p156  XII.

The Epic of the Raleigh

More misfortunes for the Continental navy were concentrated in the months of March, April and May, 1778, than in any other ninety day period in the duration of the war. Ill‑tidings rolled into York with a persistency that submerged the Marine Committee in gloom. Its members became almost fatalistic as they learned of each fresh disaster.

Nicholas Biddle, in the Randolph, was blown to eternity on March 7. Thomas Thompson fled in the Raleigh from two sloops-of‑war, on March 9, and left his consort, the Alfred, to be captured. Hoysted Hacker beached the Columbus in Narragansett bay, on March 27, to escape an enemy fleet and flames did the rest. James Nicholson ran the Virginia on a Chesapeake shoal, on March 30, and the British took her next morning without resistance. John Young wrecked the Independence on Ocracoke bar, about April 24. On May 9, the British burned the Effingham and Washington at White Hill. Four of the new frigates, the two largest ships of the original fleet, and an armed brig wiped off the naval register!

Small wonder Congress authorized the two navy boards to conduct courts of inquiry upon vessels lost or captured, and a delegate wrote in high dudgeon, "Our naval affairs have been conducted shockingly."

Amid this welter of disaster had come, in the same period, one brilliant success — John Barry's achievement with the barges in the Delaware. Thus, to him the Marine Committee turned when it learned that Thompson had brought the Raleigh into Boston. Suspend Thompson "until a full enquiry can be made into his Conduct on the Occasion of the Alfred's loss," and get the frigate ready for sea with expedition were the mandates sent to the Navy Board of the Eastern District.

 p157  A brief note from John Brown spelled the end of Barry's furlough at Reading. It was dated at York, on May 21.

"The Marine Committee having appointed you to the Command of the Frigate Raleigh now in the Port of Boston," wrote Brown, "you will therefore immediately on receipt of this repair hither to receive the Instructions of the Committee."

The Captain packed his saddle-bags, embraced a disconsolate Sarah and rode off. At York, while awaiting orders, he met the Marine Committee's latest protégé, one Pierre Landais, an ex‑French naval officer, who had brought over an ammunition ship and some warm recommendatory letters from the Commissioners in France. The committee, Brown explained, was hanging breathlessly upon the naval wisdom expounded by the Frenchman, who would be signally honored. To do Landais justice, he had arrived at York with no higher ambition than to superintend some ship construction. The recent news of the treaties of alliance and commerce with his homeland had much to do with the unusual attention paid him. At any rate, his destiny had not been fixed, when on May 30, Barry was notified to repair to Boston and take command of the Raleigh.

Highly laudatory was a letter handed the Captain for delivery to the Navy Board. The board would find him "a brave active officer," who would be "very attentive to his duty." It should "put him in possession of the Raleigh," and should get all Continental vessels in the port outfitted and to see collectively to "repair the losses and honor of our navy." Several other letters were also in Barry's custody when he rode out of York, on June 2. One, from William Ellery, Congressional delegate from Rhode Island, remarked that the Raleigh and Warren were to cruise in company, their commanders being brave men, who would not "loose their Ships through Cowardice." Another, from Samuel Adams, extolled Pierre Landais as "highly esteemed" by the Marine Committee.

* * *

A series of courts martial were underway in the main cabin of the Raleigh when John Barry reached Boston, on June 24, after a trying three weeks' journey "at a very great expence." James Warren and John Deshon, the two Navy Board members located there, accepted his credentials, but were loath to  p158 give him immediate possession of the ship. Naval decorum, in their opinion, would not permit them to disturb the august sittings. Also, they were piqued at the Marine Committee for ignoring their recommendations in the appointment of various captains to the naval vessels in port. Particularly, they resented their lack of power to fill vacancies. Warren complained to his old friend, Samuel Adams, that the committee was unreasonable in urging prompt dispatch of vessels when the board was so hamstrung.

"They expect the Raleigh is prepared for Sea," he wrote, "but two days ago a Captain for her Arrived here, and every Body acquainted with Seamen must know they will not Engage in a Ship till they know the Captain." Grudgingly he admitted that, in Barry, the committee had "appointed a Good one," and he hoped the frigate could speedily be manned. The Captain had made a favorable impression despite the board's resentment over alleged affronts from Congress. He could not, however, persuade Warren and Deshon to give him his ship.

