p140  XI.

Barges in the Delaware

The plan John Barry had discussed with Washington and proposed to the Marine Committee was an armed boat expedition into the Delaware below Philadelphia to harass British shipping to and from the city. The Captain purposed to mount a 4‑pounder as a bow gun on each of the three barges and the pinnace belonging to the Effingham and Washington, enlist volunteer crews from the Continental seamen at Bordentown, proceed past the enemy batteries at night, and operate out of the numerous creeks along the shores of the river where it broadened south of Chester. Success, he pointed out, would depend upon careful selection of victims, avoidance of heavily armed vessels, the element of surprise, retreat to safe havens and courageous men. A factor favoring the enterprise was the winter season. It might accentuate hardships for the boat crews, but the thick ice would deter frigate pursuit and retard smaller vessels whose hands would be unfamiliar with the river and its tributaries.

Audacious in its conception, the idea had caught the Commander-in‑Chief's fancy when Barry presented it to him at Valley Forge in December. Its appeal was irresistible to the Marine Committee when he unfolded it at York. As inbound vessels in the winter period would be chiefly supply ships, Washington had sensed at once the possibilities of cargoes yielding clothing and provisions for his half-naked, ill‑fed army. No doubt, his enthusiasm had much to do with the committee's prompt approval.

Barry was the logical leader for such an enterprise. His exploits in the Lexington had stamped him as man of quick decision and prompt action. Nor was he tainted with the jealousies  p141 and distrusts that had focused upon the naval defenders of the river pass in October and November. Brilliant as their operations had been, charges and counter-charges were now being hurled back and forth. With glory enough for all, efforts were on foot to award all glory to but a few. Wisely, the committee felt the expedition should be entrusted to the one outstanding naval officer who had not become involved in the controversy.

Even a communication from the Navy Board, forwarded late in January, did not swerve the committee. Charles Alexander, just escaped from Philadelphia, arrived at Bordentown with the idea that "the enemy might be annoyed greatly in their trade and shipping whilst the River continues full of ice." The board sent him along to expound his plan, adding that "the few Naval officers here are very anxious to do something against the enemy while the present opportunity offers." Recalling how Alexander had run the Delaware aground and lost her in the opening days of the river campaign, the committee concluded he was not the man to replace Barry as the leader of the enterprise. Naval officers, anxious to distinguish themselves, could do so by enrolling under the senior captain.

With the hurdle of congressional approbation safely cleared on January 29, 1778, the committee set the expedition going with celerity. That same night Barry received instructions. The conduct of the cruise was left entirely to his judgment. Only upon a few points were there specific injunctions. As he would have occasion to land on both banks of the river, he should restrain his officers and men from plundering, ill‑treating, or insulting the inhabitants — even those with Tory tendencies. He should appoint a reliable agent to as well as the safe removal of captured goods. Washington should be apprised promptly of any stores taken that would prove useful to the army. Prizes would have to be libeled against in the Court of Admiralty, as the cruise was no piratical venture, but a definite enterprise of the Continental navy. Perhaps what gave the Captain keenest enjoyment was a sentence reading:

Hopkinson would writhe at that one. And he would like even less the letter the Marine Committee addressed to the board  p142 and handed the Captain to deliver. As everything depended upon dispatch, Hopkinson and Wharton were requested earnestly to give "all the assistance in your power" to make the cruise a success. The assistance included furnishing "such Sums of Money" as the Captain might need.

John Brown asked Barry to stop off at Manheim and deliver a letter to Robert Morris — an interesting letter for it contained news of the Captain's brother, Patrick, who was sailing a letter of marque for Hewes & Smith, of North Carolina, and who was then at Edenton, loading for a voyage to France.

Barry made the Manheim call, on January 30, and rode into Valley Forge later the same day. He wanted a final conference with Washington. The latter provided a quick résumé of the situation. An inventive genius, named David Bushnell, had been at Bordentown since mid‑December trying an experiment with floating explosives. The result had been fairly amusing, as the Captain could see by perusing an article in the New Jersey Gazette, published on January 21. While the Commander-in‑Chief stood by his side, Barry read the story of the new famous "Battle of the Kegs." Before taking his departure, he made a request.

