Adams	Commander Edward Beebe
Armed Sloop	30 July 1777-April 1778
Connecticut Privateer Sloop

Commissioned/First Date:	30 July 1777
Out of Service/Cause:	April 1778/sold out of service

Owners:

Samuel Broome of Wethersfield, Connecticut, John Broome of Hartford, Connecticut, Andrew Roland of Fairfield, Connecticut, and Jeremiah Platt of Hartford

Tonnage:

98

Battery:

Date Reported: 30 July 1777 Number/Caliber  Weight        Broadside 10/4-pounder      40 pounds  20 pounds   4/3-pounder      12 pounds    6 pounds Total: 14 cannon/52 pounds Broadside: 7 cannon/26 pounds Swivels:

Crew:

30 July 1777: 81 [total]

Description:

Officers:

Cruises:

(1) to Boston, Massachusetts, -11 February 1778 (2) Boston, Massachusetts to Boston, Massachusetts, [March] 1778-[April] 1778

Prizes:

(1) Brig Active (George Clark), April 1778

Actions:

Comments:


Connecticut Privateer Sloop Adams’s owners applied for her commission on 30 July 1777.¹ She had previously been commissioned in Rhode Island.² She was described as measuring 98 tons, armed with ten 4-pounders and four 3-pounders, and with a crew of eighty men.³ The commission was issued the same day. She was out of Wethersfield, Connecticut with a $5000 bond. Her commander, Edward Beebe of Wethersfield,⁴ or Stratford, Connecticut,⁵ was a bonder as was Samuel Broome of Wethersfield and John Broome of Hartford.⁶ Beebe was a veteran of the Connecticut Navy, serving as Master of the Connecticut Navy Brig Defence until he was discharged on 15 June 1777.⁷

Beebe had her out to sea in the winter of 1777-1778. On 28 January 1778 Adams was at 35°18′N, 65°10′W where he spoke the sloop Catherine (David Arnold), en route to Cap François, Sainte-Domingue, French West Indies from Providence, Rhode Island. The next day, at 36°20′N, 67°10′W a sloop (Boles) from Newburyport was spoken. Adams made port in Boston on 11 February 1778 after a fruitless cruise.⁸

Adams made at least one more cruise, during which she captured the 80-brigantine Active (George Clarke). Active was libeled in the Maritime Court for the Southern District on 23 April 1778, with her trial to be held on 19 May 1778.⁹

Adams was advertised for sale, at Boston, on 23 April 1778. She was described as a “fine vessel, well found.”¹⁰

¹ NDAR, “Request for Commission for Connecticut Privateer Sloop Adams,” IX, 352; “List of Bonds for Connecticut Letters of Marque,” X, 529-530

² Sheffield, An Address Delivered by William P. Sheffield before the Rhode Island Historical Society, 60

³ NDAR, “Request for Commission for Connecticut Privateer Sloop Adams,” IX, 352. According to Emmons, 127, she had fourteen guns and eighty men.

⁴ NRAR, 219; see also Middlebrook, Maritime Connecticut During The Revolution, 49

⁵ Claghorn, Naval Officers of the American Revolution, 20-21

⁶ NRAR, 219; Middlebrook, Maritime Connecticut During the Revolution, II, 49

⁷ NDAR, “Pay Roll of the Brig Defence, belonging to the State of Connecticut. Samuel Smedley, Esqr., Commander,” IX, 116-118

⁸ NDAR, “The Independent Chronicle, and the Universal Advertiser (Boston), Thursday, February 19, 1778,” XI, 377 and note

⁹ The Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser [Boston], Thursday, April 23, 1778

¹⁰ The Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser [Boston], Thursday, April 23, 1778

Revised 4 May 2012

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