While he waited, he had opportunity to familiarize himself with naval matters in Boston. Five Continental vessels were at anchor there, one of which, the frigate Warren, Captain John B. Hopkins, was fully manned and ready for sea. The others, in addition to the Raleigh, were the frigate Deane, Samuel Nicholson; the armed ship Queen of France, John Green, and the brigantine Resistance, William Burke. The Deane, built at Nantes, and the Queen of France, formerly the merchantman LaBrune, had arrived from France in early May. Barry had met Hopkins when the first Continental fleet had outfitted in the Delaware. Green was a Philadelphian, had commanded Willing, Morris & Co. vessels in pre‑war days, and was an old friend. Nicholson, a younger brother of the senior captain of the navy, was known to Barry only by reputation. Burke had been one of the captains in Washington's fleet, in 1775, and his appointment to the Resistance was a Marine Committee act to which the Navy Board had objected.

Most of the Continental officers had been engaged in the courts martial on the Raleigh for some three weeks. John Manley had been tried first, for the loss of the Hancock the previous year, and had been acquitted. Hector McNeill, formerly of the Boston, was now fa­cing his peers on a charge of abandoning  p159 the Hancock to her fate. Thomas Thompson's trial was to follow, and the wind‑up would be a court of inquiry into Hoysted Hacker's misfortunes in the Columbus. As Barry could visualize these proceedings running well into July, and knew the board's desire to get all vessels to sea, he used his powers of persuasion on Warren and Deshon, and finally won their compliance to his repeated requests.

On July 4 — a day celebrated in Boston "with great parade and festivity" — he was notified he could take possession on the morrow. On that same morrow, Warren confided to Samuel Adams that "Capt Barry's Character stands high, and his Conduct is agreeable." Though he was a stranger to New England seamen, the Navy Board foresaw "but little difficulty in Manning his Ship." Less enthusiastic were Warren and Deshon about Pierre Landais. The latter had arrived at Boston, loaded with Marine Committee encomiums and a commission to command the finest frigate in the infant navy — the Alliance, just built at Salisbury and outfitting at Newburyport.

"I am afraid this will be productive of much Confusion and Mischief," Warren said. "He is an Ingenuous and well Behaved Man. You have certainly Exceeded his Expectations if not his wishes, and have you done Justice to some Exceeding good officers, here, who had older Commissions than his, and with their Familys have been starving on their bare pay?"

For the present, with James Warren's pointed question, we will leave Landais and join Barry on the Raleigh.

From the be‑whiskered Sir Walter, whose effigy in wood formed the figurehead, to the twining vines and cherubs decorating the stern and quarter galleries, the 700 ton frigate was a pleasing sight to her new commander. Outwardly she was completely outfitted and armed, but the Captain knew that behind the gunports stood many empty carriages. Her cannon, or most of them, lay at the bottom of the Atlantic, in the vicinity of Barbadoes, where Thompson had heaved them in his flight from the British sloops-of‑war. The Navy Board already had ordered new guns from the foundry at Providence, and had given assurance that, ere many weeks elapsed, the frigate should have her batteries of twenty‑six 12- and six 6‑pounders.

The Raleigh's lines and design were not greatly unlike those of the Effingham, save larger. Whereas his former frigate had  p160 been built to rate twenty-eight guns, the Raleigh rated thirty‑two, but actually was pierced for thirty‑six. Along her •136 foot gun‑deck were twenty‑six ports — thirteen to a side — for her 12‑pounders. There were eight gunports on her quarter-deck and two on her forecastle for the secondary battery. Her beam was •thirty-five feet, and the depth of her hold, •eleven feet, three inches. She was completely rigged, her mainmast towering •some 140 feet above the deck, with fore and mizzen masts slightly lower, and her bowsprit and jibboom extended •about forty feet beyond the figure of Sir Walter. Her main yard had a •seventy feet spread — double her beam. From all accounts, she was a fast sailer, and the mould of her gave credence to such reports.