"I am none too hopeful, your Excellency, of manning my boats with Continental seamen," he said. "The committee will only let me enroll volunteers. It takes a hardy soul to agree to go down the river in an open barge in this weather. There are a number of General Varnum's men at Burlington; the men you loaned the Pennsylvania fleet last October. Were I to have an order from you, Sir, for a detachment of those men, the cruise would not be delayed for lack of proper hands."

Washington wrote the desired order, and Barry presented himself the following afternoon at Bordentown to a Navy Board, which, regardless of wounded feelings, gave no cause for complaint. The co‑operation extended was whole-hearted and efficient. Two of the barges were in firsthand condition. The other barge and the pinnace required a deal of overhauling and repairs — so much so, in fact, that the Captain determined to proceed with only half his force. For second in command, he chose his former first officer of the Lexington, Lieutenant Luke Matthewman. With the latter as mate went Midshipman Matthew Clarkson. In the Captain's own barge  p143 was Lieutenant James Cokelys, of the marines. If there were other commissioned officers in the two boats, history has not preserved their names.

Just as feared, Continental seamen were slow to volunteer. After numerous efforts, which secured about twenty-five men, he repaired to Burlington, presented his order to Commodore Hazlewood, and returned with fifteen of Varnum's brigade. While landsmen, they had experienced two months of river fighting, and could be relied upon. While in Burlington, he learned that six armed boats of the Pennsylvania navy had already gone down the river intent upon the same objective as his own. Two of them had reached Cooper's ferry, opposite Philadelphia, where the hands had left the officers asleep on shore, and had deserted to the enemy, taking both craft with them. The next four had been hauled overland from Burlington and nothing since had been heard from them. Resolute Pennsylvania navy captains — Robert Collings and Joseph Wade — commanded two of these. The other two were to operate as privateers.

The day when Barry and Matthewman in the two barges started down the river cannot be determined exactly. The Captain arrived at Bordentown on February 1. Certainly a week must have been required to arm, equip and man the little vessels. In that event, it was probably around February 10 when they lay to on their oars north of Philadelphia to await darkness and the chance to slip undetected past the city. It was bitter cold. Less than three weeks before the Delaware at that point had been frozen from shore to shore. A biting wind cut to the very marrow as the men huddled for such shelter as they could find behind the low gunwales. Twenty hands in each barge meant crowding — the barges were but •thirty-two feet long. Being pressed so tightly together, however, did make for a bit of warmth.

Not for John Barry, the tedious haul overland from Burlington to Mt. Holly, to Haddonfield and thence to the river at Salem. He was going to slip by the British fleet, a performance far more dangerous, but assuring a quicker passage. And by it he went that night, hugging the Jersey shore, oars muffled, men tense — two cockleshells that slipped ghostlike down stream. Lookouts on the enemy vessels, probably huddled for comfort  p144 in the lee of deck houses, heard nothing and saw nothing. Undetected, unsuspected, the barges got through in safety.

Only two of the gallant forty left records of that memorable night. What meagre, unsatisfactory records they are.

"I passed by Philadelphia with two boats," is all that Barry tells us.

"Captain Barry and myself in two barges passed Philadelphia through the ice," wrote Matthewman.

* * *

Anthony Wayne's brigade — a tattered assortment of Continental infantry — pushed its weary way through snow and mire into Wilmington, Delaware, on February 18. To William Smallwood, brigadier general of the Maryland line, who had been posted in the little town since mid‑December, it looked like reinforcements at last. He was disappointed. Wayne, as debonair in adversity as in affluent days before the war, disillusioned him.

"We're bound across the river to Jersey, General," he explained. "His Excellency has detached us to forage for the army. I am to driving all cattle and destroy any hay I can't take with me. Can you provide boats for the crossing?"

"Nay, not in any number," Smallwood began, and then a thought struck him. "The very man for you is in the Christiana now — Captain Barry of the navy. He ran past Philadelphia in the night with two barges about a week ago, and has been joined since by five more armed boats. They're lying at the mouth of the creek ready to pounce upon any enemy vessels that may pass up or down the Delaware. He'll see you across, I have no doubt."

