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Square Topsail Schooner
Saint John
As soon as the French & Indians War ended in 1763, the British built and purchased many schooners to patrol the extended American coastline against smugglers, because they thought erroneously that schooners could do the job for a fraction of the cost of employing frigates. The Saint John was built in New England in 1763, probably for the sugar and chocolate trade, and mounted 6-8 small carriage guns. She was purchased for the Royal Navy in Halifax, Nova Scotia, hence her Canadian name. On 9 July 1764, under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Hill, while she was attempting to destroy Rhode Island’s rum-smuggling industry (practically that colony’s only industry, and the source of the money that paid for establishing Brown University), Rhode Island’s popular elected Governor Stephen Hopkins ordered Fort George on Goat Island off Newport to sink her, the first shots of resistance fired against British authority in America, 12 years before the Declaration of Independence. The schooner, although damaged by the massive guns of the fort, escaped and was repaired. During the Revolution, she was based at Nassau, Bahamas; Saint Augustine, and Cowford (later renamed Jacksonville), Florida. She successfully spirited away to Saint Augustine all the gunpowder that the Continental Navy on its first fleet operation was trying to capture at Nassau in March 1776. She appears to have been in the foreground of a period engraving of Nassau, and she was also depicted in a painting of Halifax, Nova Scotia by the famous Captain Hugh Palliser. Unlike many schooners of the day, she was fitted with a proper head. She carried one square topsail on each of her two masts. Being rotten, she was apparently sold for scrap early in 1777. The British schooner Gaspee that was burned in Rhode Island in 1772 was probably a sistership, and Captain Pierre Morpain’s successful 1744 Louisbourg privateer schooner, Le Succes, was most likely very similar.
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Square Topsail Ketch
Thunder
Sailor-artist Ashley Bowen of Salem, MA painted a picture of this ketch right after she had been captured by a Salem privateer about 1780. She had been built for the Royal Navy in 1759 as a bomb-ketch, which was normally used to fire enormous exploding mortar shells into enemy fortresses, but the navy sold her in 1774 into private hands. Since she was still listed as being part of the fleet based at New York in July 1777, she had probably been taken back by the Navy on a short-term charter. The new owners built up her topsides, presumably removed the mortar bed, added a small, low forecastle, and used her as a transport ship or even a privateer. Thunder’s plans (as originally built) survive at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. A ketch was a two-masted ship with the larger mast forward of the smaller one. She carried square course, topsail and topgallant on the mainmast, and a square topsail on the mizzen. Being strongly built, she probably survived the war by many years in private hands as an armed merchant ship, probably trading to the Caribbean for sugar, rum, coffee, and chocolate. The Bowen painting is at the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem. Many period portraits exist of Thunder’s various sister ships. One of those sisters was involved in the capture of Senegal, Africa.
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Square Topsail Sloop
Independence
Shortly after independence was declared on 4 July 1776, the Continental Navy purchased a sloop (previous name unknown) that had been built in Rhode Island (or possibly Massachusetts), and undoubtedly used for rum-smuggling and the chocolate trade in the Caribbean, and so they named her Independence. She was the Navy’s 11th vessel. The sloop looked much like the navy’s very first vessel, the sloop Providence, except that she was fitted with a head, which was almost a necessity for military vessels on long-distance voyages. A sloop was a one-masted vessel with bowsprit pointing at an angle upwards. In this case, she carried a single square topsail. Congress was so short of money that they employed the sloop mostly for commercial purposes. They sent her under the command of Captain John Young to Martinique to bring back sugar, chocolate, and molasses, and they sent her all the way to France to pick up military supplies. She also managed to capture some British vessels. She was with John Paul Jones and the Ranger off the coast of France when the French fleet officially saluted the American flags on both vessels -- the first time the American flag had ever been saluted by a naval vessel of another country. She was regarded as a good sailer. On her return from France, she headed for Ocracoke, NC (where the pirate Blackbeard had been killed on a similar sloop some 50 years earlier), but she grounded heavily on one of the shifting sandbars and was a total loss in 1778. Although three period portraits of Providence have been found, no clear portraits or plans for Independence are known, although written descriptions are useful in reconstructing her appearance. She would have looked almost identical to the Massachusetts Navy sloop Tyrannicide before that vessel was converted into a brig.
