Putnam	Commander Christopher Whipple
Armed Brig	30 July 1776-18 October 1776
Rhode Island Privateer Brigantine

Commissioned/First Date:	30 July 1776
Out of Service/Cause:	18 October 1776/captured by HMS Portland

Owners:

John Jenckes

Tonnage:

80, 84, 100

Battery:

Date Reported: 30 July 1776 Number/Caliber  Weight        Broadside 10/4-pounder and 3-pounder Total: 10 cannon/ Broadside: 5 cannon/ Swivels: fourteen Date Reported: 18 October 1776 Number/Caliber  Weight        Broadside 12/ Total: 12 cannon/ Broadside: 6 cannon/ Swivels:

Crew:

(1) 30 July 1776: 26 [total] (2) 30 July 1776: 61 [total] (3) 18 October 1776: 70-80 [total

Description:

51' length on the keel, 64'2" length on the gun deck, 19'9" beam, 7'9" depth in the hold

Officers:

(1) First Lieutenant Phineas Frazier, 30 July 1776-18 October 1776; (2) Second Lieutenant William Hopkins, 30 July 1776-18 October 1776; (3) Master Jonathan Donridon, 30 July 1776-18 October 1776

Cruises:

(1) Providence, Rhode Island to sea, 1 August 1776-18 October 1776

Prizes:

(1) Ship Camden (Joseph Richardson), October 1776

Actions:

Comments:

Rhode Island Privateer Brigantine Putnam was commissioned on 30 July 1776 under Commander Christopher Whipple of Rhode Island. She was listed as being armed with ten guns, 4-pounders and 3-pounders, and fourteen swivel guns, and as having a crew of twenty-five men. Her First Lieutenant was Phineas Frazier; Second Lieutenant was William Hopkins; and Master was Jonathan Donridon.¹ Her owner was listed as John Jenckes.² Her request for a commission and her bond were made the day the commission was granted. However the bond lists her crew as sixty men.³

Putnam sailed for the West Indies on 1 August 1776.⁴ It seems that Putnam sailed in the West Indies area for a time, with no reported success. Around October she seems to have been returning to Rhode Island, and was at sea off the coast of North America. Here, Putnam found success and then, disaster.

The 300-ton⁵ ship Camden (Joseph Richardson) sailed from St. John’s, Antigua, British West Indies on 1 October 1776, bound to London⁶ with a cargo of sugar.⁷ Among the other cargo she carried were the dispatches of Vice Admiral James Young, who commanded the Leeward Islands station in the West Indies.⁸ Presumably Camden was part of a convoy which was to be escorted part of the way home by HMS Portland (Captain Thomas Dumaresq). Camden, after the escort had turned back, ran into Putnam and was captured. Young’s dispatches went into the sea. Whipple sent off the Camden to Boston, where she arrived on 23 October 1776.⁹ Camden (as the Cambden) was libeled on 31 October, and tried on 19 November 1776.¹⁰ An advertisement for the sale of the ship and cargo appeared in the newspaper on 21 November, and she was sold on 25 November,¹¹ to the Massachusetts Board of War.¹²

Meanwhile, Putnam continued to sail in the area. On 18 October 1776, in the vicinity of 32°20'N, 60°22'W,¹³ the Putnam stopped a Dutch trading vessel and hailed her. In the course of the conversation between the Dutch master and Whipple, the Dutch skipper pointed out a large ship then in sight and told Whipple she was a large British West India ship. Whipple, eager to make another prize, set out in chase.¹⁴

It was a West India ship, but not the merchant vessel the Dutch skipper had described. Putnam had closed on the small British battleship HMS Portland, returning to Antigua from her brief convoy duty, and was easily captured. The British reported she had twelve guns and seventy¹⁵ or eighty men aboard. She was taken into Antigua, arriving on 2 November 1776.¹⁶ Putnam was condemned on 26 November 1776.¹⁷ Putnam was surveyed and she was taken into the Royal Navy as HM Armed Brig Antigua. Thus we know she was 51' length on the keel, 64'2" length on the gun deck, 19'9" beam, 7'9" depth in the hold, and rated at 100 tons by her surveyors. The British rated her at ten 3-pounders, with a crew of forty-five men, and valued her at £500.¹⁸

