Active	Commander John Foster Williams
Sloop-of-War	13 October 1777-18 November 1777
Massachusetts Privateer Brig [Brigantine]

Commissioned/First Date:	13 October 1777
Out of Service/Cause:	18 November 1777/captured by HM Frigate Mermaid

Owners:

(1) Nehemiah Somes, Jacob Williams et al of Boston, Massachusetts; (2) Charles Sigourney and James Foster Candy, both of Boston, Massachusetts

Tonnage:

85

Battery:

Date Reported: 13 October 1777 Number/Caliber  Weight        Broadside 12/ Total: 12 cannon/ Broadside: 6 cannon/ Swivels:

Crew:

(1) 13 October 1777: 71 [total] (2) 18 November 1777: 64 [total]

Description:

Officers:

(1) First Lieutenant Samuel Laha, -18 November 1777; (2) Second Lieutenant George Little, October 1777-18 November 1777; (3) Master George Wayland, -18 November 1777; (4) Second Mate Ezra Johnson, -18 November 1777; (5) Prize Master Stocker Rees, -18 November 1777; (6) Prize Master Enoch Pierce, -18 November 1777; (7) Captain of Marines Cuthbert Englesby, -18 November 1777; (8) Surgeon John Sprague, -18 November 1777

Cruises:

(1) Boston, Massachusetts to sea, [15] November 1777-18 November 1777

Prizes:

Actions:

Comments:

The 85-ton¹ Massachusetts Privateer Brig (or Brigantine) Active was commissioned on 13 October 1777 under Commander John Foster Williams of Boston, Massachusetts. She was listed as being armed with twelve guns and as having a crew of seventy men. Her $5000 Continental bond was signed by Williams and by Jacob Williams and Nehemiah Somes, both of Boston. The last two were listed as her owners,² along with other residents of Boston.³ Williams gave bond on 8 November 1777, not to enlist certain sailors. The £2000 Massachusetts bond was signed by Williams and by Charles Sigourney and James Foster Candy, both of Boston. The owners are listed as Sigourney and Candy.⁴

Samuel Laha served aboard as First Lieutenant,⁵ George Little was aboard as Second Lieutenant,⁶ George Wayland served as Master,⁷ Dr. John Sprague served aboard as the Surgeon,⁸ Ezra Johnson was aboard as Second Mate, Stocker Rees and Enoch Pierce served as Prize Masters, and Cuthbert Englesby as Captain of Marines.⁹

On the morning of 18 November Active was about 228 miles south of Cape Sambro, Nova Scotia (39°52'N) when she was sighted by HM Frigate Mermaid (Captain James Hawker). Mermaid chased at 0800 and was close enough to open fire at 1300. After a few shots Foster hove to at 1330.¹⁰ At 1600 sixty-four¹¹ prisoners were removed to the Mermaid and a prize crew sent aboard Active.¹² Eight foreign born sailors promptly joined Mermaid’s crew.¹³ The remainder were delivered to HMS Chatham at Newport, Rhode Island, on 16 December 1777.

While en route to New York, before (perhaps much before) 12 January 1778,¹⁴ the prize was driven ashore on the New Jersey coast. Active was lost but the prize crew of about twenty men survived, and were taken prisoners by the Americans.¹⁵

Proposals for Williams’s exchange were being made by 23 February 1778.¹⁶ A proposal for the exchange of Active’s surgeon, Dr. John Sprague, was made on 24 February,¹⁷ and agreed to on 28 February.¹⁸ Williams and Little were exchanged in 1778 and arrived at Bristol, Rhode Island on 7 March 1778 in the cartel Lord Sandwich.¹⁹

¹ Treat, John Harvey, The Treat Family: A Genealogy of Trott, Tratt, and Treat for Fifteen Generations, and Four Hundred and Fifty Years in England and America, Containing More Than Fifteen Hundred Families in America. Salem: Salem Press, 1893, 267

² Allen, Massachusetts Privateers of the Revolution, 65

³ NDAR, “Journal of H.M.S. Mermaid, Captain James Hawker,” X, 528 note

⁴ Allen, Massachusetts Privateers of the Revolution, 66

⁵ Extracts from HMS Mermaid’s Muster Table for Nov-Dec 1777 (ADM 36/7761), furnished by R.C. Brooks email 4/9/2009.

⁶ McManemin, Captains of the State Navies, 133; Extracts from HMS Mermaid’s Muster Table for Nov-Dec 1777 (ADM 36/7761)

⁷ Extracts from HMS Mermaid’s Muster Table for Nov-Dec 1777 (ADM 36/7761)

⁸ NDAR, “Charles Waller to Governor Nicholas Cooke,” XI, 462 and note; Extracts from HMS Mermaid’s Muster Table for Nov-Dec 1777 (ADM 36/7761)

⁹ Extracts from HMS Mermaid’s Muster Table for Nov-Dec 1777 (ADM 36/7761)

¹⁰ NDAR, “Journal of H.M.S. Mermaid, Captain James Hawker,” X, 528 and 528 note

¹¹ Extracts from HMS Mermaid’s Muster Table for Nov-Dec 1777 (ADM 36/7761)

¹² NDAR, “Journal of H.M.S. Mermaid, Captain James Hawker,” X, 528 and 528 note

¹³ Extracts from HMS Mermaid’s Muster Table for Nov-Dec 1777 (ADM 36/7761)

¹⁴ http://www.westjerseyhistory.org/books/battlesmunn/partthree.shtml contains a garbled account, but gives the date. Accessed 9/13/08. However, the date is based on part of the New Jersey Archives, which is a reprint of the The New-York Gazette; and the Weekly Mercury of 12 January 1778. This is not the date of the wreck, but when the wreck was reported. The wreck was probably about a week before.

¹⁵ NDAR, “The New-York Gazette; and the Weekly Mercury, Monday, January 12, 1778,” XI, 101 and note

¹⁶ NDAR, “Massachusetts Council to Governor Nicholas Cooke,” XI, 406 and note

¹⁷ NDAR, “Rhode Island Council of War to Charles Waller,” XI, 418-419 and 419 note

¹⁸ NDAR, “Charles Waller to Governor Nicholas Cooke,” XI, 462 and note

¹⁹ McManemin, Captains of the State Navies, 133

Revised 13 September 2008

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