p87  VII.

Powder and Prey

When the Lexington wound her way through the chevaux-de‑frise to reach Philadelphia on May 5, John Barry learned his "cruise against the English pirates" (as one editor termed it) had made him famous. Even the most sanguine members of the Marine Committee had not anticipated such spectacular success would attend the hastily outfitted little brigantine. That Barry had captured a well-armed tender, given safe convoy off the capes to a number of merchantmen, and eluded an enemy fleet were matters discussed freely in Congress and coffee house. How completely he had outwitted one of England's best sea captains, however, was not then, nor later, understood or appreciated. Had it been, his reputation would have been more enhanced.

By contrast with the accomplishments of Hopkins' fleet, Barry's achievements were outstanding. The former, on his return from New Providence, had failed to grasp a golden opportunity for fame. The Continental squadron had engaged a single British war vessel, the Glasgow, of twenty guns, and permitted her to escape. First accounts of this engagement had been glowing enough to lead John Adams to wish a correspondent "joy of the Admiral's success." Later reports contained many disparaging remarks about the commodore's ability. The further fact, that the Continental fleet was lying idle in New London, Connecticut, while Lord Dunmore continued to flourish in the Chesapeake, had already raised the question of orders disobeyed. As against the growing doubts about Hopkins, Philadelphia recognized that in John Barry it had found a naval captain to be admired and toasted.

Short-lived, however, was the exuberance over the cruise of the Lexington. Twenty-four hours after Barry's arrival, the  p88 rebel capital seethed with excitement upon another subject. Two of the frigates at the cape had started up the river!

"About twelve, alarmed by accounts of the men-of‑war coming up," recorded a militant Quaker diarist. "Our alarm gun was fired, the flag hoisted; sundries much alarmed."

Of the ascent of the Roebuck and Liverpool to above Wilmington, of the long-range battles between them and the row-galleys on May 8 and 9, and of their return to their station with a better appreciation of Philadelphia's water defenses, much has been written. As John Barry's part in the whole affair was slight, we shall recount only that phase of it wherein he participated.

The Lexington had gone into the Continental shipyard for a new foremast and other repairs. Joshua Humphreys had been urged to speed, but it was apparent the brigantine would not be ready for at least a week. Instructing Barry to await developments, the Marine Committee centered its attention upon supplying Captain Wickes, of the Continental ship Reprisal, with ammunition. The Reprisal was above the chevaux-de‑frise at Liberty Island, forming, with the State ship Montgomery and a floating battery, a second line of defense. The schooner Wasp had slipped into the Christiana river at Wilmington to escape the frigates, and the Hornet, which had been pulled off Egg Island flats, was, like the Lexington, undergoing repairs at Philadelphia.

A cry for more men had come from the second line on May 8. The Reprisal and Montgomery had depleted their personnel to reinforce the galleys farther down the river. As usual, the initiative in the Marine Committee was taken by Robert Morris. His order to Barry was dispatched before noon. The captain was to collect his officers and men and proceed down to the Montgomery, reporting to Captain Thomas Read, who, "by Special Commission, is the Commander at the Chevaux de Frieze." The Lexington's crew was to be used to fill up gaps on the State ship, the Reprisal and the battery.

"We expect the utmost exertions from you, your officers and Men in defending the Pass at Fort Island," Morris directed. At the last moment, the Hornet was found fit to sail, so a postscript was added urging Barry to put his crew on board her. Seventy hands from the Lexington and her own crew of twenty- p89 five jammed the Hornet to the gunwales. The heavily-freighted little sloop reached the Montgomery about dawn of May 9, and found conditions chaotic. Read had not heard from the first line of defense for twenty-four hours. The State ship's magazine had been emptied of powder, her crew skeletonized to reinforce the galleys. On top of that a committee from Committee of Safety and numerous gentlemen volunteers were nullifying the captain's efforts to establish some order. Transferring his crew to the Montgomery, Barry sent a messenger off post-haste.

"I think if the Lexington was Fited out to Come Down she might be of service, for the More thare is the Better," he wrote to Morris. Then, the excitement seems to have communicated to him also. His note becomes incoherent. "If you think I shall be of More service heare than up, I think she Might be fited by some boddy up, then some of the Carpenters ought to be up than."