That was how John Barry and Anthony Wayne happened to pool their interests for the ensuing few days. All morning of February 19, the Captain's little flotilla — it now embraced his own barge, Matthewman's, the two from the Pennsylvania navy and three with privateering commissions — ferried the brigade from Wilmington southeasterly across the river. The broad Delaware, ice‑filled and wind-swept, was free of enemy increasing. Tory sympathizers noted the movement and sent word to Philadelphia, but the intelligence could not reach the city in time for the British to thwart the crossing.

 p145 During the afternoon Wayne's men marched south and entered the little Jersey town of Salem after dark. Barry and his fleet, taking the longer river course, rounded Finn's Point in the late afternoon, and ascended Salem creek, to form a junction with the tired brigade after midnight. While the boats lay in Salem Creek for ten four days, Wayne's men began the difficult task of rounding up the few cattle that could be found, and piling hay into wagons they commandeered from the inhabitants. Many Salem county farmers, if not hostile, were determined to preserve their herds for the better prices the enemy would pay. Others, willing to aid, were aware of their remoteness from the protection of the Continental army, and fearful of later retaliation by unfriendly neighbors. The land­owners knew their country. Wayne's men did not. Numerous swamps concealed the livestock beyond the chance of discovery, particularly as the foraging expedition had no time for an exhaustive search. Too long a delay and the enemy might cut them off.

Beating the neighborhood for miles around resulted in about 150 head of cattle being herded into Salem by the late afternoon of February 23. Most of them were well-fattened beasts, choice meat, indeed, for the half-starved army at Valley Forge. How to get them to their destination became a serious question, when, though private intelligence channels, Wayne learned the British, fully apprised of his expedition, were preparing to throw a strong force across the Delaware at Burlington to intercept the northward march. The anxious brigadier turned to the possibility of Barry's boats as cattle transports. Loathe to discourage the idea as impracticable, the Captain suggested experimentation first with one load. After attempting to drive a few head into one of the barges, Wayne agreed to abandon the effort, and called a council of war to determine the course to pursue.

John Barry and Luke Matthewman participated in the deliberations which resulted in Wayne's plan of campaign. The cattle and forage wagons would be dispatched immediately, via the road leading from Salem through Haddonfield to Mt. Holly. Keeping between them and the river, the brigade would parallel their progress to ward off attack. To delude the British into believing the whole force yet loitered around Salem, an important mission was given the Captain. He was to proceed  p146 up the river that night as far as Mantua creek, lying but a few miles south of Fort Mercer, and then start downward, burning every bit of hay stored along the shore or up the many creeks. Wayne believed the sight of all this forage going up in smoke would divert the enemy for a time from crossing at Burlington.

"It is his Excellency's wish to deprive the enemy of the benefit of the forage," he told Barry, "and at the same time for such persons as are friends to their country to receive recompense at a future day. Therefore, take an account of the persons' names to whom it belongs, together with the quantity."

Lieutenant Simeon Jennings, with a detachment of nineteen men from five regiments, was assigned to the Captain. Appended to Jennings's order was a note that "Capt Barry will land Lieut Jennings on the Pennsya Shore as soon as the Captn has Effected the Business on which he is ordered." Thus reinforced, the seven boats put off down Salem creek in the darkness. Favored by the tide, the men bent to the oars all night long. By February 24, they had rowed •thirty-five miles up the Delaware, reaching Mantua creek at ten o'clock in the morning.

From that moment, Barry's torches flared among the stacks of hay. Dropping down with the tide, the boats sought out every inlet and creek. Officers took the names of protesting owners, estimated the quantity of forage, and stood by until the stacks were crackling redolently in the brisk air. The growing smoke pall lifted higher, visible north in Philadelphia, when the enemy, in alarm, had already delayed the plan to cross at Burlington, and was equipping a boat expedition to stop the reign of destruction.

All that day Barry's men applied their torches. Nothing escaped their eagle eyes, from stacks like those of John Kelly, at the mouth of Raccoon creek, where 100 tons were stored, to piles of a few tons each, the previous summer's harvest of small squatters along the shore. Night found them south of Oldman's creek, abreast of Wilmington, and halted the work. Forage stacks were invisible in the blackness which enshrouded the Jersey shore line.

