Washington’s Navy, Privateering & ’Rebels at Sea’

Review by Bill Doughty––

George Washington wasn’t just “father of our country.” He was also father of our Navy, according to “Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution” by Eric Jay Dolin (W.W. Norton, 2022).

Washington first dismissed the idea of deploying a seagoing force, especially to face the great Royal Navy. But during a stalemate on land and after listening to advice from his officers, he saw a need for American vessels to capture munitions and other supplies from British ships. So Washington armed and commissioned the schooner Hannah and soon followed up with orders for two more vessels. His ships were not privately operated since sailors were paid from his army’s funds.

While there was a question whether he had authority from Congress, nevertheless Washington moved forward, according to Dolin. “On September 7 (1775), the Hannah set sail. Washington had launched his own navy.” His minuscule naval force joined hundreds of “privateers” operating outside of government control along the Atlantic Coast and beyond.

Early in “Rebels at Sea,” Dolin tells the story of the Machias Affair in Maine/Massachusetts, in which colonists clashed with British autocracy over trade, authoritarian rule, and even voting rights!

The Machias Affair, called by James Fenimore Cooper the “Lexington of the Sea,” was “a clarion signal that Massachusetts men and, more broadly, Americans were ready and able to fight at sea.”

“Privateers were armed vessels owned and outfitted by private individuals who had government permission to capture enemy ships in times of war. That permission came in the form of a letter of marque, a formal legal document issued by the government that gave the bearer the right to seize vessels belonging to belligerent nations and to claim those vessels and their cargoes, or prizes, as spoils of war. The proceeds from the auction of these prizes were in turn split between the men who crewed the privateers and the owners of the ship. Typically, governments used privateers to amplify their power on the seas, most notably when their navies were not large enough to effectively wage war. More specifically, by attacking the enemy’s maritime commerce and, when possible, its naval forces, privateers could inflict significant economic and military pain at no expense to the government that commissioned them. Privateers were like a cost-free navy. One late nineteenth-century historian dubbed them ‘the militia of the sea.’”

There’s no question the maritime militia and other sea fighters made a difference.

“By early 1776, the upstart Americans had made considerable progress in taking the fight to sea. Between state navies, Washington’s navy, privateers from the individual colonies, and the nascent Continental navy, the colonies were demonstrating their maritime creativity and potency. But one major feature of their maritime strategy was conspicuous in its absence: privateers commissioned by Congress.”

And as Britain cracked down further on the Colonies, it only made the Americans’ resolve stronger.

The British Parliament drove the Colonies to codifying privateering when Britain passed the Prohibitory Act in February 1776. Also known as the Act of Independency, Parliament’s act cut off trade, permitted British ships to seize colonial vessels, and allowed American sailors to be impressed –– kidnapped, conscripted, and forced into serving in the Royal Navy.

Within weeks, Congress was ready to order authorization and letters of marque to privateers. It did so April 3, 1776. Privateering, therefore, pushed the Colonies more in the direction of independency. “It was another tear in the gossamer fabric holding the colonies and Britain together,” Dolin writes.

“Congress had no alternative but to provide for the defense and security by authorizing the colonies to fit out privateers to cruise against the enemy,” Dolin writes. He provides a number of surprising anecdotes about people, unknown and well-known, who were involved in privateering.

We learn about black patriot James Forten, whose great-grandfather was brought to the Colonies as a slave and whose grandfather obtained freedom. Forten was one of only a few black families in Philadelphia, where some historians argue the U.S. Navy was born. (A drive to the Philadelphia airport today and a glance toward the East shows the evidence of Philadelphia as a big Navy port.)

Forten served aboard the 450-ton Pennsylvania privateer Royal Louis captained by Stephen Decatur Sr., father of Steven Decatur Jr., hero in the first Barbary War at the turn of the century and later in the War of 1812. Forten went on to become a successful business leader in Philadelphia as the city’s leading sailmaker, according to Dolin.

This book is packed with photos, vignettes, and colorful characters. Thomas Paine, author of the earthshaking “Common Sense,” had a near-death brush with privateering. For a short time Paine was a crew member of the Terrible, a British privateer captained by William Death. Great names.

Check out these names of the privateer ships mentioned in this book: Rattlesnake, Hibernia, Tyrannicide, Black Sloven, Active, Thorn, Revenge, Enterprize, Eaglet, Impromptu, and Grand Turk; sweet names like Betsey, Nancy, Diana, Patty, and Sally, and inspiring names like General Washington, Marquis de Lafayettes, Liberty, Union, Hope, Yankee Hero, Retaliation, and Independence.

Hundreds of privateers and their captains and crews risked a great deal to fight for liberty. “When the United States was only a tenuous idea, they stepped forward and risked their lives to help make it a reality,” Dolin says.

Portrait of John Barry by Gilbert Stuart, circa 1801. (White House, NHHC)

“For many young men, joining a privateer represented an opportunity for adventure and fortune and also, perhaps, a chance to escape stultifying manual labor.” Privateering proved a training ground for the new United States Navy. Consider the names of some crew members, backers, and captains of privateers: John Barry, Thomas Truxton, Silas Talbot, Henry Knox, David Porter (father of Commodore David Porter, of the War of 1812, and grandfather of Adm. David Dixon Porter, hero of the Civil War.)