To Barry's disgust, however, he found that, as it was with the Raleigh's guns, so it was with her stores. Officers and men had been permitted to leave the ship, and each had helped himself to something. The way she had been looted was not at first apparent, as, for a period of ten days, he could find no one to put to work. The few hands on board, mostly marines, were at the beck and call of the gentry in the great cabin, who, having convicted Hector McNeill, were now deep in the trial of Thompson. Until July 15, Barry fumed and fretted, quartering himself in a lieutenant's cabin on the lower deck. Then, having found the verbose and genial Thompson guilty, and Hoysted Hacker not culpable in the loss of the Columbus, the court martial and court of inquiry dissolved. The Captain took possession of his proper quarters and began an inventory. The result prompted a private letter to Robert Morris.

"My first Business was to get an account of the Stores belonging to the different officers," he wrote. "After I completed that I found the ship had been Robb'd of a great many things, which if there is not a stop put to officers leaving vessels when they please, and not to be accountable for their stores is no knowing where the evil will end or what things is on Board a Ship at any time."

Through the balance of July and early August, Barry strove to recruit a crew. Many of the Raleigh's hands signed up for a cruise, but their number did not exceed one hundred. When the rendezvous in Boston failed to produce the requisite force, the Navy Board turned to Connecticut, where the new frigate Trumbull, partly manned, lay useless behind a bar in  p161 the mouth of the Connecticut river. From her they drafted her first lieutenant, David Phipps, and a large detachment of seamen. By mid‑August, the Raleigh boasted a complement of 235 officers and men, including "fifty of General Burgoyne's soldiers" as marines. There were three of her former commissioned personnel on board, all from New Hampshire — Josiah Shackford, second lieutenant; Hopley Yeaton, third lieutenant, and George Jerry Osborne, captain of marines. Among her midshipmen were young Matthew Clarkson, one of Barry's companions in the barge expedition down the Delaware; David Porter, of Massachusetts, who later would sire an American naval hero of the War of 1812, and Jesse Jeacocks, of whom more later.

News had reached Boston, about August 1, of the arrival of the Count d'Estaing with a French fleet off the Delaware. The British had evacuated Philadelphia just in time to avoid meeting him. Congress, as the Marine Committee informed the Navy Board, "has directed us to order all the Continental frigates and armed Vessels within your Department to be immediately made Ready for Sea and dispatched one after an other as soon as each can be prepared, to join the Squadron of france."

That order had spurred naval activity around Boston. The Warren, under Hopkins, had sailed almost immediately. By mid‑August, the brigantine Resistance had gone to sea, and the Alliance, which had come around from Newburyport under Landais, on August 10, was "in great forwardness" save for cannon. As Barry, by a determined trip to Providence, had so expedited his guns that the Raleigh was by now fully armed, despite several cannon that burst in proving, the Navy Board expected her, on August 17, to sail "in two or three days." While awaiting a favorable wind, further word came of d'Estaing's movements.

The fruitless maneuvers of that first French fleet have had frequent historical attention. How D'Estaing appeared off New York and was dissuaded by pilots from attempting the bar; how he sailed to Newport to assist the American army in a managed siege of that British post; and how a gale broke up a major engagement between him and Lord Howe, on August 12, are matters of interest to us solely because they affected John Barry's activity. Learning that the French fleet  p162 intended to refit at Boston, the Navy Board ordered the Raleigh to await its arrival.

D'Estaing's ships limped into port on August 29. They were, said Barry, "in a most shattered condition." British guns and stormy seas had played havoc with the great ships‑of-the‑line. The Boston fortresses and the guns of the Raleigh and Deane saluted the fleur-de‑lis, and Barry, later that day, joined the large group of distinguished gentlemen — civil, military and naval — who wined and dined the admiral and his principal officers at James Cook's palatial residence on Beacon Hill.

"I hope I shall not be obliged to wait till they are ready to Sail," Barry wrote a few days later. "If so the Officers and Men will be very uneasy, but as for my part I am determined to Obey my Orders, let the consequence be what it will."

He would not follow Captain Hopkins's example. That worthy had never joined the French fleet as ordered, but was off on a cruise, acting in a manner which, said Barry, indicated he did not "intend to obey anyone."

Fears of delay ended about September 16, with the receipt of instructions from the Marine Committee. He was to sail on a cruise between Cape Hatteras and Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina, for the express purpose of destroying "certain armed Vessels fitted out by the Goodriches." The cruise was to be so managed that once a week he could put into the Chesapeake and call at Hampton, Virginia, for additional orders. The brigantine Resistance was to accompany him, the committee being unaware that said brigantine had sailed some time before.