Perhaps Morris knew what was meant. However, getting the Lexington ready in time was impossible, so it really didn't matter. Nor was the brigantine necessary, for that night the Roebuck and Liverpool beat a prudent retreat down the river. The galleys followed as far as Newcastle, but Barry and his crew returned, on May 11, to a Philadelphia which again breathed easily.

One result of the British foray had been to paralyze shipping activities on the Delaware. Reinforcement of the Roebuck by the Liverpool (the Fowey had sailed for Virginia) had made navigation through the capes extremely perilous. To get delayed merchantmen safely to sea became a problem resting squarely in the lap of the Marine Committee. All the vessels were ladened with produce for France, Holland, or the French or Dutch West Indies, to be exchanged at the ports of destination for powder and other warlike stores. Likewise, inbound shipments, of which many were expected, had to be herded safely past the blockading frigates.

Fortunately, the committee's naval strength had been augmented by the return of the Wasp and Hornet and the acquisition of the Reprisal. Sole dependence was no longer upon Barry, in the Lexington, although he had been a host in himself during April. With four vessels instead of one, a comprehensive  p90 plan of operations was formulated. The quartet of Continental vessels were to base upon Cape May, where they would be safe from molestation by the frigates and of sufficient strength to cope with tenders or cutting‑out parties. From this vantage point, they were to maintain a patrol within and without the bay, give fair warning to inbound vessels to enter the Cape May channel only and by night, and provide fair offing to outbound merchantmen. Likewise, they could afford convoy, if needs be, up the bay to cargoes containing gunpowder, and harass the enemy frigates.

Carrying out this plan devolved upon John Barry, who, as senior captain, became the squadron commander. Its execution depended upon how soon the four vessels could be assembled under Cape May. Barry's resistless energy was put in play as soon as he got back to Philadelphia. By May 17, he had the Lexington out of the Continental shipyard, and had conducted a success­ful rendezvous in the city. He was popular and the Lexington was considered a lucky vessel. Men flocked in to sign up for a cruise, and among them was another John Barry, who appears in the brigantine's roster as "John Barry Serjant," born in Ireland. He was the first of four additional John Barrys, who, in the course of the Captain's career, appear for a brief period and then vanish into oblivion.⁠a Of this sergeant of marines little is known. He enlisted May 13 and served faithfully. He, with the others enrolled at that time, swelled the personnel to a full crew of 110 officers, men and boys.

Far better armed and manned than he had been in March, John Barry dropped down the river in the Lexington, passed through the chevaux-de‑frise and joined the Reprisal at Chester, on May 21. Captain Hallock, who had been promoted in mid‑April from the Wasp to the Hornet, came down the next day. There was delay securing bay pilots at Chester, but, finally, the three vessels proceeded cautiously southward. On Saturday morning, May 25, they hove to in the shelter of Cape May, where the Wasp awaited them.

Charles Alexander, who had succeeded Hallock on the Wasp, and who, like Barry, boasted no greater naval training than as a shipmaster out of Philadelphia before the war, came on board the Lexington to report the situation.

"The Roebuck has gone," he said. "They tell me she sailed a  p91 week ago. Yon frigate in Whorekiln road is the Liverpool. Yesterday she took a prize — a snow with a white ensign and a bunch of red or yellow stripes. Appears to be in ballast and none hereabouts have ever seen her before."

Barry viewed the enemy and gave Alexander an assignment:

"If the breeze holds, you might reconnoitre over toward Henlopen. Take no risks, and report back what you find."

That afternoon the Wasp stretched across the bay, approaching as near as she dared to the enemy, and by dusk was again at Cape May with no additional information. At dawn of May 26, however, the frigate and her prize were gone from their station. Here was opportunity to contact Colonel Fisher, at Lewes, and Barry grasped it. He and Alexander, warily watching to seaward, tacked across the mouth of the bay, and dropped anchor near the lighthouse. Henry Fisher came off to them in a small boat, a figure picturesque in appearance and in vocabulary.

"Scared her off, you did, Cap'n," he told Barry. "She sailed after midnight with her prize. Bound for Virginia, I'll venture."