At dawn they were at it again, moving southward, this time along the broad arc where the river swings out around Finn's Point and then inward again toward Salem creek. Behind them, far up the stream, many flat boats came into view. Through his  p147 glass, Barry could see how crowded they were, and catch the glint of sunlight on steel and the bright red of uniforms. The pursuers had left Philadelphia at one o'clock that morning — two battalions of light infantry and two establishments of engineers — but they were still miles behind. The smoke, whipped by a boisterous wind from the northwest, rolled inland, so that visibility on the river was good.

Barry knew his men were tiring. Fatigue was written on the face of those who strained at the oars, and apparent in the stumbling steps of the grimy fellows who plied the torches. By nightfall, the seven boats had reached the mouth of Alloway creek, •some five miles below Salem. Last daylight glimpses showed the enemy rounding the river bend at Finn's Point. The pursuers were coming too close for comfort, and Barry passed the word down the line of boats, calling off the foray.

"Well done, my hearties," he said. "Now make directly across the river to the southern tip of Reedy Island. We'll rest this night at Port Penn."

The exhausted men pulled into the shore at the little Delaware village after midnight, and literally fell asleep on their oars. In the morning, Barry reconnoitred from the shelter of the island, and then penned a jubilant dispatch to Washington.

"I have Destroyed the Forage from Mantua Creek to this place," he wrote. "the Quantity Destroyed is about four Hundred Tons." He would have proceeded farther, he explained, but British boats already lined the Jersey shore. Adding that he was detaining four of Wayne's men to replace hands who "are Rendered Incapable of Proceeding thro' Fatigue," he dismissed the rest of the detachment, and entrusted his letter to Lieutenant Jennings for delivery at Valley Forge.

The hay burning expedition had accomplished what Anthony Wayne had hoped for. Not until the early morning of February 26 did the British force, that was to intercept him, land in New Jersey. It crossed at Cooper's ferry instead of Burlington, two thousand strong, and made for Haddonfield. Before daylight, the town was surrounded, but Wayne had departed. The cattle and forage wagons already had reached Mt. Holly. Between them and the enemy, the forage brigade stood ready to give battle. There was no fighting. The British down-river force returned empty-handed to Philadelphia, on March  p148 1. Next day, the larger body re‑crossed the Delaware from Cooper's ferry. From Mantua to Alloway creeks not a wisp of hay remained on the Jersey shore for British foraging parties to gather.

* * *

Behind the safe shelter of Reedy Island, John Barry observed the British boat expedition give over pursuit, on February 28, and return to Philadelphia. Thereafter, while lookouts at either end of the island maintained constant vigils, the Delaware returned to its former desolate, ice‑caked state. For a week not a sail appeared. At noon, of Saturday, March 7, the spell was broken. A messenger from the lower observation post found the Captain in a tavern at Port Penn.

"Three sail reported off Bombay Hook island headed up, sir," he announced.

Boatswain's whistles shrilled in the streets of the little town, and the men poured from the hospitable homes to man the boats. By the time the flotilla was ready to put off from the piers, more details were received. Two ships, apparently transports, were in the lead, with an armed schooner •about a half mile astern. The Captain rose to his full imposing height as he animated his men. Their chance had come, he told them. There would be no heavy guns on the transports. The advantage of surprise was with the attackers. Stout hearts and cool heads were needed, and some fat prizes would be theirs for the taking.

Eager for the venture, the crews of the seven boats lay tense on their oars, hidden from the quarry by the shoulder of the island. Not until both ships were in mid‑stream opposite them did the Captain give the command to row. The boats shot around the southern tip of Reedy Island, propelled by all the energy of ten eager oarsmen in each. Three boats made directly for the nearer vessel, the other four steered northeast to cut off her consort.

