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As a writer of historical fiction about the war at sea during the American Revolution, I have found that historians and writers of fiction have paid scant heed to this theatre of operations. One can easily find myriad sources of information about almost every skirmish and battle that took place on land in our fight against the British, but there is scant documentation when it comes to the struggle at sea. Of course, documentation tends to get scattered and lost over time and although there have been attempts by our modern Navy to retrieve such information as may still exist, there still remain large gaps that will probably never be filled. But this does not completely explain why historians have tended to shy away from the subject. I believe that it may be because of the poor record of our beginning efforts at a navy that might account, not only for the dearth of recorded sources, but for the fact that little attention has been paid to this area, and that there are even no fictional sea heroes during the American Revolution. Contrast this with the many sea heroes, both actual and fictional, of a great traditional sea power as England, with its Nelsons and Hornblowers.

George Washington recognized immediately that our rebellion would necessarily involve us in a maritime conflict and certainly appreciated the efforts that had to be made at sea, for our fledgling country depended as much upon the oceans for our supplies as the British Empire always did. Britain was without doubt the premier ruler of the seas in 1776-77 and in theory should have been able to bring a quick end to any rumblings of dissent in her American Colonies simply by blockading and intercepting war supplies. This was, of course, part and parcel of England’s strategy against the colonies, but proved easier in theory than in practice. For even without a national navy, the efforts of mostly modified private merchant vessels (privateers) and various ships of the navies of the individual states (especially Rhode Island and Massachusetts) made a mockery of the Royal Navy’s efforts at stopping what they considered contraband—by taking British vessels as prizes or bravely running the blockade with fast ships, carrying much-needed supplies either from France or the West Indies.

The causes of the American Revolution are beyond the range of this article but many of the reasons for it were economic, as many wars tend to be. And it was, of course, the war itself that led to the formation of the American Navy. England wanted the colonies to pay for their country’s defense, and from rejection of the Stamp Act and the excessive British tax system, these policies, viewed as unfair to the colonists, lead to widespread smuggling by colonial merchants to avoid tariffs and taxation, causing the English government to come down hard on smuggling, leading to even greater hatred of the British yoke and then to the events of Concord and Lexington. Privateering, however, was taken to more from a desire for easy profit than from patriotic fever. There was always much distrust and disdain between the colonies. People rarely traveled far in those days and feelings of belonging tended to remain local. The soil being too poor and the growing season too short to grow needed crops like cotton and tobacco, the northern colonies looked to the sea for their basic needs and supplies. New Englanders became whalers and shipbuilders, fisherman and slavers and so those colonies naturally took the lead in maritime matters. The South was much more closely tied to the land and depended more upon trade with England to sustain its agricultural-based economy and this was the major reason that the southern colony’s representatives in Congress were hesitant to approve an official American Navy. So it was that the South held out the last hopes that the rift between the colonies and the mother country would someday, somehow, go away.

It was a series of belligerent and oppressive military actions by the British, both in the cities and along the coast, which resulted in the serious consideration of forming an official national government-sanctioned naval force. On October 5^th, 1775, even as Congress was debating the approval of a national navy, news arrived of a sighting of two British merchant ships that were heading for Quebec, loaded with powder and munitions for the British forces there. A resolution to send a naval force to try and intercept it passed by a narrow margin. Then it was the bombardment and burning of Falmouth, Maine, on the 16^th of October that proved to be the final straw that brought north and south together to vote their approval, and on November 25, 1775, Congress enacted legislation that brought about the origin of the U. S. Navy. A Congressional Committee, headed by John Adams, was in charge of setting into motion the authorization of ships and the formulation of the rules and regulations by which an American naval force would begin, much of this derived from the workings and regulations of the British navy. Four vessels and crews were authorized on November 4^th, costing $100,000. Because a sailor could make more money serving on a privateer, the navy authorized that any warship taken by a naval vessel would receive one half of the sale of the ship and its cargo to the officers and crew, and one third if it was a cargo vessel, leaving two thirds that would go to the government. This was, of course, meant as an incentive, but the captain of a privateer still received all the proceeds from the sale of a prize ship and its cargo, dividing his profits with his men as he saw fit. With fortitude and a bit of luck a humble sailor aboard a privateer could return a rich man after a single cruise. A fishing boat armed with cannons could now go to sea and capture a few British merchant vessels, and this is how the colonies largely conducted warfare at sea. In 1777 alone, Colonial privateers took 143 prizes. For this reason, it was always difficult, if not impossible, to find able seamen willing to join the American Navy and often navy ships remained tied to docks for months at a time with no crew at all. There was even talk in Congress of placing an embargo on merchant shipping during a critical time to encourage sailors to join the navy, but this was never enacted.

