr. Cabot is said to have offered Joshua Barney the command of one of his privateers but he declined.

About this time the hitherto friendly relations between the house of Gardoqui and the house of Cabot became strained, “We have never had to do with such a set of unruly officers as Capt. Hill has aboard,” writes Joseph Gardoqui November 29, 1781, “all our reasoning has no effect, they insist on having all their prize money or Leave the Ship.” February 3, 1782, Andrew Cabot writes to Gardoqui & Sons that he has reason to be dissatisfied with them and shall send the Cicero and Rambler to Cadiz and his other privateers to France. The quarrel must have been made up, however, as on September 28, 1782, Gardoqui writes Andrew Cabot: “Give us leave to congratulate you most affectionately on the safe arrival of your ships Cicero, Buccanier and Revolution at L’Orient. News communicated by Capt. Hill, forwarding us at the same time two bills on Paris for 30,000 and 6,720 livres, endorsed by Capt. Zachariah Gage on account of a vessel he sold at Cape Francois.” The vessel sold was the brig Chance and nothing seems to be known about the voyage.

This order on the agent of the Cicero is a sequel to a sad story indicated in several places in the State Archives. In 1775 Andrew Gage, husband of the writer of the order, was taken prisoner on a Beverly vessel and up to June 22, 1778, was either doing compulsory service on some British armed vessel or was confined in an English prison. On the date mentioned Mrs. Gage petitioned the Council for permission to sell a piece of land belonging to her husband in order to obtain means to live. When, if ever, Andrew Gage returned to his family we find no record. The Andrew Gage mentioned in the order was her son.

The Cicero returned to France and then cruized in the English Channel until the end of the war, arriving back at Beverly May 22, 1783, under Captain Ezra Ober,681 Captain Hill having stopped in London.

The first letter of marque sailing from Beverly in 1782 was the ship Spanish Packet of 200 tons, 10 guns and 20 men. She was owned by James Jeffrey, Francis Cabot and others, and commanded by Thomas Dalling. Very little is known of her.

The ship Lyon was the largest letter of marque vessel sailing from Beverly during the war. She was a former English ship, the George, prize to the Ranger, bought by Mr. Cabot and built over for a mast ship. In 1781 Andrew Cabot wrote to Gardoqui & Sons at Bilbao and Butler & Mathews at Cadiz asking the price at which masts and spars could be sold in Spain and the chance of a market. April 30, 1781, Butler & Mathews advise him that there has been no cargo of masts brought to Spain since the war. A mast 85 feet long and 30 inches in diameter is worth 650 Mexican dollars, while oak brings half a Mexican dollar per cubic foot. It is evident from these letters that Mr. Cabot had for some time had in mind shipping a cargo of masts and spars to Spain, and on March 6, 1782, William Tuck682 of Beverly was commissioned master of the ship Lyon of 400 tons, 26 guns and 80 men. The Lyon with her cargo of masts sailed from Beverly May 6, 1782, and was captured the same day by the Blonde frigate and her crew transferred to that vessel. The Blonde was on her way to Halifax and May 10th was wrecked on Seal Island. Captain Tuck and his men for services rendered on that occasion were set free and Captain Thornbrough of the Blonde on his arrival at Halifax published this card in Nova Scotia Gazette:

The capture of the Lyon by the Blonde and the subsequent wreck of the latter had a possible indirect effect on a naval action which occurred shortly after between the privateer Jack, Captain Ropes, and the English brig Observer, Lieutenant Crymes. In 1781, M. de Barras, the French Admiral, detached two frigates, the Astrée, commanded by M. de la Pérouse, and the Hermione, commanded by M. le Comte de la Touche, to cruize along the coast of America from New York to Halifax. On July 21st, writes Captain Pérouse to his Admiral:

Captain Pérouse then goes on to state that the Charlestown escaped in the darkness and the other English vessels were too near shore to be secured.

The English account of the engagement is somewhat different. When sighted by the two French frigates, Captain Henry F. Evans, in command of a small squadron consisting of the Charlestown, Vulture, Allegiance, Vernon, Jack, and Thompson, was convoying a fleet of transports to Great Britain. Although his heaviest armed vessel, the Charlestown, mounted only 28 guns, in order to protect his convoy he drew up in line of battle and awaited the attack of the two heavy French frigates. The battle that ensued was soon ended by the darkness and the French vessels were glad to retire, their only prize being the Jack. Which account is correct is of no importance, as both agree that the Jack surrendered.

Captain Pérouse returned to Boston with his prize and August 9, 1781, the following advertisement appeared in a Boston paper:

In the same paper is an item stating that the Jack was formerly owned in Salem and was captured almost a year before while cruizing with the Charlestown, formerly the Boston, frigate. Another paper, the Boston Gazette of August 6, 1781, calls the Astrée’s prize, the Saucy Jack, formerly owned in Salem. Whether the prize Jack, was the late Salem privateer Jack of 130 tons, 14 guns and 75 men, commanded by Captain Nathan Brown, on petition of Jonathan Norris, or whether she was some other Salem privateer called the Saucy Jack, she was bought by Salem merchants at the auction and once more commissioned as the privateer Jack, Captain David Ropes. The Jack was commissioned September 6, 1781, and in the month of May of the following year was cruizing near Halifax.