Matthewman, commanding the first division, met no resistance. The transport virtually was unarmed, her crew of fourteen in consternation as the boarders came leaping across the bulwarks. She was the Mermaid, had two swivels, which no one had had presence of mind to use, and was loaded with forage for the army.

 p149  No such easy conquest fell to Barry's lot. The other transport was armed with six 4‑pounders and began to use them. Fortunately, she had no trained gunners. The cannon thundered, but the balls went sailing far over the on‑coming boats. Several times, while the men trailed the oars and steadied the barge, her 4‑pounder barked. Each time the aim was true. Occasionally a bow gun in one of the other boats joined in the clamor. Then all four craft leaped forward in a final daring dash. The sight proved too much for the Britishers. The Union Jack fluttered to the deck as the boarders arrived. Barry took possession, and learned his prize was the ship Kitty, with a crew of fourteen. She, too, was laden with hay.

Two good-sized ships should have been enough for one day's haul. Not for John Barry, though. Below him lay the schooner, her master too bewildered to turn about. What if she were heavily armed? Barry saw glorious opportunity and seized it.

'Parade your boats to starboard," he megaphoned across to Matthewman. "Make toward the schooner, but don't venture too close, and stand by for further orders."

As the Captain explained later, the capture of the schooner could not be accomplished with "Currage allone," as he spelled it. It required also, "a Grate dale of Art." That "Art," with a capital A, he proceeded to demonstrate. Those on board the schooner saw drifting down upon them their late consort Kitty, her 4‑pounders trained, and flanking her, three on one side and four on the other, a gun muzzle pointing their way. Not a shot had been fired. Instead, a white flag of truce was raised above Matthewman's barge, which rowed forward from the line. Barry had passed along instructions which his lieutenant carried out admirably.

"I am empowered by Captain Barry, of the Continental navy, to grant you honorable terms, if you will promptly lower your flag," he hailed the schooner. "You are surrounded. There is no chance to escape. Surrender at once, or no quarter will be given."

It was a brave bluff and it worked. Perhaps the chief reason was the presence on board of three ladies, wives of British officers. The schooner had eight double-fortified 4‑pounders and twelve 4‑pound howitzers for armament, sufficient to blow  p150 Barry's boats to pieces. She carried a crew of thirty-five and a company of artificers. But there was no stomach for fight in her master, Daniel Moore, nor in the lieutenant commanding the engineer detachment. A hasty colloquy on deck, and Matthewman was invited alongside. Articles of capitulation were agreed to. The ladies and their baggage were to be sent to Philadelphia by the first conveyance. The men were to remain prisoners of war until exchanged, and among them would be the pilot, whom Matthewman, recognizing as a turncoat, would far rather have strung to a yardarm.

John Barry ratified the terms a little later, and took formal possession of his Majesty's schooner Alert, in the service of the engineering department of the British army. It was high time the negotiations were concluded, for, down the Delaware a number of sail were in sight, near enough to disclose several men-of‑war among them. With the three prizes in the van, and the tide beginning to ebb, the flotilla put about for the shelter of Reedy Island, and arrived off Port Penn at sunset.

Flushed with victory, the boat crews would have paused to celebrate, but Barry knew every minute was precious. The capture had been observed by the enemy men-of‑war below. While the water behind Reedy Island was too shallow for their deep draft, the distance was not too great for heavy guns. Under cover of a bombardment, cutting‑out parties far outnumbering the defendants could storm the unfortified town and retake the prizes.

A call went out for supporting militia and with them came Nicholson Van Dyke, member of Congress from Delaware. Here was somebody of authority with whom Barry could consult. It was agreed all three vessels should be hauled to the piers and unloaded, with some of the baled hay built into barricades behind which the 4‑pounders from the Kitty could be mounted. The Captain would not hear of disarming the schooner. He had visions of using her as a commerce raider of far more effectiveness than the Effingham's barges, and he wanted her intact.

For further aid in unshipping the cargoes and defending the prizes, he dispatched a petty officer overland to Wilmington, •fifteen miles to the northward, with a message to General Smallwood. If some regulars could be spared him, the enemy might be driven off. Next morning Barry paused to report to the Marine  p151 Committee. In describing his success, he extolled the virtues of the Alert and urged her desirability as a Continental vessel. That letter, received at York, on March 11, by the hand of Lieutenant Cokelys, resulted in an immediate decision to commission the schooner and call her the Wasp, a warm letter of praise to Barry, and an urge to pursue his cruise with "vigour and activity."