By December of 1775, thirteen warships had been authorized to be built; five of thirty-two guns, five of twenty-eight guns and three of twenty-four guns. These were to be brand new ships, each costing about $66,000, a considerable sum in those days. At first glance one might think this an extravagant outlay, the building of an impressive and powerful force. But even a ship of thirty-six guns was only rated as a frigate, and a frigate in the British navy was their smallest ship, not even considered a ship-of-the-line, used mostly for scouting on the edges of larger convoys. The average British warship was a monster of seventy guns or more, usually on two or even three decks, her crew upwards of three or four hundred men, well trained and with a tradition of victory against other great navies of the world. But even if all of these ships had been built (which they were not; there was always a shortage of money and crews) and sent against the British navy, they would in all likelihood have been sunk in a few hours of battle against a British force. The British navy was a vast armada and had about two hundred warships along our coast, blockading the major ports and cruising along our coasts, watching for smuggled contraband. Never during the American Revolution was there a traditional battle of a line of American ships against British ships. Battle was of necessity to be avoided. Speed was the essential thing and American warships concentrated on chasing and catching mostly lightly armed or unarmed merchantmen, as the acquisition of arms and powder and supplies that a war effort needed were much more valuable to the American cause and much more damaging to the British than the sinking of a few warships. So as a powerful naval force, the American Navy during the Revolution was never a force to be reckoned with. Even those ships that were built had a less-than-stellar record. The USS Randolph, a frigate of thirty-two guns, named after the first president of the Congress, Peyton Randolph, left port with rotten masts, which came crashing down in the first fresh breeze, having to return to port jury-rigged. Upon leaving port once more with new masts her main was struck by lightning and split, forcing her once more into port. When she finally did get to sea she was discovered by a British warship, chased and sunk after only two minutes of battle. Her magazine exploded and the ship literally disappeared off the surface of the ocean, blasted into splinters. Only three men survived.

The only American Naval Captain that Americans are familiar with is John Paul Jones, a rash and egocentric captain who was his own best publicist. He had the gall to make a raid on English soil, stirring panic among the populace, hurting British pride and causing the British government to consider bringing ships back to defend their shores against such daring attacks in the future. And of course everyone knows about his action aboard the Bonhomme Richard against the Serapis, where he tied his ship alongside and pounded his enemy to submission even though his own ship was sunk and he had to make off in his enemy’s ship. Sad to say, most American naval captains were not of the same fiber as John Paul Jones. Most were appointed, not because they were capable seaman, but because they had influence with Congress, which appointed these men to their commands. There were more than a few of these appointed captains that were later court-martialed or simply let go because of less-than-intrepid action against the enemy. There were a few great American sea captains at the time, men like John Manley, Gustavus Conyngham and Jonathan Haraden, three captains who probably took more prize vessels than the entire American Navy combined, but they were privateers. Even Esek Hopkins, the first commander of an American naval squadron, after sacking Nassau in the Bahamas was rarely at sea afterwards (and would eventually be sacked himself when the navy was reorganized)—and he had always been criticized for his appointment, since his brother was the chairman of the Naval Committee and his son was also given the command of a frigate. There were certainly excellent captains in the new navy. There was Henry Johnson, and Joshua Barney, and Nicholas Biddle was probably one of the best. He had served in the Royal Navy, so was an experienced sailor, but his name or any of the others does not ring down through history. It was certainly not the fault of the navy itself, but the shallow pockets and short-sighted and influence-driven policies of Congress that made the fledgling navy the underhanded, poorly equipped and commanded, ineffective force that it started out to be, often commanded by men more interested in lining their pockets than serving their country—not surprising in an age of smuggling, illegal trade, piracy, and letters of marque, approving practically, a license to pirate. Even carefully recorded history has a tendency to change over time, to be viewed with tinted glasses, to tell the best story, to make "our" side look good; therefore it does not come as a surprise that certain records of those times were not held in safe keeping, perhaps not made public, perhaps not regarded highly enough to be saved for posterity.

Michael Winston is the author of Independent Action