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Square Topsail Cutter
Dolphin
Benjamin Franklin was American Commissioner in Paris during the Revolution, and he managed to get his hands on several small warships to serve the American cause. One of these was a cutter, which came into his hands by courtesy of the British Secret Service; they were hoping that the British could catch her loaded with Franklin’s secret letters. Franklin, who sent his secret letters some other way, named her Dolphin (no record of her previous name), and she became the Navy’s 30th vessel. Franklin placed her under the command of Captain Samuel Nicholson. Nicholson, who was not used to the open flush decks of all European cutters, had carpenters build the kind of tall stern found on American sloops, with a quarterdeck, stern windows, and (in this case) quarter-galleries, as well as a small, low forecastle. She was probably the only cutter ever so fitted. As a result of all the extra weight in the stern, he found that even though the cutter had 14 gunports she could comfortably support only ten carriage guns. A cutter was a one-masted vessel with bowsprit parallel to the water. In this case, she carried a single square topsail. In 1777, she cruised brazenly off Dublin in a vain attempt to seize the Irish linen fleet, but she and her consorts did manage to capture about 20 British ships off the Irish coast in a short time. Her subsequent career is unknown, but since the French were not yet officially in the war it is probable that the British persuaded them to confiscate her and briefly imprison Nicholson. In any event, Nicholson was already at sea in command of the French-built Continental frigate Deane by late 1777. Dolphin’s appearance is known from a painting on an Irish clock dial, present location unknown.
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Barque (ex Lugger )
Surprise
Benjamin Franklin, the American Commissioner in Paris, had his associate William Hodge purchase a lugger at Dunkirk early in 1777, which he named Surprise (original name unknown). A lugger normally had the exact same hull and bowsprit as a cutter, but with an unusual 3-masted rig of French design. Luggers were developed for the fishing fleet, but they also found use as coastal privateers and pirates. Franklin placed American captain Gustavus Conyngham of Philadelphia in charge of her, and she became the Navy’s 29th vessel. In the same way as Captain Nicholson had a high American quarterdeck and stern, as well as a low forecastle, fitted to the cutter Dolphin, Conyngham had carpenters build such a stern and forecastle on Surprise (but without quartergalleries) – undoubtedly the only lugger ever to be so fitted. At the same time, he converted the fore and main masts to standard square rig (much more versatile than the lug rig), but he left the lug mizzen in place, using its topmast as an ensign staff, so the best description of the rig is that she was a barque. With a motley crew of Americans and Frenchmen, she sailed on a brief cruise and captured two British prizes. Unfortunately, one of those prizes was a mail packet, which was off limits even in wartime, so the British leaned on the French (who were not yet officially in the war) to confiscate the vessel and her two prizes, which were returned to the British, and to lock up her captain. Conyngham was quietly released in a few days to take command of the cutter Revenge in May 1777, but Surprise’s subsequent history (out of American control) is not recorded. One rather indistinct woodcut of Surprise is known. Of course, this Surprise is completely different from the frigate Surprise (formerly Rose) that appeared in Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey movie, Master & Commander, and is on display at the Maritime Museum of San Diego.
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Felucca-rigged Galley
Washington
In 1776, Benedict Arnold was desperate to delay the expected British advance down Lake Champlain, which was intended to cut off New England from all the other colonies. He built a hefty fleet on the lake, which included four 12-gun galleys (Washington, Congress, Gates and Trumbull) that were rigged like Mediterranean feluccas with two masts, each with a giant lateen sail. In light weather, square topsails could theoretically be set above them on the topmasts that were erected, although there is no record of topsails having been fitted. Some, but not all of the galleys, were fitted with a raised forecastle. Even though the American fleet was essentially destroyed by the much more powerful British fleet at the Battle of Valcour Island in early October 1776, the British were thus forced to delay their push to the south until the following year, by which time Arnold was in a position to take the lead in forcing British General Burgoyne to surrender at Saratoga. That in turn was the event that persuaded the French and Spanish to enter the war on the American side, and thereby assured US independence. Washington amazingly crammed a crew of 110 into her small space, and for cannons she had two giant 18-pounders, four 12-pounders, two 9-pounders, and four 4-pounders, along with several swivels, far heavier guns than normally found on a vessel this small. However, she had more room than most ships her size because on Lake Champlain there was no need to carry barrels of drinking water.
Washington was commanded by Brigadier General David Waterbury of Connecticut (1722-1801). She was captured by the British, who treated Waterbury well and released him quickly. They used her for a year with the same rig, but it is reported that they later converted her to a brig. Presumably, she was eventually sunk at the end of her useful life somewhere in the northern part of Lake Champlain. After the Battle of Saratoga, naval control of Lake Champlain became mostly irrelevant anyway. Washington’s design was developed in Philadelphia, perhaps by Joshua Humphreys, and was repeated with a variety of rigs for many galleys in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and elsewhere. These galleys are reported to have been fast and weatherly; one, after capture, cruised the waters of southern New England for some time, and another made a round trip from the Chesapeake to Bermuda. Several eyewitness paintings, drawings and engravings are known of the galleys, as well as Washington’s lines plan, preserved at Britain’s National Maritime Museum.
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