The Captain took in his provisions and secured a partial accounting with the Navy Board for expenditures incurred in outfitting. Unmooring from the Long Wharf, the Raleigh dropped down with the tide into King road. There she lay well nigh a week, exceedingly foul of bottom, awaiting a fair wind to make an offing. The breeze swung around to the northwest at dawn of September 25. At six o'clock, the Captain weighed and stood out, a brigantine and sloop under his convoy. The pilot was dropped two hours later. By noon, Sir Walter rose to the lift of the open sea as the frigate, under topgallant and steering sails, ploughed east by south, with Cape Cod about two points off the starboard beam and some twelve miles distant.  p163 Once again, after a lapse of two full years, John Barry was at sea.

* * *

Short, disastrous, but epochal, was that last three‑day cruise of the Raleigh. Just at high noon the first day out, a masthead lookout hailed the deck.

"Two sails to leeward," he sang out, "southeast by south about eight or ten leagues."

Barry focused his glass in that direction, gazed for a moment, and hailed the captain of the brigantine close abeam.

"Two ships in sight," he called. "Make all sail you can after us."

The sloop was some distance astern, so he resorted to signals. As the warning flags mounted aloft, he hauled the Raleigh by the wind, heading to the northward.

"Yon vessels are British cruisers, or I miss my guess," he confided to Lieutenant Phipps, his glass trained upon them. "One's standing to the northward, the other to the southward. We're a great distance to windward, however, and should get clear of them."

He watched intently, his tall body braced to the roll of the frigate. Fears were justified when the ship heading southward tacked about. They were far astern. With the Raleigh close upon a wind well to the northward and night coming on, prospects were not alarming. At sunset, he estimated the nearer of the two to be nine miles distant. Twilight soon blotted them from sight.

With darkness, the wind turned light and variable. He embraced each little puff of air to edge closer in toward land. Earlier he had cleared ship for action and barricaded the quarter-deck rail. The men dozed at their quarters through the night.

A hazy dawn, of September 26, interfered for awhile with vision from the masthead, but, by seven o'clock, the air had cleared and the pursuers were discerned in relatively the same position astern as at sunset the night before. Between them and the Raleigh, a brigantine and schooner lay close together.

"That's the brig which came out with us," avowed Phipps, "but I can't account for the schooner."

 p164  "Nor can I," agreed Barry, "unless she's a tender to one of the ships and has taken our convoy in the night."

That guess was close to the truth. The schooner was the True Blue, tender to his Majesty's ship Rainbow, cruising southward out of Halifax. Had he known this, Barry would not have been puzzled by the subsequent maneuvers.

"We saw the Brigg: stand to the Eastward," he said later, "and the Schooner speak one of the Ships. a few Minutes after we heard several guns fire and supposed them Signals from one of the Ships they being at that time a great distance a stern."

By ten o'clock, the Raleigh was near the coast. The highland of Mt. Agamenticus was in sight eight or nine leagues to the northwest. During the day, the breeze continued light. Their position changed but little, although Barry held to his course. At five o'clock in the afternoon, with Cape Niddock over his port bow about five leagues west-northwest, and the pursuers out of sight, he concluded, "they had quitted Chasing of us."

That conclusion was the gravest error of John Barry's career. He was not aware, however, that in speaking the True Blue, the enemy ships had learned his identity. Nor could he know that one of his pursuers was Sir James Wallace, in the fifty gun ship Experiment — the same captain who had driven him ashore in Delaware bay six months before. Sir James had learned from the captive crew of the brigantine that his former adversary commanded the Raleigh. This information was passed to his consort, the twenty‑two gun ship Unicorn, Captain John Ford. Abandoning chase was farthest from the thoughts of these two British officers.

Portsmouth harbor lay within easy reach a few leagues down the coast, but, under the mistaken impression that he had shaken off pursuit, Barry changed his course away from that haven. East-northeast he steered, from six o'clock in the evening until midnight; then east-southeast until daybreak. He carried moderate sail through the night. The Raleigh averaged six knots an hour. From daybreak until sunrise, on September 27, she lay hove to all sails handed. Then, with nothing visible on the horizon, Barry ordered the sailing master to shake out her canvas, changing his course to south by east, "in order to keep clear of Cape Sable."