While Barry scarcely believed his tiny fleet had frightened a twenty-eight gun frigate, he refrained from spoiling the colonel's little conceit, and sought information about the prize. Fisher had not been able to place her.

"Success to you in your quest of the pirate," was the colonel's parting comment, as he set off for the shore, "I make no doubt you'll give a good account of her."

"Don't be expecting too much," Barry called after him. "Remember, Colonel, four and six‑pounders are scarce a match for long nines."

How wide of the mark was Fisher's prediction that the Liverpool had fled through fear, they learned when they got back to Cape May. Lying besides the Reprisal and Hornet was a large ship. Wickes reported her as the Juno, prize to the privateers Congress and Chance. She had been chased by the Liverpool that afternoon, but had gotten past the Overfalls where the enemy was afraid to follow. Her cargo was a rich one, and Barry ordered the Wasp to convoy her up the bay.

So the frigate was lurking off shore, eh? Well, that raised a possibility! Weighing before dawn, Barry, in company with  p92 Wickes and Hallock, reconnoitred toward cape Henlopen. The trio stood halfway across the bay and tacked to port, running out to sea for a short stretch and then veering northward. What Barry had in mind was disclosed shortly after daybreak, when they spotted the Liverpool off to the northeast. Their way back to Cape May was clear, but there was no haste to rush for safety.

To Henry Bellew, captain of the Liverpool, it seemed a God‑given opportunity to finish off the three rebel vessels. He would learn, as had Captain Hamond, that John Barry was a slippery customer, with more tricks than an earnest British sea captain could fathom. The Liverpool charged in from the sea, Bellew noting with exultation that he was gaining upon his quarry. To his astonishment, he saw them heave to. So they meant to give battle? Fine! He would be ready!

"Clear ship for action," he commanded, and the Liverpool, bristling to the teeth, rushed closer upon the foolhardy rebels.

That was what John Barry had been angling for. He watched the on‑coming frigate with a calm eye, judged her speed accurately and, at eleven o'clock, ordered his consorts to make sail behind the Overfalls. The weather was a bit hazy and Bellew, in his anxiety to destroy these pesky rebels, threw caution to the wind. Forget­ful, disdain­ful of the shoals, the frigate pursued hard on the heels of the flying brig, ship and sloop. Bellew almost had them, or thought he had, when a warning cry from the leadsman brought him to his senses.

"Four fathoms! Sandy bottom" piped that worthy.

On the Lexington, John Barry swore as he saw the Liverpool shorten sail. Another few minutes and the king's frigate would have run hard on the Overfalls.

It was with a new appreciation of his opponents that Bellew extricated his ship from her precarious situation.

"They drew me upon the Over falls," he recorded, "but having a Good Pilot I escaped touching the Ground, and they got into the road again, where is not more than •fifteen feet Water."

That episode, however, disclosed to Barry that the Hornet was a leaky, untrustworthy craft. Henceforth he kept Hallock at anchor under the cape. As the Liverpool had disappeared again from the mouth of the bay (a fruitless chase of several sail had lured her more than a hundred miles southeast of Cape  p93 Henlopen), he seized the opportunity to send the Reprisal to sea as convoy to several merchantmen. Wickes had orders to get back within ten days.

The task of patrolling the entrance now was concentrated in the Lexington, but Barry was equal to it. And he had a new opponent, the British sloop-of‑war Kingfisher, Captain Alexander Graeme, which sailed into Whorekiln road on the afternoon of June 6, coming from Halifax, to which the British fleet and army had repaired after the evacuation of Boston in March. Next morning, the Liverpool came back. Not much a little brigantine could do in the face of such odds. Maybe not, but Barry did not view it in that light.

Clearing Cape May around noon on June 7, he stood to sea, on the lookout for incoming vessels. Far to the southeast, he saw the Kingfisher coming out from the Whorekiln road, and off due east was visible a strange sail. Lexington and Kingfisher stood alike for her, but Barry had the short leg of the triangle, and came up about five o'clock in the afternoon. She was a brig, Walker, master, from Cape Nicola Mole º for Philadelphia with a cargo of salt, together with a small quantity of powder and some stand of arms. As the brig was sluggish and had no chance of escape, Barry boarded her, transferred the arms and every ounce of powder to the Lexington, and offered to take the master and hands on board. Walker refused. He did not like the idea of deserting his vessel, and preferred taking his chance as a prisoner. His hands stayed with him.