Whipple was most likely released at Antigua. He soon found one John Therlo and the two men bought or obtained a small vessel in the West Indies to return to Providence. They sailed to Turks Island, loaded some salt, and added it to a mixed cargo of lead,  iron, cotton, wool and other odds and ends, and set out for Newport, Rhode Island. The remainder of the story comes from a petition to the Rhode Island Assembly filed by the two men:

“ . . . on the 26th day of January . . . they were steering for the harbor of Newport not knowing the enemy were in possession thereof until they discovered their shipping that they sent a boat on shore to make inquiry and being informed that they were part the enemy's fleet they put the vessel about and steered for the Eastern Sound being pursued by two of the enemy's ships that in order to escape them they again put about and steered for the Western Sound when they presently discovered eleven sail of the enemy's fleet coming down the Sound standing for Newport who fired upon them that being still pursued by the two vessels aforesaid they were reduced to the necessity of running the vessel aground on Point Judith shore that in order to save their effects from falling into the hands of the enemy they cut away their mast and got the sails and some of her rigging ashore with two bags of cotton wool and a number of other articles when the enemy getting possession of the vessel set her on fire about seven o clock in the evening and immediately left her upon which the said John Therlo with some assistance extinguished the fire about two o clock the same night and went about getting the salt on shore a quantity of which was saved as was also a quantity of the iron cotton wool part of rum a cask of porter and a number of of other articles which are now in the hands of Stephen Potter of South Kingstown and other persons who unjustly detain the same from them and thereupon prayed this Assembly to appoint a suitable committee to make examination respecting the premises with power to act and determine thereon as to right and justice shall pertain and the premises being duly considered . . .”¹⁹

The Assembly granted the petition and set up a committee to study the issue and report back to the Assembly.

¹ NDAR, “Owners of the Privateer Brig Putnam to Governor Nicholas Cooke,” V, 1280-1281 and 1281 note

² Sheffield, An Address Delivered by William P. Sheffield before the Rhode Island Historical Society, 59

³ NDAR, “Owners of the Privateer Brig Putnam to Governor Nicholas Cooke,” V, 1280-1281 and 1281 note

⁴ NDAR, “Young’s Prize List,” VII, 428-429. According to Maclay, History of American Privateers, 78, Whipple captured two snows and a brig and fought an action with an armed ship. I can find no record of  any of this, and believe Maclay has conflated the numerous Putnams and General Putnams.

⁵ The Independent Chronicle [Boston], Thursday, October 31, 1776

⁶ NDAR, “Vice Admiral James Young to Philip Stephens,” VII, 24-25

⁷ NDAR, “Minutes of the Massachusetts Board of War,” VII, 274 and note

⁸ NDAR, “Vice Admiral James Young to Philip Stephens,” VII, 24-25

⁹ The Independent Chronicle [Boston], Thursday, October 24, 1776

¹⁰ The Independent Chronicle [Boston], Thursday, October 31, 1776

¹¹ The Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser [Boston], Thursday, November 21, 1776

¹² NDAR, “Minutes of the Massachusetts Board of War,” VII, 274 and note

¹³ NDAR, “Vice Admiral James Young to Philip Stephens,” VII, 24-25

¹⁴ The Pennsylvania Evening Post [Philadelphia], Saturday, January 18, 1777

¹⁵ Admiral Young says seventy men in a report dated 20 July 1778.  Jamieson, Alan G., “American Privateers in the Leeward Islands, 1776-1778,” in The American Neptune, [volume unknown], reprinting a list of Admiral Young’s in ADM 1/310.

¹⁶ NDAR, “Vice Admiral James Young to Philip Stephens,” VII, 24-25; “Young’s Prize List, VII, 428-429

¹⁷ NDAR, “List of Prizes Condemned in the Vice Admiralty Court of Antigua,” XI, 124-130 and 130 note

¹⁸ NDAR, “Survey of Captured Privateer Putnam,” VII, 977-980; “Vice Admiral James Young to Philip Stephens,” VII, 1049-1050

¹⁹ Bartlett, John Russell (ed.), Records of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New England, vol. VIII, Providence: Cooke, Jackson & Co., 1863, 132-133. http://books.google.com/books?id=9lsaAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Posted 10 February 2011

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