All day Sunday, the cargoes of schooner and transports were disgorged upon the piers. In the former was a large assortment of engineering tools and a tremendous mass of correspondence. Among the papers were innumerable letters to British and Hessian officers in Philadelphia, and most of the private records of Captain John Montresor, chief engineer of the British army; records so valuable that their loss in the Alert seriously retarded the settlement of the engineer's accounts with his government twenty‑two years later. Van Dyke agreed to act as prize agent for the boats, and the militia was set to work removing the cargoes inland, and herding the prisoners to a safe distance from the shore. To the master of the Alert and the engineering lieutenant, Barry granted a two weeks' parole to convey the distraught ladies to Philadelphia.

The enemy fleet had been frustrated by the tide from prompt pursuit. Not until toward dark that Sunday did it cast anchor in the stream a little below Reedy Island. From a prisoner, the Captain learned the identity of the vessels — the Experiment, of fifty guns, Captain Sir James Wallace, convoying an Indiaman from Cork with troops; the twenty gun ship LeBrune, and two sloops-of‑war, the Hotham and New York, convoying eight transports from Rhode Island. To this latter fleet the Alert, Kitty and Mermaid had belonged. They had met the Experiment at the Delaware capes, and had outsailed the rest of the vessels up the bay to their sorrow.

By noon Monday, Barry had made the best possible distribution of his slender force, and had emptied the prizes save for most of the hay in the transports. He momentarily expected the attack to open, aware the delay was due only to British caution in avoiding shallows as the LeBrune and the two sloops edged in to bring their guns to bear. He was writing to Washington when the bombardment began at two o'clock in the afternoon, and placidly continued his letter as the guns roared. . . . He had  p152 no manifest as yet of the schooner, but numerous engineering tools were included in her cargo. . . . By the bearer he was sending his Excellency a cheese and a jar of pickled oysters, delicacies he hoped would grace the headquarter's mess. . . . He regretted he could not be particular as the enemy small vessels were attacking and had already obliged him to burn one of his hay ships. . . . He was afraid the other would share the same fate, but he was determined to hold the schooner at all events. John Chilton, a Continental warrant officer, departed with this letter, the great bundle of correspondence found on the fleet, the cheese and the jar of pickled oysters. Before he was beyond sight, flames rose from the second hay ship.

Barry had laid his plans well. He knew the impossibility of repelling the enemy with his slim force. No help had come from Smallwood; merely a silly suggestion to get the prizes into Christiana creek. An obstinate resistance might result in the destruction of the little town of Port Penn, an eventuality he wished to avoid. Hence, once the British launched the bombardment, he prepared to burn the hay ships. He delayed until the boat parties were observed forming, and then gave the signal. Forage makes the best of fuel, and in no time the Kitty and Mermaid, one after the other, were raging infernos. Under cover of the smoke, he, with his barge crew, manned the Alert, cast off from the pier, and stood northward behind Reedy Island.

The gallant effort to save the schooner was doomed to failure. Wily Sir James Wallace, an old hand at river fighting, had anticipated the effort, and had moved the Experiment up the channel toward the island's northern tip. As the Alert came into view, he opened fire. Barry realized the game was almost up. Double-fortified 4‑pounders were no match for the ship‑of-the‑line's long guns. Adding to the odds, the LeBrune, Hotham and New York abandoned the attack on Port Penn and joined in the pursuit. For several hours the Captain endured the cannonade. The schooner was little, a difficult target. Most of the balls churned the water around her, or whistled through her sails. The cannon din was more frightening to the Captain's men than the actual results of the firing. Once they made a dash for the small boat, anxious to launch it and flee to the shore. Barry drove them back to their posts, his "presence of mind  p153 and singular presence" reassuring them. By the time he rounded Reedy point, a little north of the island, all four vessels were peppering away, and the Experiment was gaining hand over hand. Her bowchasers had the range and the splinters were flying.

That was enough. Barry and his twenty men levered each 4‑pounder and howitzer off its mount and overboard. The Alert's bow was jammed hard to port. She went aground off the little village of Hamburg a few miles south of New Castle. The Captain and his hands lowered the small boat, piled over the side and rowed ashore. Sir James Wallace could have the schooner but precious little would be found on board her. Barry's exploit, within the next few weeks, would set the continent ringing his praise.