"Best of luck to you," Barry called, as the Lexington veered off. "That sloop's the Kingfisher, and they'll be a bit angry to have the prime part of the cargo lifted under their noses."

He stood off in the gathering darkness. An hour later, the Kingfisher took the brig. Towing her back toward Henlopen the next day, Captain Graeme noted "the rebel Brig at Anchor to the Wt Wd." Barry lay there for an hour, awaiting some hostile move from the enemy. None came. In the early evening of June 7, he weighed and sailed back to Cape May. Inside the roadstead he found the Reprisal. Wickes had returned from his convoy cruise without incident to report worthy of mention. Over on the Liverpool, Captain Bellew was viewing the situation differently.

"There has been some time past laying in Cape Mary [sic!  p94 May] road a large Privateer Ship of Eighteen Eighteen Pounders, a Brig of Sixteen Sixes and Fours and a Sloop of Ten Six Pounders," he wrote to his superior at Halifax. "I believe Captain Hamond informed you of my very great misfortune in having been taken by the Rebel Privateer, now in my Sight, my Tender with a Lieutenant & Twenty Nine Men."

Not only was Bellew, in his reference to the captured tender Edward, indicating growing respect for an elusive enemy, he was also grossly exaggerating the armament of his opponents.

* * *

At the State House in Philadelphia, on June 6, the Continental Congress confirmed a Marine Committee recommendation that John Barry be appointed captain of one of the four frigates building at that port. No need for Robert Morris's influence to bring the Captain this honor. His own achievements in the Lexington were in themselves sufficient. All thirteen frigates were officially named that day, and captains were assigned to nine of them. Our chief concern is the quartet on the ways along the Delaware, and the appointees to them. The four captains, in the order of seniority, were Nicholas Biddle, John Barry, Thomas Read and Charles Alexander. Their vessels were the Randolph, of thirty‑two guns; Effingham, of twenty-eight; Washington, of thirty‑two, and Delaware, of twenty-four. But the order of their building progress was Randolph, Delaware, Washington and Effingham. In other words, Barry's Effingham would be the last to be launched, and, in June, she was still months from completion.

Of the four captains, Thomas Read and Charles Alexander were in Philadelphia. The former resigned from the State ship Montgomery at once to accept his Continental commission. Alexander left the Wasp to her first lieutenant, John Baldwin, and remained in the city until he should be called formally to the Delaware. Nicholas Biddle was cruising in New England waters in the brig Andrew Doria, still, nominally, a part of the sadly disintegrated Hopkins squadron. Barry, as we have seen, was matching wits with the enemy blockaders at the mouth of the Delaware.

News of his good fortune reached him on June 13, when the Wasp came down the bay with fresh orders concerning the  p95 little fleet under Cape May. Wickes was to be detached to convoy to Martinico a newly appointed agent from Congress, William Bingham, who had come passenger to the cape in the schooner under her new commander, Lieutenant Baldwin. Barry was to remain on the station in the Lexington awaiting subsequent instructions. For consort he would have the Wasp only, the Hornet being ordered up to the city for repairs. Apart from this was a letter from Robert Morris, acting on behalf of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety. It urged him to be on the watch for the brigantine Nancy, Captain Hugh Montgomery, soon due at the capes with a cargo of powder and arms shipped clandestinely at St. Croix and St. Thomas.

Early departure of the Reprisal was frustrated by a British reinforcement. The frigate Orpheus, Captain Charles Hudson, had cast anchor in Whorekiln road on June 11. For a week, the Liverpool, Kingfisher and Orpheus maintained a cordon across the mouth of the bay. When the Liverpool sailed for New York, the two remaining vessels continued active, the Orpheus off Henlopen and the Kingfisher off Cape May, and each fitted out an armed tender. As the weather was moderate and fair, visibility was high and any move on the part of the Continental vessels could be detected quickly. Barry urged Wickes to await a more favorable opportunity for departure, pointing out that when he did sail, he could give convoy to a number of merchantmen collecting under the cape.