The ship Blonde, as has been stated, was wrecked on Seal Island, but Captain Thornbrough and his men, as well as Captain Tuck and his crew, escaped to the shore. The Blonde was wrecked May 10, 1782, and on May 12th Captain Daniel Adams of Beverly, while cruizing off Cape Sable in the privateer Lively, discovered the party on the Island. Captain Adams immediately sent a boat ashore to see what was required and followed it with this note: “It being ever my disposition to relieve the distressed more particularly those in your situation, I have sent my boat to your assistance and at the same time place my vessel at your service to carry you to the mainland, where you may provide yourself with a vessel to take your ship’s company off the Island. Should be glad if you would come aboard and see me.” The next day the Scammell, Captain Stoddard, joined the Lively and the two American captains made an arrangement with Thornbrough by which all those wrecked on the Island should be transported to Yarmouth, Cape Pursue, on the Scammell and the Lively, that Captain Tuck and his men should be free to go to Beverly and Captain Thornbrough and his crew to Halifax, and that each party should supply the other with a safe conduct against cruizers and privateers of their own nation. On his arrival at Yarmouth Captain Thornbrough hired a shallop and sailed for Halifax. News of his disaster had already reached that city and Lieutenant Crymes, Commander of the brig Observer, formerly the American privateer Amsterdam, Captain James Magee, now in the royal navy, was ordered to cruize towards Cape Sable, and if possible pick up Captain Thornbrough and his men. This the Observer did on the 28th of May and while returning to Halifax was sighted by the privateer Jack.

It was six o’clock in the afternoon when the Jack sighted the Observer standing into the land and by nine o’clock the two vessels were along side. Under ordinary conditions the two vessels were very closely matched, the Observer carrying 16 six-pound guns and a crew of 73 men and the Jack 6 nine- and 9 six-pound guns and a crew of 63 men. The quality of the two crews, however, was very different. The Jack, like all our privateers in 1782, was largely manned by foreigners, men apt to be insubordinate and without the spur of patriotism, while the Observer had a crew trained in gunnery and schooled in the rigid discipline of a man of war. The original 60 men, which constituted the crew of the Observer when she left Halifax, had just been reinforced by a portion of the crew of the Blonde, and the sight of Captain Thornbrough, stripped to his shirt, serving as a volunteer at one of the guns added to their enthusiasm. At the first broadside Captain Ropes fell, mortally wounded, and Lieutenant Grey, who assumed command, was slightly wounded in the hand and head.

A close and severe action ensued and for two hours the Jack and Observer exchanged broadsides and plied each other with musketry until Lieutenant Grey, having lost heavily in killed and wounded and seeing his men flinch from the guns, attempted to make sail on the Jack and escape. “Our rigging was so destroyed,” says Lieutenant Grey in his account of the action, “that not having command of our yards the Jack fell off with her larboard bow foul of the brig’s starboard quarter. We were engaged thus a quarter of an hour in which time I received a wound by a bayonet fixed in a musket, and which was hurled with such force as entering the fore part of my thigh and passing close to the bone entered the carriage of a bow gun and it was out of my power to remove it.” The two vessels lay side by side for some fifteen minutes, so close that boarding pikes were freely used, and then the Jack getting free from her opponent once more tried to escape. After a short running fight, the Observer got along side and at half-past one in the morning the Jack surrendered.

The loss of the Jack in killed and wounded is reported by Lieutenant Crymes as 25 or nearly half the crew. Lieutenant Grey reports 7 killed and 12 wounded. Among the killed were two Beverly men, Nathaniel Trask and Thomas Davis. Captain Ropes died as the two vessels entered the harbor. The loss of the Observer by the English account was 3 killed and 5 wounded, by the American account 10 killed and many wounded.

The immediate cause of the loss of the Jack may be ascribed to the foreign element in the crew abandoning their guns and going below. “I had but ten men on deck and two of them wounded when I surrendered,” writes Lieutenant Grey. The indirect cause was the reinforcement of the Observer’s crew by Captain Thornbrough and his men, made possible by the unfortunate kindness and chivalry of the captains of the Lively and Scammell. July 18, 1782, Captain William Grey and five of the crew of the Jack arrived at Salem in a cartel, having been treated with great kindness while at Halifax. The Jack was tried and condemned in the prize court at Halifax and identified as the vessel taken the previous year by the Astrée and Hermione.683 There is still a sequel to the story. A few months later, the Lively, Captain Adams, was taken by the English frigate Pandora and carried into New York. In recognition of his services to Captain Thornbrough, Captain Adams was treated with great kindness by Captain Ingalls of the Pandora and sent back to Boston.