Around half-past nine o'clock, the lookout on the mizzen  p165 topmast head reported two sail bearing about south-southwest. Ten minutes later they were visible from the quarter-deck — two ships standing toward them on the wind, which was then at west. The Captain promptly "wore Ship and haul'd the Wind to the N. N. W. with all the Sails the Ship could bear."

With a fresh gale blowing and the Raleigh making better than eleven knots an hour, it looked for awhile as though the pursuers would be outdistanced. By noon, the wind had moderated, and the headmost ship was coming up rapidly, while her contort held her position about nine miles astern. Sir James Wallace had stuck to his purpose. The foremost ship was the Unicorn; the other, the Experiment.

Far ahead, over the Raleigh's bow, appeared a low shore line. As they drew nearer, Barry assembled his officers

"Anybody familiar with the land ahead?" he inquired.

Nobody knew it. Several volunteered the enlightening information that "if they were 15 or 20 Leagues further to the Westward they could carry her into a good Harbour supposing the nearest Land to be the place they took it to be." Inquiries among the men, many of whom had sailed the New England coast for years, produced no better results. To his "great Grief," not a soul on board knew where they were. Even when, around four o'clock in the afternoon, they were close enough to discover the land to be a group of low islands, nobody was the wiser. As there was no safe haven ahead, Barry's decision was to tack to the southwestward and engage the leading ship. His glass showed her to be the smaller of the two. If he could beat her off, he might outdistance her heavier consort and gain one of the harbors of which his lieutenants talked.

Pursuant to his decision, Barry swung his ship into the southwest. The Unicorn was four miles away, but closing in rapidly. At quarter of six o'clock, with the sun setting, the Raleigh crossed the enemy's bow to windward, within gunshot, and the Continental colors were hoisted. Barry estimated his opponent as a twenty-eight gun frigate, and felt "we were a Match for her."

"Give them a gun," he commanded, and, in the next breath, ordered the mizzen sails hauled up to ease the frigate. It was blowing fresh, and he knew he had to conduct the engagement under all the sail he could carry if he hoped to keep a proper  p166 distance from the larger vessel, now identifiable as a two‑decker.

The Unicorn's reply to Barry's challenge was a broadside from her port battery, while St. George's ensign rose to her peak. The roar of her guns was answered by the blast of the Raleigh's 12‑pounders. Crossing each other, with scarce a quarter-mile of water between, each opponent loaded and fired again while the range was good. Before the reverberations of the second exchange had died away, an ominous cracking from forward was followed by shrill cries of warning from the Raleigh's forecastle.

" 'Ware the foretop mast! Stand clear below!"

Barry's heart sank as he saw the mast toppling, split just above the forecap. As it pitched to starboard, it carried with it the main topgallant mast, the jibb and the fore staysail. The snarl of masts, spars, rigging and sail cloth dangling over the side, blanketed four of the guns.

"Board the main tack," Barry snapped. "Clear away wreckage."

His determined voice put courage into all hands, and courage was needed. The disaster had changed the situation in the twinkling of an eye. Instead of showing a clean pair of heels to her pursuers, the Raleigh was at the mercy of her smaller opponent, with the fifty gun ship coming up hand-over‑hand.

Quick to press home his advantage was Captain Ford of the Unicorn. Tacking to port, he ranged up to leeward, and poured in a broadside, while the Raleigh's crew still wrestled with the tangle of wreckage, which had put the frigate "out of command." Men died in that withering fire, and others screamed in anguish as fragments of ball and splinters of wood struck them down. Thirty men were killed or wounded that day on the Raleigh, and most of the casualties occurred in those moments when she was defenseless.

At seven o'clock, the frigate again got into action. Sir James Wallace, from the deck of the Experiment, now but a few miles astern, noted "a violent firing on board both Ships." With the enemy having the weather gage, Barry bore off for a few minutes, and "being disabled so much I thought it impossible to get clear," determined upon an effort to board. There was a chance he might take her before her consort came up. In a twilight punctuated by red flashes of gunfire and darkened by battle  p167 smoke, he ordered the helm to starboard. Captain Ford sensed the purpose and, having full control of the Unicorn, shot ahead and ran rapidly to windward. While the fifty gun ship was blotted out by the night, Barry knew she was close at hand, and that the game was almost up.

"Damn 'em, they'll not get this frigate," he said to Lieutenant Phipps. "I'll run her ashore and burn her."