June wore on and the merchant fleet increased in numbers until there were seventeen sail of vessels in the roadstead — the three Continental and fourteen others, laden with cargoes for France and the West Indies. That Barry's advice was good is borne out by the log of the Kingfisher. Captain Graeme kept his glass trained almost constantly upon them. "Saw fifteen sail at anchor under Cape May," he recorded at noon of June 27, and the next morning amplified this with "saw 18 Sail of Pirates and Merchantmen at anchor."

The lookout on the cape sent an urgent message to John Barry at dusk of that same day. There was a brigantine about five leagues due east, standing in toward shore, and both the Kingfisher and Orpheus were under sail toward her from the southward. A hasty council of war on the Lexington resulted in that vessel and the Wasp putting out to the assistance of the  p96 stranger. The winds were too light for the Reprisal to join them, but her barge, under Wickes's younger brother, Richard, set off in their wake. Darkness intervened when they were some three miles off shore, and Barry decided to wait out the night at anchor.

Gray dawn disclosed the brigantine to the northeast, heading in for the shore with the Orpheus and Kingfisher in hot pursuit. Neither the Lexington nor the Wasp could be of any aid, but there was opportunity for the Reprisal's barge. Barry gave young Wickes quick orders:

"Board her if you can. Tell her captain to run close in shore. Keep them in play until we can reinforce you."

While the barge set out, the Lexington and Wasp stretched back into the read. Scarcely had they dropped anchor when Barry ordered out his own and the Wasp's barges, and took personal command of the expedition. Rumbling fire came to them out of the northeast when they rounded Cape May. Bending hard to the oars, the boat crews sent their heavy craft now along the coast. The sun was rising when they came upon the brigantine, fast aground in Turtle Gun Inlet, some three miles north of the cape, the frigates and tenders playing upon her with all the guns they could bring to bear, but at too great a distance to be effective.

Barry leaped to the vessel's deck, and was met by Robert Wickes and the master of the brigantine.

"Hugh Montgomery, by the powers," he exclaimed, for here was an old acquaintance, "so 'tis the Nancy, eh?"

"We got through in the barge, Captain," Lieutenant Wickes reported, "with them firing at us every minute. When I learned 'twas the Nancy, I deemed it best to run her ashore, so we could take out the powder."

"You did well, lad," Barry replied. "Now, take the boats and start emptying her. We'll keep boarding parties off."

Meanwhile, the Kingfisher, of lighter draft than the Orpheus, had closed in until her heavy guns were within range. The two tenders flanked her. Under cover of a concentrated fire, most of which passed overhead, the sloop-of‑war launched four boats. The Nancy was armed with six 3‑pounders. These were manned by the men from the Lexington, the brigantine's crew of eleven and the hands from the Reprisal and Wasp being employed  p97 in transshipping the powder. Barry directed the fire, which was so effective that, after a half-hearted effort, the boarding party returned to the Kingfisher. By this time, the Orpheus had edged closer, anchoring finally in about •six and one‑half fathoms of water, and announcing her presence with a fusillade from her 9‑pounders.

The cannonade arose to a wild crescendo and the British guns were now being well directed. How any one lived on the doomed brigantine is hard to comprehend. She was literally being blasted from the water, hull riddled, spars and sails shot away, mainmast sheered a few feet above the deck, caboose crushed beneath the impact of the heavy balls, and her bulwarks gashed and splintered.

Barry dared hold his men no longer on the wreck of the once trim brigantine, yet but 265 of her 386 half-barrels of gunpowder had been removed. Well, if the balance could not be saved, it would never fall into British hands. Hellene and Captain Montgomery started a quantity of powder in the cabin, ran a train of it to the hold and another to the deck, where they improvised a time fuse. It was a simple, but risky, contrivance, made by pouring fifty pounds of powder in the mainsail and wrapping it into as many folds as possible. Then, with all hands safely in the remaining boat under the brigantine's lee, the two captains dropped red hot coals on top of the canvas and fled over the side.