The last letter of marque commissioned in 1782 was the ship Fox of 100 tons, 8 guns and 20 men, owned by Benjamin Lovett and commanded by Israel Johnson. July 14, 1780, a brigantine Fox of 8 guns and 15 men, owned by Benjamin Lovett and commanded by Israel Johnson, is also reported. Whether the brigantine was re-rigged as a ship or whether there were two vessels named Fox belonging to the same owner, it is hard to tell.

VII

The treatment of American prisoners by the English during the War of the Revolution has been stigmatized by most American historians as cruel and contrary to the law of nations, but a close examination of the facts shows that the treatment was cruel or lenient according to the personal character of those in charge of the prisons and the peculiar conditions of the prisons themselves. The first disposition of the English was to treat the Americans as rebels and regard prisoners as subject to all the penalties of treason, but the magnitude of the revolt and still more the possession by the Americans of many English prisoners materially changed their views. After the retreat from Concord General Gage consented to an exchange of prisoners and General Carleton generously parolled those taken in the Quebec campaign. On August 13, 1775, General Gage, however, having heard from England on the subject, wrote to Washington refusing to allow to Americans the rights of prisoners of war. On December 18th Washington wrote to General Howe on the subject of exchange and treatment of American prisoners, particularly in regard to the case of Ethan Allen who had been sent in irons to England. The case was referred by General Howe to the home authorities and on February 1, 1776, Lord George Germaine wrote to Howe that, while not advising a regular cartel, he hoped some plan would be devised for an exchange of prisoners including those taken in privateers. On July 22, 1776, Congress voted to allow Washington to exchange soldier for soldier, sailor for sailor, and officer for officer of equal rank, and on August 1st General Howe in a letter to Washington agrees to this offer of exchange. From this time exchanges, despite an occasional friction, were conducted as in any foreign war.

The great bulk of American prisoners were confined at Halifax (Nova Scotia), New York, and Mill Prison (Plymouth, England). At Halifax the prisoners seemed to have been fairly treated and loosely guarded. Mill Prison was a military prison under stern discipline, with all the discomforts and petty tyrannies which are apt to accompany the herding together of large numbers of prisoners of war, but in the prison ships of New York the treatment of American prisoners was at times brutal and attended with a disgraceful and unnecessary mortality.

Several books have been published giving personal experiences on the prison ships at New York. One of the most interesting is Captain Thomas Dring’s Recollections of the Jersey Prison-Ship.684 The Jersey was originally a British ship of the line, but had been dismantled in 1780 and converted into a prison hulk. She was at first anchored in the East River, but later was taken to Long Island and moored in Wallabout Bay. Captain Dring apparently gives a very fair account of life aboard the Jersey. At the time of his capture he was master’s mate aboard the privateer Chance, Captain Daniel Freeborn of Providence, Rhode Island, which was taken by the English ship Belisarins in 1782. On his arrival at New York he was sent aboard the Jersey. There was no distinction made on account of rank, officers and men occupied the same quarters and received the same food. Each prisoner received two-thirds of the regular allowance given the English sailors in the navy, one pound of beef or pork, one pound of bread and half a pint of peas, with butter, oatmeal, and suet occasionally. The rations were sufficient in quantity but apt to be of poor quality. The prisoners were allowed to drink all the water they wished at the casks on deck but were allowed to take only one pint below, and their meat was boiled in sea water. Their sufferings were aggravated by the cruelty of Jacob Strout, the Commissary of Prisoners, who was universally detested. Smallpox and Jersey fever were raging most of the time, as was natural where a thousand men dirty and low spirited were cooped up in a dark and ill ventilated hold. According to Captain Dring 10,000 prisoners died on the Jersey and the hospital ships Scorpion, Strombol, and Hunter, during the war.

Another account of life on the Jersey can be found in a book called Martyrs to the Revolution in the British Prison-Ships in the Wall-about Bay. The stories told in this book, written in 1855 by George Taylor, are evidently greatly exaggerated. One statement is that when the American prisoners gathered at the open hatchway of the Jersey to get fresh air, the sentries would bayonet them from pure malice and often as many as twenty-five prisoners would be killed in one night.