In 1781, the Privateer Pilgrim captured the Duke of Gloucester with an impressive science library aboard. The great mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch then gained access to the resources to write “The New American Practical Navigator” (1802), known to sailors as “the Bowditch,” a landmark work explaining accurate nautical and navigational information for mariners.

Some powerful leaders backed the concept of privateers. They included John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin (for a time), and, notoriously Benedict Arnold, who helped the British spearhead “the deadliest raid of all,” targeting American patriots at New London.

Some privateers became intertwined with the slave trade. Dolin calls it the “greatest blemish” of privateering.

HMS Jersey, used as a prison ship during the Revolutionary War. Painting by R.B. Skerrett from drawing by one of the prisoners held in captivity there. (NHHC)

Americans captured by the British for privateering usually found themselves in fetid and septic prison ships. Dolin calls the use of the floating prisons, especially the Jersey, “one of the most horrific and shameful chapters in the history of the Revolution.” Dolin's account of the foul and disgusting depravity in the prison ships rivals that of many historians’ descriptions of POW camps. Jersey, nicknamed “Hell Afloat,” held up to 1,200 prisoners, many of whom were mariners who'd served aboard privateers.

Eric Jay Dolin

Privateering, Dolin says, was not the same as piracy since it was federally endorsed. Nevertheless, opposition to the practice grew. “Part of the reason privateering was scorned was that many believed the practice undermined the republican ideals of the Revolution, which called for the sacrifice of private interests in the pursuit of liberty.”

Benjamin Franklin, who supported privateering early on, did an about-face after he saw rampant greed and lawlessness. Another strong opponent was William Whipple Jr., a “fervent patriot devote to the republican ideals of the Revolution, signer of the Declaration, and hero of the Battle of Saratoga.”

Whipple called privateering “the most baneful to society of any that ever a civilized people were engaged in.” Dolin writes about Whipple: “His main concern was that privateers were draining the Continental Navy of men, because so many chose privateering over naval service for financial reasons.”

Navy hero John Paul Jones agreed.

There was much less effectiveness in individual states’ navies or privateers compared with he power of a United naval force. Resources, including sailors, needed to be directed to the Continental Navy, according to Jones, Whipple, and others; the fledgling American navy struggled to survive, some frigates never making it to sea.

Dolin writes: “The American Revolution was the Navy’s first hour, but not its finest.”

“The Continental navy’s record in battle is not an enviable one. Twenty-eight vessels were captured or destroyed, and many others were out at sea, sold, returned to France, or burned to keep them from being taken but he enemy (as in the Penobscot Expedition). Only seven of the original thirteen frigates authorized by Congress actually made it to sea, and one of those survived long enough to witness the victory at Yorktown in 1781, a year in which the entire naval fleet was comprised of only nine vessels, with a total of 164 cannons. The Navy’s only truly large ship, the 74-gun America, took six years to build, and by the time it was ready to sail, in November 1782, the war was essentially over. Instead of fighting for the American cause, America was given to the French as gift. At war’s end just a few navy ships were left. These were sold, and the navy disbanded.”

Carving of Franklin at U.S. Naval Academy, circa early 1900s. (NHHC)

The (non-Navy) privateers, as the “militia of the sea,” were similar to the colonial concept of a non-Army armed citizenry: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…” per the Second Amendment. Whipple, Jones, and Franklin saw privateering as more harmful that good. Franklin called it an “abomination.”

Eventually, the new nation would evolve to see the need for unity in the maritime domain. This was especially true as platforms, armaments, logistics, strategies, training, and capabilities modernized.

But in the War of 1812 the Navy was still “puny,” in Dolin’s words. “Just a handful of frigates, sloops, and gunboats.”

So President Jefferson returned to privateering.

“Despite Jefferson’s dream of a privately waged war on the seas,” Dolin writes, “the U.S. Navy, small though it was, had some notable and heroic engagements that burnished its reputation, contributed much to America’s success, and won the respect of the British.”

Privateers proved successful again in those days of wooden boats, but their days were numbered.

Model of privateer Rattlesnake.Scale: 3/16”=1’, built by Raymond W. Stone of the Washington Ship Model Society. (NHHC)

A generation later, the concept of privateering became part of a seditious conspiracy as the Confederacy embraced the strategy. The Confederates’ attempts at privateering were ill-fated, however, as the United States Navy and Union itself in Washington, D.C., grew stronger. Washington's navy became Washington's Navy.

Individual states’ navies were not as strong as the centralized U.S. Navy. Dolin closes his book with this bottom line: “America now has the most powerful navy in the world.”

This review barely scrapes the surface of a book that puts the reader on blood-stained wooden decks, running with the wind, cutlass in hand. Accessible history. Highly recommended.

“Rebels at Sea” dedication: “To librarians everywhere who, through hard work and dedication, support writers, researchers, learners, and book lovers alike. This writer couldn’t have done it without you.”

Adm. James Stavridis (ret.) offers wholehearted endorsement: “Yet another maritime masterpiece by one of the top historians of the oceans! Rebels at Sea is a brilliant exposition of a little-understood and under-appreciated part of the American Revolution underway. Like his earlier works, it is full of fresh thinking and sharply observed anecdotes that both inform and delight. Eric Jay Dolin's books deserve a prominent place on every sailor's bookshelf.” Stavridis is author of "The Sailor's Bookshelf: Fifty Books to Know the Sea," reviewed earlier this year on Navy Reads.