Fortunately for them, the contraption worked, as there was delay when one daring but foolhardy seaman rushed back on board, swarmed up the tottering foremast, wrenched loose the flag of the Grand Union, and leaped into the sea. From the stranded brig to the shore was but a few hundred yards. They made the distance in safety, having paused long enough to haul the savior of the flag into the boat. Landing, they joined the others whose muskets were plumping away at a new cutting‑out party. This time the Kingfisher and Orpheus had sent off five boats, and the British tars stuck to their oars despite the musketry fire. Well in the lead was the Kingfisher's long-boat. She reached the Nancy and her crew — a master's mate and six seamen — leaped upon deck with an exultant cheer.

At that moment, the powder train flared downward into the hold. The brigantine blew up with a detonation which, a chronicler  p98 of the episode declares, "was heard •forty miles above Philadelphia." With her, in that shattering blast, went the seven men from the Kingfisher, blown to bits, and leaving such gruesome mementoes as "two laced hats and a leg with a garter." Oars shattered, men wounded, the surviving boats pulled slowly back. Until they reported to their respective ships, the enemy guns were silent. Then they broke forth anew in a furious cannonade of the shore line.

Only one of the cannon balls that swept the beach found a victim. He was young Robert Wickes, shot mortally through the arm and body. Lambert Wickes, coming across the cape with reinforcements from the Reprisal, arrived as the lad breathed his last.

John Barry laid his hand on the shoulder of the grieving brother.

"A braver man never lived," he said in simple consolation.

By then it was noon of June 29, and the engagement had ended. The enemy ships drew off, Graeme of the Kingfisher, and Hudson, of the Orpheus, having learned, as had Hamond and Bellew before them, that John Barry was a hard man with whom to deal. The powder was carted across to the roadstead and sent up the bay in the Wasp. The barges returned around the cape. Only the floating debris in the inlet gave evidence of the desperate battle.

On Sunday, June 30, in the meeting house yard at Cape May, with bowed and uncovered heads, Barry and his fellow officers heard preached "a very deceant Sermon," as the body of Richard Wickes was laid at rest.

"We have this consolation," wrote Lambert Wickes on July 2, "that he fought like a brave Man & was fore most in every Transaction of that Day this is confessed by Captn Barry whome was present all the Time."

* * *

Because, in its opinion, "our coast is now lined with Men of war of too great force for you to Cope with," the Marine Committee on July 2, had determined to order John Barry on a cruise. To the committee, sitting some seventy miles away from the mouth of the Delaware, it appeared that Barry could be of little use if he remained "cooped up at Cape May." Four British  p99 captains would scarcely have subscribed to this belief, for they had found that coping with the elusive and resource­ful Barry was beyond their abilities, and that, at no time, had they had him "cooped up" anywhere.

However, with the misconception it had, and as Barry's frigate was not yet launched, the committee, in ordering a cruise, told the Captain that it was "a piece of Justice due to your Merit," and that it hoped "fortune may favour your industry and reward it with some good prizes." The cruising ground was left to his discretion. He could remain at sea one or two months, and, as the new Continental sloop Sachem was also bound on a cruise, he might choose to sail in concert with her.

The instructions were placed in the hands of Captain Isaiah Robinson, of the Sachem, who sailed from Philadelphia on July 6, and delivered them two days later at Cape May. The Lexington was alone in the roadstead, the Reprisal having sailed on July 3, convoying the merchant fleet and bound for Martinico.

Barry cast an appreciative eye over the Sachem. They had done a good job in reconditioning his prize. She still had the old lines of the Edward, but she was no longer the shattered sloop he had sent in almost two months before. He wanted no cruising in concert, however. Experience had shown that small armed vessels could operate more success­fully single-handed. As his orders merely suggested a joint cruise, he proposed to Captain Robinson that they keep together only until they had cleared the cape, and then seek their fortunes separately. On July 10, brigantine and sloop stood to sea. That day the Kingfisher was enroute to New York, and the Orpheus lay at anchor six leagues southeast of cape Henlopen, so their departure was unobserved.

Parting from the Sachem some distance off Cape May, Barry stood east by south, giving the shore a wide berth. He had selected for his hunting ground an area extending from off the Virginia capes to the latitude of Hatteras, but for more than two weeks he met nothing in the way of a sail. By then he was in latitude 35° 15′ north, and about a hundred miles northwest of Bermuda.