An interesting account of Mill Prison is given in Charles Herbert’s Relic of the Revolution.685 Herbert was nineteen years of age when he sailed on the Bolton, November 15, 1776. The Bolton soon after leaving port was taken by the English ship Reasonable and her crew transferred to the English vessel. While a prisoner aboard the Reasonable Herbert drew the rations of a British sailor, one pound of salt beef, one pound of bread, one pound of potatoes, and three pints of beer. On his arrival at Plymouth he was sent to Mill Prison where he received as rations one pound of bread, one-quarter pound of beef, one pound of greens, one quart of beer, and the water the beef was boiled in. According to Herbert the quantity was sufficient, though at times the beef was bad. The treatment given the prisoners was fair except in case of attempt to escape or other breach of discipline. While in prison he was visited September 25, 1778, by Captain Benjamin Ellingwood of Beverly, who had been taken prisoner the previous year on the schooner Friendship but who had been exchanged and was now on his way home. He gives a list of those confined in Mill Prison in 1778 and only one Beverly man is mentioned, Benjamin Chipman. On his escape or release, Herbert made his way to France and shipped on board the Alliance, making two cruizes in the squadron commanded by John Paul Jones. His commander on the Alliance was Captain Peter Landais, whose dubious conduct in the battle between the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard is a matter of history.686 Another interesting account of prison life is given in John Blatchford’s Narrative.687 Blatchford, then fifteen years of age, was cabin boy on the Continental frigate Hancock, Captain Manly, which was taken by the English frigate Rainbow in 1777 and carried into Halifax. On his arrival at Halifax Blatchford was sent to the prison, formerly a sugar house, where he found the building crowded and the food insufficient and of poor quality. Soon after his arrival he planned with others to escape, but was betrayed by one of the prisoners and put in irons. Some weeks later he was allowed to walk around with his wrists manacled, and meeting the informer he withdrew one hand from the irons and struck the man to the ground. For this breach of discipline he was impressed on board the frigate Greyhound and a few months later, in company with other Americans, attempted to desert. They were discovered and a struggle ensued in which an English sentry was killed. On the Greyhound’s return to port, Blatchford was tried for murder and acquitted, but it was thought best to get rid of him and he was shipped on board the East Indiaman Princess Royal, where he found thirty-two Americans all bound to the East Indies as a punishment for rebellion.688 On their arrival at Sumatra he and the other Americans disembarked and found themselves forced to serve in the British army. Again he attempted with others to escape and again a sentry was killed and he and his friends retaken. For this he was sentenced to receive eight hundred lashes on his bare back, “but,” he writes, “the whip was made of cotton with the knots cut off, so it was no worse than being whipped with cotton yarn.” After numerous other adventures he escaped to France and made his way to L’Orient where he found three privateers from Beverly in port, the Cicero, Buccanier, and Revolution. “Ientered,” he continues, “on board the Buccanier, Capt. Phearson, and sailed on a cruize. We were out 18 days and returned with six prizes. Three days after we received news of peace, the privateer was dismantled and Capt. Phearson sailed on a merchant voyage to Norway. I then entered on a brig bound to Lisbon, Capt. Ellingwood of Beverly, and arrived in eight days. We took on a cargo of salt and arrived back at Beverly, May 9th 1783.”

Another book, too vituperative to be of much authority, is entitled “The Destructive Operation of Foul Air, Tainted Provisions, Bad Water and Personal Filthiness upon the human Constitutions; exemplified in the unparalleled Cruelty of the British to the American Captives at New York during the Revolutionary War, on board their Prison and Hospital Ships in a communication to Dr. Mitchill, dated September 4, 1807.”689 The tenor of Captain Alexander Coffin’s book may be inferred from one sentence: “If you were to rake the infernal regions I doubt whether you will find another set of demons such as the officers and men who had charge of the Jersey prison ship in the Summer of 1782.”690

The above extracts show more or less truthfully what our American prisoners had to suffer in the jails and prison ships of the enemy, and some evidence will now be given which partly exonerates the English from these serious charges. Both Captain Coffin and Captain Dring were confined on the Jersey in the year 1782. June 3rd of the same year a number of American captains, many of them well known in Beverly and Salem, before leaving New York on parole, issued this statement:

The signers further state that the American prisoners in the hospital ships have good beds and not cots, with clean sheets of Russia linen and plenty of fresh provisions and wine.

While this is the evidence of men who had inspected and not lived on the Jersey, still the signers were men of too much intelligence and character to be entirely deceived or wilfully mistaken. Two of their number, Daniel Aborn and Dr. Joseph Bowen, at Admiral Digby’s request took a letter from Commissary General Strout to Washington explaining that owing to the heat and overcrowding of the prison ships, due to a large influx of prisoners, all his efforts to keep the prisoners healthy were baffled, though five more ships had been taken for the purpose, and many set free on parole. On this account he asked an immediate and general exchange. At this time the Americans owed the English 1300 naval prisoners, whom they had set free on parole and the English owed the Americans 450 soldiers. Admiral Digby suggested an exchange of sailors for soldiers, but Washington refused on the ground that he was empowered only to exchange soldier for soldier and directed David Skinner, Commissary General on the American side, to write Admiral Digby to that effect. Thus on a technicality a number of American naval prisoners remained shut up in New York prison ships though the British were anxious to exchange.

It is probable that the balance of naval prisoners was against the Americans during the whole war. An American privateer was under bonds to bring back its prisoners to this country,691 but the danger of capture was always greatest on the coast line, the chance of being detained in the home port by embargo was great, and it was much safer and more economical to put the prisoners on some worthless prize and let them go free than to bring them back to America. Many prisoners were taken into France by American privateers cruizing on the Irish coast or in the English channel, but these prisoners were then counted to the French. Most of the prizes taken by the English, on the other hand, were by frigates or other large vessels of war where the question of economy or safety did not enter and their prisoners were carried into port. November 15, 1777, Congress had ordered a bounty of $20 to be paid to officers and men for every cannon captured on any vessel and $8 for every prisoner. Had the bounty offered by the government to privateers and letter of marque vessels for prisoners delivered in America been sufficient to make this an object, many of our sailors suffering in English prisons might have been released. There seems no reason to accuse the English of unwillingness to exchange prisoners after August, 1776. Occasionally there were disputes and accusations of ill treatment or bad faith on either side, but as a rule relations were pleasant.

