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Offshore Squadron
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| Allegiance |
When the Continental Navy was founded late in 1775, one of the highest-ranking American officers in the Royal Navy was Lieutenant Stanton Hazard of Newport, RI. He was asked if he would like to serve as a lieutenant in the new navy, and said he would take nothing lower than commander (captain of a vessel of 10 to 18 guns). When he was refused, he joined the other side. He bought a fast 14-gun ship-rigged corvette or mini-frigate (possibly originally a brig), which had probably been in the rum-smuggling and chocolate trade, and named her King George. From Brooklyn to New Bedford, he kept the seas clear of Rebel vessels until 7 July 1779. Colonel Silas Talbot of Rhode Island (Continental Army) was given command of a decrepit transport sloop, Argo, which he filled with hidden armed men. He came alongside the unsuspecting privateer King George and overwhelmed her crew with sheer numbers. The former scourge of Long Island Sound was taken prize into New London. Hazard spent the rest of the war on parole on his farm in southwestern Rhode Island, where he had his portrait painted in his British uniform. A few days later, under American colors, the little ship was captured by the British as soon as she ventured forth. She was taken into the Royal Navy under the name of Allegiance, which may also have been her American name. She cruised for three years along the American coast. She was captured by a powerful French frigate in 1782, a year after a French officer had painted a portrait of her that survives in France. No subsequent record of her has been found, but she was not taken into the French Navy. |
| Batchelors Delight |
About 1682, it was obvious that Charles II would never have any legitimate children and would therefore eventually be succeeded by his loathsome brother James. About 50 young Englishmen therefore decided to make their fortunes outside the country while they could still leave. After many false starts, they got hold of a brand-new Danish ship, which they renamed Batchelors Delight, and hired as captain John Cook (later replaced by buccaneer Edward Davis when Cook died). They hired as “chirurgeon” (surgeon) Lionel Wafer (who had “gone native” in Panama for years, and so knew the value of having chocolate on a ship). Both of them had vast experience at sea around the world. When they proposed going “privateering” (to them, a nice way of saying “a-pirating”) in the Caribbean, Wafer protested the danger of capture there, and proposed the west coast of Latin America as a safer alternative. This ship, by the way, is not to be confused with another ship of the same name, size and date that participated in the founding of York Factory, Manitoba for the Hudson’s Bay Company.After several years of successful plundering from Chile to California (during which time they also managed to discover eastern New Zealand, which they called Davisland, and Easter Island, and they were also the first English people to visit, chart, and document the Galapagos Islands; their account was avidly read by Darwin), they decided they had gained enough treasure. The most famous member of the crew, William Dampier, at this point joined the crew of another ship so he could sail around the globe. The Batchelors Delight heard in 1687 at Panama that James II was about to be thrown out by Parliament and replaced by his daughter Mary with her husband William. Therefore, as insurance, they buried a third of their treasure on Isla Coco, Costa Rica (never yet recovered by many modern expeditions), and sailed back around Cape Horn. Drawing short straws, the various pirates were dropped off in English colonies from Jamaica to New Hampshire with their shares of the treasure, so as not to draw attention to themselves. The ship was sold in Philadelphia to members of her own crew, who took her a-pirating to the Indian Ocean. Wafer and Davis and John Hingson had not been in Virginia even one day when they were arrested under suspicion of piracy (someone had recognized Davis). After almost three years in jail at Jamestown pending trial, they were sent to London, where the judge struck a plea bargain: they could have their freedom in return for surrendering a large proportion of their loot to King William & Queen Mary for some charitable purpose. The monarchs then gave the money to found the College of William & Mary in 1693 at what is now Williamsburg, Virginia. A portrait of the ship has now been found on a period French map of the Americas, and another portrait on a map of the Galapagos; accurate pictures of specific pirate ships are extremely rare. Like many ships of her day, she carried a square spritsail-topsail on a small mast precariously perched on the end of the bowsprit. |
| General Pickering |
Captain Jonathan Haraden (1744-1803), who had previously served as lieutenant and then captain of the Massachusetts Navy sloop (later brig) Tyrannicide, took command of the Salem, Massachusetts letter-of-marque General Pickering in 1778; a letter-of-marque was a ship used primarily as a merchant ship, but with special bonds posted with the court, and official permission to behave as a privateer when occasion offered. She was a ship-rigged corvette or mini-frigate. Over the next few years, Haraden carried many lucrative cargoes across the Atlantic and Caribbean (including probably rum and chocolate), and captured numerous enemy merchant ships, making himself and his ship’s owners wealthy. He had many lucky escapes from larger warships and privateers. One of the latter, Achilles, was a former British East Indiaman of 40 guns he encountered in June 1780 in the Bay of Biscay. Apparently, hundreds of spectator craft came out to watch the battle. When Haraden ran out of cannonballs, he took crowbars from the cargo and fired them at the enemy. Achilles, surprised and much damaged, broke off the engagement. The ship’s owners gratefully presented Haraden with a silver hot-chocolate pot and two silver canns, each engraved with a portrait of the brave little ship. The silver now belongs to the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, but surprisingly no modern photographs are yet on file of it, although an early twentieth-century photograph has been published. General Pickering and her flotilla of prizes were captured by Admiral Rodney’s forces when they sailed unsuspectingly into the Dutch Caribbean port of Saint Eustatius that Rodney had taken on 3 February 1781. No record has been found of her subsequent career. Haraden was released and successfully commanded the privateer Julius Caesar, a sistership of General Pickering. |
| Gift of God |
It is not generally known, but the same corporation of businessmen who founded Jamestown, Virginia with the three ships Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery in 1607 also founded a second settlement, Saint George’s Fort, the same year on the Kennebec River in Maine (which was also considered to be part of Virginia in those days). They built a sophisticated fort, Saint George’s Fort, known from a detailed picture, and most recently from some exciting archaeology; but things went wrong. Sir John Popham, the London patron, died. Then Captain Thomas Popham (his nephew), captain of the Gift of God and commander of the settlement, died. Then his deputy, 25-year-old Raleigh Gilbert, returned to England to claim a large legacy. The first winter was the coldest on record, and about half the people in the colony were sent back to England so that the remainder would have enough food and firewood. In spite of this, the survivors managed to build a 30-ton ocean-going vessel, Virginia. Before the second winter could cripple them, the remainder returned to England. Whereas Jamestown settlers several times attempted to abandon their colony due to lack of food stemming from a ten-year drought, the Maine colony had plenty of food. The problem was that most of the food consisted of plentiful lobsters and clams, which they thought were not fit for human consumption! Recent research shows that Jamestowners and others surreptitiously spent summers at the Maine fort for years after it had been abandoned. The ships that brought the settlers over were the 200-ton Mary & John, and the Gift of God, a barque that was about the same size as Jamestown’s middle-sized ship, Godspeed. A barque was a three-masted ship with no square sails on the mizzen. It is believed that Gift of God was the ship depicted on the title page of a 1609 booklet promoting emigration to Virginia. |