Suiting the action to the word, he ordered the Raleigh's bow headed to the northwest, toward those islands somewhere off in the darkness. As they came abreast of the Unicorn, the port battery took up where the starboard one had left off. For more than an hour thereafter, they plied their guns, aiming by the flash of their opponent's fire. The Raleigh's cannon found their mark. Until half-past nine o'clock, the Unicorn suffered under a gruelling bombardment. Then Captain Ford, "having both the Main and Mizen Masts dangerously wounded our Stays & running Rigging much damag'd & the Ship making a good deal of Water," dropped astern to refit. Four men, including the first lieutenant of marines, had been killed on the Unicorn, and a large number wounded.

The Captain watched his opponent slip from reach, and concluded that, in addition to being much shattered, she was waterlogged. An exchange of lights and false fires with the approaching two‑decker gave him the impression they were "signals of distress." Momentarily hope rose. Perhaps he could get between the islands, where the enemy would not dare pursue. His main topsail was in ribbons. He ordered it cut away from the yard and another bent. Before the hands could go aloft, the fifty gun ship came abreast of the smaller vessel, passed her, and stood on toward the Raleigh.

It was midnight. For more than six hours Barry had fought an unequal battle. He was not through yet. The land had been sighted a few minutes before, bearing two points off his starboard bow. Now he would pile the frigate upon the beach if it were humanly possible. The rag of a main topsail, he let stand, recalling every man to the guns. His stern-chasers, from the quarter-deck, banged away at the enemy — flea bites to the two‑decker. Then the Experiment ranged abreast and poured in her broadsides, three in rapid succession. To each of them the Raleigh's 12‑pounders replied. Two more broadsides thundered  p168 from the Experiment before she hove in stays. Even then Barry saw opportunity to rake her and grasped it. The Raleigh's guns spoke their final message as her opponent bore up. A moment later, with a slight shiver, the frigate grated along the bottom, and lost motion as her keel bit deep into the sand. For a quarter hour, both British ships maintained a heavy fire. Then they desisted and stood by, a half-mile off shore, to await dawn and an easy conquest.

Save for treachery on the Raleigh, British failure to press advantage home that night would have proved a blunder. To expect John Barry to sit idle on the beached frigate until daylight would enable them to gun him into submission was a bit of egregious folly. Scarcely had the cannonade died down when the Captain launched his boats. As the wind was right ahead, landing was difficult, but, within two hours, every living man had been put on the beach. Evacuation of the frigate was effected in silence. Barry never knew exactly how many of the crew had been killed. There had been no time for a roll call. From figures now available, we know 220 landed, leaving fifteen unaccounted for and, undoubtedly, dead.

In the Captain's mind had been the idea of taking guns ashore and fortifying the island. Hence, he had gone in the first boat and explored it. Alas for such hopes! It was a barren, desolate rock, •less than a mile in length and a quarter-mile wide at the broadest place. There were no signs of habitation. Again he canvassed the crew, and again found that "not a Man on Board knew what island we were on or how far it was from the main."

No alternative remained. He had to destroy the Raleigh and get his crew westward to the New England coast. For both purposes he had three boats. Fifteen wounded hands required better medical attention than the emergency treatment they had so far received. Undaunted, Barry laid his plans as best he could.

Twenty-three men under the master and with Midshipman Jeacocks as second in command were ordered back to the frigate with instructions to prepare combustibles, start a number of fires on board, and then row directly westward for the mainland. In the remaining two boats, he embarked twenty-four men each, including the wounded. He took command of one and had with him Captain Osborne of the marines. In the other  p169 were Lieutenants Shackford and Yeaton. On the island remained Lieutenant Phipps, Lieutenant of marines Jabez Smith and 132 men, including most of the midshipmen and warrant officers. Should the coast prove but five or six miles away, the Captain believed the boats might make several round trips and remove the whole crew by dawn.