As to the treatment of American prisoners by the English there is no doubt that there were cases of cruelty and overcrowding, and the conditions on the New York prison ships were at times disgraceful, but any one who has had charge of hospitals or other large institutions knows how readily false stories are started and petty wrongs magnified. Prisoners certainly cannot be blamed for trying to escape, nor can jailors be blamed for punishing such attempts, and most of the stories of cruelty followed some breach of discipline.

As to the food furnished it seems to have been of about the same quality, though less in quantity, as that furnished to English sailors on English ships, where weevily biscuit and tainted meat were a matter of frequent occurrence. The impressment of American seamen on English men of war was a just cause of complaint and many Americans were undoubtedly compelled to fight against their own country and her allies, but for every American thus impressed probably ten English sailors were persuaded to serve on American privateers. True, impressment and voluntary service are different, but there was no way by which an English officer could tell what means were used to enlist English men on American vessels. Not only were our privateers largely manned by prisoners and deserters, but our Continental and State vessels sought recruits from the same source. In 1778 the Navy Board of Massachusetts in a letter to the Council wrote: “Beg leave to represent that seamen are much needed for manning the Continental vessels. We are informed there are among the prisoners now here, a number of Swedes, Dutch and some English prisoners who would readily enter the service. That we conceive it would help the public service to permit all the foreigners and a few of the English to enter on board the Continental ships.” It must be remembered too that many American prisoners, weary of prison life, voluntarily enlisted on British ships and their home explanation of their service on a hostile vessel would naturally be impressment.

The treatment of English prisoners by the Americans was better than that of American prisoners by the English because with us there was no such necessity as existed in New York for the concentration of large numbers of prisoners in one prison or ship. Many of the English officers were parolled or allowed to go to New York to arrange their own exchanges. Some were boarded out in country villages and allowed the freedom of the town. Occasionally, on complaints of sufferers in English prisons, retaliation was practised and officers and men were ironed and treated with considerable severity. On January 2, 1781, the Massachusetts Council passed the following order:

Many of the English prisoners were bound out for service. This was particularly so in the case of the Hessians captured at Bennington, some being employed in the salt works at Sandwich and others bound out to private parties as servants, blacksmiths, cordwainers, and farm hands. Complaints of cruelty and ill usage were common. The New York Mercury of May 22, 1782, has this item: “A number of prisoners, mostly seamen, arrived from Philadelphia yesterday. All complain loudly of their treatment in captivity. A great part of the time they were fed on dried clams. Fifteen clams and ten ounces of bread being a day’s allowance.”

Cartels were continually passing between English and American ports and as these vessels were necessarily unarmed and weakly manned, occasionally the prisoners on board would make the voyage an unpleasant one for their nominal jailors. Under date of January 23, 1782, several Beverly gentlemen make the following deposition:

The trade carried on between Nova Scotia and Massachusetts under the pretext of the removal of families has already been referred to, but the return of escaped and parolled prisoners, greatly facilitated by this trade, was a matter of more importance. American prisoners at Halifax were loosely guarded and often escaped or were parolled. In either case they often made their way to Yarmouth or Barrington and were there treated with kindness and furnished transportation to their homes. A small vessel conveyed them to some Massachusetts port and the cargo of dried fish or salt, which always accompanied these expeditions, was sold after petition to the Council. These petitions were always accompanied by letters of recommendation from escaped prisoners they had aided. One of the letters used by Benjamin Brown of Yarmouth, a frequent visitor to Beverly, was as follows:

Another certificate, signed by well known Beverly men, was used by Thomas Flint, also a frequent visitor to Beverly:

The year 1781 had been very disastrous to the owners of private armed vessels and in the latter part of the year George Williams of Salem and sixty-one other merchants petitioned the General Court, stating that it was the opinion of the seaport towns of Massachusetts that the trading Nova Scotians coming to this country caused information of the force, number and destination of their armed vessels and proposed voyages of merchant vessels to be conveyed to the enemy and through such information they have lost the greater part of their most valuable privateers. “Your petitioners therefor ask, if you think it expedient, to put a stop to all such per missions and direct the Naval Officer and Selectmen to make search in each town of the State and apprehend as prisoners of war all Nova Scotians that may be among us, that they may be exchanged for our townsmen and others suffering on board of Brittish Guard Ships.” The General Court assented and for a time and to some extent carried out the spirit of the petition.