In the early morning of July 27, a lookout reported a sail  p100 off to leeward, and, a little later, shouted that the distant vessel had turned in her tracks and was fleeing from them before the wind. Then began a long, stern chase, from six o'clock until noon, when the quarry, a sloop of above fifty tons burden, came within range. Barry opened fire with his bow guns, but his first shots passed over her. She replied with a single small cannon which was poked out of the stern cabin window. Twice she yawed, bringing several after guns of slightly heavier metal to bear, but her aim was bad. Both times, Barry hove up and returned the compliment with a broadside. In each maneuvre, the Lexington gained, until, shortly after two o'clock in the afternoon, she ran up alongside the sloop, whose master popped out on the poopdeck crying:

"Quarter! We surrender! Quarter!"

"What ship is that?" Barry demanded.

"The Lady Susan, William Goodrich, master, from Bermuda to Virginia," was the reply. Goodrich's own account of his reception is humorous.

"When carryed on board of the Brig Capt. Berry receivd us with A Grate deal of Joy," he wrote" giveing me a harty welcom on board of the Lexenton Saying that he never was gladder to see any man in all his life, altho we neaver Saw each other before."

Goodrich failed to appreciate the irony in Barry's greeting, for, in taking the Lady Susan, he knew he had grabbed one of the little fleet with which the hated Lord Dunmore had been harassing the rebels in the Chesapeake. Also, he knew that William Goodrich was one of the sons of the notorious Tory shipmaster John Goodrich. The Lady Susan had been dispatched to Bermuda, where her master was to purchase an eighteen gun brig, but no such vessel had been available. She was returning when Barry happened upon her. Eight 4‑pounders and the 3‑pounder which had been fired from the cabin window comprised her armament. Her crew numbered ten, and seven of them that day severed their allegiance to Dunmore and signed on the Lexington. Among them was a lad, who would later rise to fame in the American naval service — Richard Dale of Virginia, who accepted a berth as master's mate. A prize crew sailed the sloop off that night. Without mishap, the Lady Susan  p101 passed through the Delaware capes, reaching Philadelphia on August 2, where the news­papers announced that Barry had captured a privateer commanded by "another of those infamous Goodriches, of Virginia."

For more than a month thereafter, Barry's luck seemed to have failed. Finally, near the end of August, some distance northeast of Cape Charles, they bore down upon a small sloop. As they neared her, the Lexington raised an English Jack, and, under false colors, swept alongside.

"Ahoy, there," Barry called. "This is the Asia's tender out of New York. Who are you?"

The master and hands of the sloop raised a glad cheer.

"The Betsy, Samuel Kerr, master," came the relieved reply. "From Virginia with supplies for the fleet."

Loud laughter rang from the deck of the Lexington, as Barry proclaimed their real identity.

"This is the Lexington, in the service of the Continental Congress. We'll take charge of your supplies, my hearty."

A discomfited Tory master, so dumfounded that his consternation even amused the captive William Goodrich, promptly surrendered his vessel. Barry put a strong prize crew on board, pla­cing Goodrich also on the sloop, and directing the prizemaster to deliver both skippers to the Pennsylvania Councilº of Safety. Good fortune attended this second prize, which arrived at Philadelphia, on September 5.

The Lexington's cruise came near ending fatally about two weeks later. In the height of a violent storm, lightning struck the little brigantine. Every man on duty at the time "was prostrated senseless." Barry, leaping from his cabin, had all hands piped on deck and the vessel under control by the time the victims began to recover. Temporary shock wore off quickly, but the damage to the Lexington's rigging was too extensive for anything but emergency repairs. Thereafter, they limped for the Delaware, found the capes free of enemy frigates, and stood up the bay,

On September 26, the Lexington anchored off Philadelphia, and two days later Barry relinquished command of the brigantine he had made famous. His account of his services upon her consists of a modest summing up in a single sentence. He  p102 "Cleared the Coast of all Small Cruisers that was out on it by taking some of them and Keeping the others in port Alltho at that time there was a forty fore gun ship and two Frigates of the Enemy in the Capes."

Such brevity fails to do his accomplishments justice.

---

Thayer's Note:

a Appendix, p494.

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