Little remains to be told of the flotilla. The Captain went back to Port Penn and took command of the barge. He, Matthewman and Captain Collings slipped northward along the shore by night and gained the safety of Christiana creek. Other boats sought hiding places nearby. Captain Wade, the other Pennsylvania boat commander, found shelter in Red Lion creek near Reedy Island, and was surprised and captured a few days later.

The Delaware became alive with enemy shipping. The sloop-of‑war Nautilus and several heavily-armed galleys blockaded the mouth of the Christiana. British naval patrols scoured river inlets to rid the shores of the annoying rebels. Flat-bottomed boats, laden with soldiers, carried Mawhood's expedition down to Billingsport and Salem on a grand foraging tour which ravaged southern New Jersey.

Through the bald of March and early April, Barry's boats perforce remained idle at Wilmington. Once the Captain commanded a detachment that went down to remove hay from below New Castle. Again, on April 6, he journeyed to Middletown, Delaware, to attend the sale of the prize goods, although the engineering tools which Washington had desired for the army, along with about one‑fourth of the cargoes taken from the three vessels, had been stolen by the militia employed to protect them. Aside from these episodes, he was forced to inactivity by British dominance of the river. For all this there was reward in the glowing tribute paid him by the Commander-in‑Chief.

The end came in mid‑April with another letter from his Excellency. Barry had hoped for "one sweep more among them" before spring definitely stopped river boat campaigning. But Washington wrote that Varnum's men must be back in camp by May 1. Would the Captain please see they arrived by that date? Already Smallwood was evacuating Wilmington, recalled to Valley Forge in anticipation of the resumption of military warfare now that winter had ended.

Just when Barry finally left Wilmington is a matter of conjecture. He was still there about April 22, when he wrote the Marine Committee, describing the location of the boats he had hidden up Christiana creek, and advising of the Continental share of his prizes. Presumably he sent Varnum's men to camp about this time, and discharged the volunteer seamen. Matthewman was dispatched on a mission to Sinepuxent, Maryland, and the Captain, early in May, returned to White Hill.

* * *

Bordentown was no longer a center of naval activity. The Navy Board had moved on to Baltimore. Officers and men had been transferred to the Continental vessels in the Chesapeake. Only the hulls of the two frigates, half out of water at low tide, were reminiscent of the preceding fall; the Effingham painfully so, with her crazy list away from the bank. Barry arrived at White Hill in the late afternoon of May 8, and Thomas Read's wife, who had not yet vacated her residence to follow her husband to Baltimore, assigned him the spare bedroom for the night.

Luxurious rest in a feather bed was followed next morning with preparations for a leisurely shave. Barry had lathered his face and was stropping his razor, when his hostess's urgent summons brought him to the bedroom door.

 p155  "The British! They're coming up from the river," Mrs. Read gasped. "Fly quickly, Captain!"

Despite her pleas for him to hasten, Barry was deliberate. He closed the razor, stuck it in his saddle bag, wiped the lather from his face, donned his coat, and slung the bags over his shoulder.

The agitated lady was terrified with fear.

"Fly!' she repeated. "Fly! If you don't go, they'll take you prisoner."

"They won't catch me today," the Captain laughed.

He ran down the stairs, slipped out the back door to where his horse was in readiness and galloped away. The outbuildings hid him from the sight of the enemy, who were coming through the gate and up the walk to the front porch. How Mrs. Read beguiled a British officer to search the house and enjoy a good breakfast, is a pleasant part of the family tradition. But that tradition does not describe what happened that day.

It was the British farewell offensive gesture of their Philadelphia occupation. Flat-boats loaded with the second battalion of light infantry and supported by galleys and gunboats raided White Hill, Bordentown, Crosswick creek and Bristol that event­ful May 9, 1778. Forty-four sail of vessels were destroyed. Among them were the Effingham and Washington, discovered at low tide, and burned to the water's edge. Militia gathered at Trenton, but the expedition, with no intention of venturing that far north, returned unscathed to Philadelphia.

John Barry's reference to that day makes no mention of his narrow escape. He says simply:

White Hill, after all, had been but an overnight stop on his way to Reading and a well-earned furlough with Sarah.

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