There is no doubt that the Nova Scotians did carry information to the enemy, nor can we blame them. They also gave information to the Americans and helped their seamen to escape, and in the unfortunate position in which they were placed they were obliged to help both parties. That the profit was greater than the injury was the opinion of many, and a petition headed by William Tuck of Beverly, late commander of Mr. Cabot’s ship Lyon, and signed by Francis Cabot, and 161 others, asking that trade with Yarmouth and Barrington be renewed, was sent to the General Court. This petition of William Tuck —

The petition then goes on to state the condition of the people of Yarmouth, unable to sell their fish in the States or obtain things necessary for their comfort, and calls attention to the fact that they will be unable in the future to help American prisoners unless they can dispose of their fish in Massachusetts.

This petition was accompanied by one from Thomas Flint, Benjamin Brown, and James Kelly who —

The Council granted them twelve days ration for 65 men and permission to return to Nova Scotia. It is to be hoped that the merchants of Beverly made them some acknowledgement for their services as the allowance by the State seems rather small. From this time trade was resumed, but not with the good will of former years, and in 1782 David Corning, so often mentioned, while bringing fourteen American prisoners to the States was taken by the privateer Fly of Salem and sent in as a prize. The General Court, however, ordered her release and gave Corning permission to return to Nova Scotia.

The number of Beverly seamen made prisoners during the war must have been large, but the record is very deficient. A few incomplete reports of English prisons, local tradition, and scattered mentions in the newspapers of the day and the Massachusetts Archives, are all we have to rely on. The following incomplete and unsatisfactory list includes only marine prisoners claiming residence in Beverly. Probably the first Beverly man made prisoner in the war was Andrew Gage. He was taken on some unknown Beverly vessel in 1775 and confined in or impressed on some unknown English ship. On June 22, 1778, the Selectmen of Beverly and Elizabeth Gage petitioned for permission to sell land belonging to Andrew Gage as he was still detained.

In the Nathan Dane Papers is a deposition so curious that we transcribe it, although the deponent was not a marine prisoner though a mariner.

One of the first privateers commissioned by the State was the Yankee Hero, Captain Tracy, of Newburyport. She was taken by an English frigate May 30, 1776, and one at least of her crew, James Mecomb, was from Beverly. The crew of the Yankee Hero returned on a cartel November 8, 1776.693

In 1776 the ship Thomas, belonging to Thomas Stephens of Beverly, on a voyage from Beverly for Baltimore, laden with a cargo of rum and sugar, was taken by a British cruizer and her captain, Robert Standly, made prisoner.694

The same year, 1776, precise date unknown, Osmond Thorndike was taken on the Peggy by the letter of marque ship Dunmore. He was exchanged in December, 1776.695

Captain Benjamin Leach of Manchester, at one time a resident of Beverly, was taken on a prize of the privateer Hawk in 1777 and soon after exchanged.696

Richard Dyson and Jonathan Parsons, mariners on some privateer, were sent home from New York on the cartel brig Rising Empire in 1777, no exact date given.697

Daniels Adams, 1st lieutenant on the brigantine Freedom, Captain Clouston, was taken by the frigate Apollo and confined on the prison ship Good Content in New York harbor in 1777. He remained there one year before he was exchanged. In 1782 when in command of the schooner Lively he was taken by the frigate Pandora, Captain Ingles, and sent into New York. He was detained only a short time.698

Benjamin Ellingwood, captain of the schooner Friendship, was taken by the letter of marque Tom, December 26, 1777, and carried into England, but was released on exchange the next year.699

John Ashton was prize master on the privateer brigantine Washington and while in command of one of her prizes, the snow Friendship, was taken by a British cruizer and carried into Halifax. He was exchanged June 28, 1777. In 1778 while in command of the schooner Hampden of Salem he was again taken prisoner and taken into Halifax, parolled, and returned to Beverly by the kind offices of Benjamin Brown of Yarmouth. He is reported as taken again while in command of the brigantine Neptune in 1779.700

The privateer Retaliation of Beverly was taken in the autumn of 1777 and on April 16, 1778, the cartel Industry was directed to bring back from Halifax Captain Eleazer Giles, Lieutenant Benjamin Joy, Dr. Elisha Whitney, Thomas Darly, and William Moses. Elisha Whitney was surgeon on the Retaliation, and though at this time was not a resident of Beverly became so later.701

September 30, 1778, a cartel from Halifax brought Andrew Pea-body, Joseph Foster, Thomas Giles, Elisha Ellinwood, and Andrew Peabody. The last name appears twice. An Andrew Peabody of Beverly was taken on the ship Essex in 1781, presumably one of the two mentioned.702

A testimonial dated October 24, 1778, signed by Joseph Stewert, John Herrick, James Herrick, Nathaniel Batchelder, Eleazer Giles, and Benjamin Very, shows that they were prisoners in Halifax in the early autumn of 1778. They were all probably part of the crew of the Retaliation.703

One of the testimonials used by Mr. Brown of Yarmouth was signed by Benjamin Ives, Thomas Stephens, and William Groves all Beverly men, prisoners in Halifax in 1777–1778. Thomas Stephens was 1st lieutenant of the privateer Retaliation and later commander of the schooner Hammond. Benjamin Ives was captain of the privateer schooner Scorpion and the letter of marque brigantine Fortune. William Groves was probably taken prisoner while in command of the privateer schooner Blackbird. Later he commanded the brigantine Success, the sloop Fish Hawk, and the brig Eagle.