Before three o'clock in the morning, the two boats pulled around the northern end of the island and headed into the west. Barry's eyes strained through the darkness ahead, with occasional backward glances, hoping to see the red glare of the Raleigh afire. Nothing happened. On they rowed, the night black before them. Once or twice they came upon land, but found it, each time, merely another small and uninhabited island. In the false dawn, they caught a glimpse of coastline ahead, and, about daybreak, pulled into a rock-bound cove. The hoped for half-dozen miles had lengthened into a far greater distance,

A rudely awakened dweller on the mainland, rubbed sleepy eyes, heard their story and told them they were just south of the mouth of the Penobscot river. From Barry's description, the native identified the spot where the Raleigh had gone ashore as Wooden Ball, one of a group of rocky islands five leagues from the main. Two hours later, the master's boat came in with the news that treachery or cowardice had thwarted the burning of the frigate.

"We laid combustibles, even to a slow train to the magazine," the master explained. "It took several hours. Then I embarked the men, telling Mr. Jeacocks to set the fires and swim off to us. We laid by awaiting him, but heard nary a sound. So we stood closer and saw the few lanterns we had left burning had been doused. I called but got no reply. As dawn was breaking, I thought it best to shove off. About two hours later, when we were well west of the island, we heard a little gunfire. And that's all I know."

John Barry strode to the water's edge, fiercely angry. A more enterprising sailing master would not have permitted such a fiasco. Perhaps he blamed himself for not handling the destruction of the Raleigh personally, yet he could not have anticipated such a result, nor could he have been all places at all times. The only thing remaining to do he did — dispatch the  p170 boats back to Wooden Ball on the chance that some of the crew had concealed themselves on the island and had avoided capture.

Twenty-four hours later, the boats returned with thirteen more of the hands. From these thirteen came the rest of the story. On the morning of September 28, the two British ships had fired at the Raleigh, and Midshipman Jeacocks promptly had hauled down the Continental colors. A flag of truce had summoned the crew to surrender. With no means of defense, Lieutenant Phipps had been forced to comply. Boats from the larger ship had taken them off the island, but the thirteen had found hiding places and were not detected. From their concealment, they had seen the Raleigh hauled off the shoal into deep water at high tide, and manned by a prize crew. The enemy ships were still standing by, evidently because of much needed repairs on the small vessel, when the Raleigh's boats had arrived, the night of September 28, and rescued the hiding men.

The newcomers swelled Barry's party to eighty-five officers and men. With his usual clear-sightedness, he knew just what to do. Provisions were secured from the few dwellers in the neighborhood. The wounded were left in one of the houses under the care of the surgeon. That night the remainder re‑embarked in the three boats and started the long pull down the coast toward Boston.

* * *

Into Boston, on October 7, came Barry and the other survivors of the Raleigh. The tale they told, the warm praise officers and men gave their captain, thrilled the little New England city. James Warren and John Deshon received the Captain's official report, interviewed others in the party, and penned a vivid description of the great sea‑fight for the edification of the Marine Committee.

"Though he has lost his ship," they wrote, "he has gained laurels for himself and honour to his country; perhaps no ship was ever better defended."

They would conform to rule and hold a court of inquiry, but the result was already predictable, for "Capt. Barry's conduct is highly approved of here, and his officers and men are greatly  p171 pleased with him." In conclusion, they urged his talents be rewarded by immediate appointment to the new frigate soon to be launched at Norwich, Connecticut.

General Nathaniel Greene, leaving Boston a day or two later, took to Washington's headquarters a glowing story of how Barry had fought "with his usual bravery." In the Boston news­papers appeared a detailed account of the engagement written by Captain Osborne, and this tribute to Barry's intrepid conduct was widely reprinted in the press of other cities. Confirmation of the desperate encounter came shortly after from British sources with the arrival of the Experiment, Unicorn and Raleigh at New York. The latter had been taken into the British navy under her original name, while the Unicorn, greatly damaged in hull and rigging, lay "in a careen, with both masts taken out."

The court of inquiry was held in Boston. Barry was, as he expressed it, "Honestly acquitted." To the Navy Board's suggestion, that he await a decision from Philadelphia about the new frigate, he turned a deaf ear. Recalling the board's lack of influence the previous summer, he doubted the success of its effort. On October 15, he set out for home. It was well he did. On the way south, he passed an express for Boston. The express carried a letter from the Marine Committee. Captain Barry's spirited and gallant behavior, the committee wrote, "has done honor to the flag," but, unfortunately, the command of the new frigate at Norwich — the Confederacy, they intended to call her — had already been given to Captain Seth Harding. This worthy had never before held a Continental commission, but he had what was more essential — political influence. As we have seen, influence counted mightily in those days, too.

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