power, the utilization of all its resources, the tapping of every source of supply, the employment of every manufactory, every ship and every man that can be useful, and all this with the utmost promptitude and despatch. Further than this, plans of attack and defense must be devised, and these cannot be successfully made without the most accurate knowledge of harbors, inlets, safe and unsafe passages, tides and everything else pertaining to the possible theaters of impending war.

THE AMERICAN NAVY OF THE REVOLUTION.

BY CHARLES O. PAULLIN.

[Charles O. Paullin, naval expert, has devoted special attention to the study of the development of naval warfare during the period of history of which the American Revolution was a part, and has delivered addresses on the subject before the Naval Institute at Annapolis, one of which forms the following article which is published with the approval of the Institute.]

American students are more or less familiar with the principal achievements of the continental navy of the American Revolution. Numerous writers have popularized the naval successes of that celebrated sea officer, John Paul Jones. Esek Hopkins, the first and only commander in chief of the American navy, "Commodore" Samuel Tucker, and Captains John Barry, Joshua Barney and Silas Talbot have found their biographers, who have done ample justice to their gallant and praiseworthy conduct. In 1813 Thomas Clark wrote the first narrative history of the continental navy. Clark was not critical of his sources of information, and his statements must be taken with some caution. In 1839 James Fenimore Cooper, the well known novelist, published a readable and entertaining account of the Revolutionary navy, which, upon the whole, has not been improved upon by other writers. This is not to say, however, that Cooper's history is altogether reliable or judicial in its treatment. It is marked by the bias of the period in which it was written. After the manner of our early historians Cooper wrote with a quill plucked from the wing of the American eagle. To the enthusiastic writers who breathed the fresh and invigorating air of the new republic, it seemed unpatriotic, almost traitorous, to write down the seamy side of Revolutionary history. Consequently they touch lightly, or even omit entirely, events disparaging to the Americans. Lieutenant George F. Emmons published in 1853 a list of the vessels and prizes of the continental navy. This is valuable, although not complete. Later histories of the continental navy treat the subject popularly. The most recent narratives are those of Spears and Maclay.

These various authors furnish us with considerable detail

concerning the movements, engagements and tactics of the Revolutionary vessels. Additional material of similar character, chiefly in manuscript, is now accessible in our leading libraries. Drawing on these sources of information let us proceed to classify the different movements and engagements of the vessels of the continental navy, with reference to the objects which the men who controlled the vessels had in mind. Thus, we will obtain a more general view of the operations of the navy than previous writers had taken. Inasmuch as the information so gained bears upon the subject of naval strategy, it may be of some practical value, notwithstanding the great revolution in naval warfare that has occurred in the last fifty years. Captain Mahan has pointed out, that, while naval tactics vary with the improvements in the motive power and armament of the fleets, the basic principles of naval strategy do not. They are as enduring as the order of nature.

The operations of the vessels of the continental navy will be divided into primary and secondary operations. A primary operation will be described as one directed against the enemy's naval vessels at sea. Any other operation whatever will be called a secondary operation. Primary operations will be divided into major and minor. In major operations fleets of considerable size and force will be matched against each other, as was the case at the battles of Santiago, Trafalgar, and Martinique. Minor primary operations are engagements between some two or three of the smaller vessels of the combatants. A good example of this is the fight between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis. Secondary operations are of various forms, chief of which is commerce destroying.

It scarcely needs to be said that the continental naval department did not engage its vessels in primary naval operations. The royal navy was vastly superior to the continental navy in the number and size of vessels, in the number of guns to a ship, and in the weight of metal. Indeed the very existence of the continental vessels depended upon their ability to keep outside of the range of the larger guns of the royal navy. The continental naval department sometimes gave specific orders to its captains to avoid encountering the British

"two deckers" or engaging their ships of war unless one could be found alone.

In the minor primary operations of the Revolution some thirty to thirty five engagements may be counted. The honors here are upon the whole evenly divided. The Americans captured ten or twelve naval vessels of the enemy. With the exceptions of the frigate Fox, 26 guns, captured by John Manly between New England and Newfoundland; and the sloop Drake, 20 guns, and the ship Serapis, 44 guns; and the Countess of Scarbourough, 20 guns, captured by Captain John Paul Jones in European waters, the prizes of the Americans were minor naval craft averaging ten or twelve 4's and 6's. The British captured or destroyed about the same number as they lost, but their prizes were, on the average, larger and better armed vessels than those of the Americans. Seven of them were frigates. On the other hand the British had no victory so brilliant as that of Jones off Flamborough Head.

The secondary operations of the navy were more important than its primary. They mainly involved the protection of American commerce, the defense of certain Atlantic ports, the striking of the lines of communication of the British military forces, the attaching of the enemy's commerce at sea, and the threatening and assailing of her unprotected ports and coasts, both at home and in her outlying dependencies. Each of these forms of secondary operations will now be briefly considered.

The continental naval department defended American commerce by ordering its vessels to "attack, take, burn or destroy" the enemy's privateers. One illustration of such orders will suffice. In November, 1788, the marine committee of the continental congress wrote to the navy yard at Boston, which had control of naval affairs in New England, that "at present we consider it an object of importance to destroy the infamous Goodrich who has much infested our coast, cruising with a squadron of four, five or six armed vessels, from 16 guns downward, from Egg Harbor to Cape Fear in North Carolina." The infamous Goodrich belonged to a notorious family of Virginia tories, whose privateers during the Revolution struck terror to the inhabitants of the Virginia and Carolina coasts.

More than once did the continental naval department plan their capture, but without success.

The engagements between continental vessels and British privateers were often as bloody and hotly contested as any of the Revolution. An illustration of this is the well known fight between the American frigate Trumbull and the Liverpool privateer Watt. The Trumbull mounted 28 guns, and was commanded by Captain James Nicholson, the ranking officer of the continental navy; the Watt carried 32 guns, and was under command of Captain Coulthard. The fight took place on June 1, 1780, to the northward of the Bermudas. A notion of its character may best be gained from an extract from a letter from Gilbert Saltonstall, captain of the marines on board the Trumbull, written on June 14th, 1780. Saltonstall was in the thick of the fight and received eleven wounds.

"On the first instant, at nine o'clock in the morning, Lat. 36 degrees N., Long. 63 degrees W., we saw a sail from the masthead, directly to the windward. As soon as she discovered us she bore for us; we got ready for action, at one o'clock began to engage, and continued without the least intermission for 5 glasses, within pistol shot. It is beyond my power to give an adequate idea of the carnage, slaughter, havoc and destruction that ensued. Let the imagination do its best, it will fall short. We were literally cut to pieces, not a shroud, stay, brace, bowling or any of our other rigging standing, our maintop mast shot away, our fore, main, mizzen, and jigger masts going by the board, some of our quarter-deck guns disabled, through ensign 62 shot, our mizzen 157, mainsail 560, foresail 180, and other sails in proportion, not a yard in the ship but had received one or more shots; six shots through her quarter above the quarter deck, four in the waist; our quarter stern and nettings full of language, grape and musket ball."

The fight was indecisive. Both vessels withdrew seriously disabled,—the Trumbull to Boston, and the Watt to New York. A British account of the engagement places the account of the lost on the Watt at eighty eight and of the Trumbull at considerable more. The Americans gave their loss as thirty eight and the British as ninety two. The Trumbull had two lieutenants killed. Gilbert Saltonstall declared that there