The privateer Warren of Beverly was taken by the English ship Fanny, January 6, 1778, and Benjamin Chipman, the only Beverly man recorded among the prisoners, was committed to Mill Prison June 4, 1778. He afterwards escaped.

The brigantine Rambler was captured by the English frigate Sibyl, October 21, 1779, and one of her crew, Michael Downs, a Beverly man, was committed to Mill Prison, February 16, 1780.

The brig Eagle was taken June 21, 1780, and William Haskell, Alexander Carrico, and George Groce, of the crew, were committed to Mill Prison. William Haskell was committed July 5, 1781, Alexander Carrico and George Groce February 6, 1782. The commander of the Eagle, William Groves, with Curtis Woodberry, William Morgan, Henry Tuck, Joseph Woodberry and probably other Beverly men, must also have been taken on the same vessel.

From the ship Essex, taken June 10, 1781, Joseph Perkins, Levi Woodberry, Robert Raymond, Matthew Chambers, and Andrew Peabody were all committed to Mill Prison July 21, 1781. James Lovett and Benjamin Sprague of the same vessel, August 5, 1781.

John Tuck, Thomas Hadden, Josiah Foster, Hezkiah Thissel, Nathaniel Woodberry, and Zebulon Ober, of the snow Diana taken June 15, 1781, were committed to Mill Prison January 23, 1782.

William Haskell of Beverly is reported as having been taken on the brig English and carried to Quebec. He was committed to Mill Prison July 23, 1781.

The ship Resource, Captain Richard Ober, was taken by a British cruizer in the autumn of 1780. There is a list of the officers and crew dated September 11, 1780, and it is probable that all those mentioned were on the vessel at the time of her capture and made prisoners: Richard Ober captain, Andrew Thorndike 1st mate, Samuel Cressy704 2nd mate, John Waters, Andrew Ober, John Woodby, Jacob Woodby, Andrew Woodby, Thomas Woodby, Ebenezer Woodby, John Lovett, Nathan Thorn, Jacob Thompson, John Savage, Thomas Harris, Thomas Ober, David Allen, Richard Ober, Richard Thorn, Nicholas Thorndike, John Rea, Joseph Ray, and Andrew Woodman, all of Beverly. The Resource was bound for the West Indies and her crew was carried into Jamaica.

Ebenezer Ray was impressed on board the frigate Pelican, commanded by Captain Collingwood, afterwards second in command at the battle of Trafalgar. In August, 1781, the Pelican was wrecked and her crew escaped to a small uninhabited island where they remained ten days until rescued by the Diamond frigate and carried back to Jamaica. Ray was confined on another man-of-war from which he managed to escape and for twenty-five days wandered, half starved, about the island. Finally he got aboard a Spanish cartel about to sail for Havana, and on her arrival at that port took passage on a brig to Boston. On the voyage the vessel was taken by an English cruizer and Ray was carried into New York and confined on the New Jersey. In May, 1782, he was exchanged and returned to Beverly.

Stephen Roundy was taken on the ship Hawk, Captain Smith, in 1780. He was taken to New York and impressed on board the Conqueror, where he continued to serve until peace was declared. The story is told of him that after some battle in which the Americans were worsted, a British officer sneeringly asked him, “What do you think of King Washington now?” “I think he is a gentleman” was the answer.

The brig Black Princess was a Dunkirk privateer, commissioned by Franklin and the other commissioners of Paris. Some papers in the Essex Institute indicate that she was originally a Salem vessel, but in 1781 she sailed from Dunkirk with a crew consisting largely of English deserters. She was very successful and before her capture, October 11, 1781, had taken 36 prizes. There were several Salem and Marblehead men aboard, and one man, John Baker, from Beverly, who on October 20, 1781, was committed to Mill Prison.

The brigantine Gen. Wayne, Captain John Leach of Beverly, on a voyage to the West Indies, was taken by a British cruizer in 1780 and carried to Bermuda. Captain Leach either escaped or was parolled, as he arrived back at Boston September 5, 1780.705

The Gen. Gates was taken by the British cruizer Hope, no date given. Benjamin Bickford and Nathaniel Wallace are reported captured. John Bickford, steward of the Gen. Gates, was also taken. The latter was returned to Marblehead on the cartel Pacific.

Jonathan Larcom is said to have been captured on the brigantine Neptune, Captain John Ashton, in 1779.

The brigantine Defence of Beverly was taken October 2, 1781, by the English ship Chatham, and the following Beverly men were taken prisoners: John Edmands captain, Captain Jonathan Carwick 1st mate, John Pickett carpenter, John Wilkins gunner, Stephen Costello, John Bray, James Babson, John Gage, Daniel Batchellor, William Allen.

There were a number of vessels commanded by Beverly captains taken by British cruizers during the war, where no particulars were given as to officers and crew, though doubtless manned to some extent by Beverly men. The list is as follows:

Benjamin and Isaac Chapman, Thomas Giles, Benjamin Giles, Thomas Davis, and Nathaniel Trask were taken prisoners with Capt. Thorndike.

The number of Beverly mariners taken prisoners during the war, as chronicled above, was 108. Some of them were taken prisoner two or three times, and the number of those actually taken prisoners is no doubt much greater than the number of those known to have been taken prisoners. The writer believes from careful computation that two-thirds of the male population of Beverly between the ages of eighteen and sixty were at one time or another prisoners to the English.

VIII

In the foregoing sections the private armed vessels of Beverly have been treated collectively and some passed over lightly. At the risk of repetition, they have in this section been arranged alphabetically with some particulars added not considered necessary when telling their story.

Appendix

Here is given an alphabetical list of officers on Beverly privateers and letters of marque vessels, their residences and rank held on any vessel during the war, also date of commissions.

Mr. Nickolls, who was a native of Barbados and a graduate of Queen’s College, Oxford, served at King’s Chapel, Boston, as an assistant to the Rev. Dr. Henry Caner, from about October, 1770, to April, 1772. He then went to Salem as curate to the Rev. Mr. McGilchrist at St. Peter’s Church. Soon after his removal to Salem he opened a school for boys, where he endeavored to instil principles of loyalty to the Church and government of Great Britain, from the standpoint of his own stalwart Anglicanism and Toryism. His connection with St. Peter’s Church ceased in December, 1774, and his school came to a sudden end on April 21, 1775.

Mr. Nickolls also served for some time as deputy chaplain to Earl Percy’s regiment, but a day or two before the battle of Bunker Hill he sailed for England carrying dispatches from General Gage to the British government. Governor Hutchinson exerted himself in Mr. Nickoll’s behalf after the latter’s arrival in London, and introduced him to Lord Dartmouth, as well as to other persons of influence. His application to the Earl did not meet with success, but in 1779 he was presented to the living of Stoney Stanton, in Leicestershire, by the Earl of Huntingdon.

Eventually his military service in New England proved to be the means of his receiving further ecclesiastical preferment in England; for in 1785,714 through the influence of Earl Percy, he was appointed Dean of the Collegiate Church of Middleham in Yorkshire in recognition of “his services as chaplain to the 5th regiment of foot in America, and for his loyalty in that war.” He occupied both of his clerical positions until his death in 1814.

The letter follows:

This is not an important letter, but it throws a side light on the conditions in the camp at that time. For some time previously, and until his recall, General Shirley had been very active in collecting troops and stores for an expedition against Crown Point and to provide for the defence of Oswego. He had gathered a large force at Half Moon,716 consisting of some regulars, remnants of Braddock’s expedition, provincial troops from New England, and some New York Troops, besides some rangers for scouting. He had also made arrangements with Sir William Johnson for assistance from his Indians. He had strengthened the fortifications of Oswego and arranged a transport system for supplies to that point by way of the Mohawk and Oneida Lake.

On June 7, 1756, Colonel (afterward General) Webb arrived at New York, bringing letters from the Ministry of dates of March 13 and 31, directing General Shirley to return to England. On June 25th General Abercrombie arrived at Albany, when he took over the command, pending the arrival of the Earl of Loudoun, who had been appointed Shirley’s successor but who had not then left England. Abercrombie brought with him a regiment of regulars and one of Highlanders. On July 15th the New England troops advanced from Half Moon, and the 48th Regiment followed the next day for Fort Edward, where the writer of this letter was on July 26th and where he probably died soon after.

The letter was written by William Flint, who was born in what is now North Reading April 14, 1714, on the old homestead, which remained in the family for one hundred and twenty-five years. He was the third of three generations of William Flints, who resided there. He married September 22, 1736, Susannah, oldest daughter of George and Jerusha (Pope) Flint, who was born July 4, 1715, and died December 7, 1790. They had eight children. He died at Lake George in 1756, probably soon after this letter was written. He was a captain in Colonel Ichabod Plaisted’s Regiment.

A “Petition of Ebenezer Nichols in behalf of Susannah Flynt Widow of Captⁿ Flynt who died at Lake George the Summer past,” passed the Legislature February 21, 1757.717 She was the executrix of his estate.

He is recorded as a farmer, but he may have been an innkeeper as well, for again in the Province Laws is a “Petition of Jeremiah Eatton of Reading in the County of Middlesex Setting forth that he lives in the North Parish of said Reading, in which Parish Captain William Flint deceased heretofore obtained a Licence to sell Spirituous Liquors, Praying the General Sessions of the Peace for the said County may be impowered to Grant him a Licence (at their next Term) to sell Spirituous Liquors.”718 Passed April 16, 1762. The letter follows: