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Massachusetts Privateer Sloop Warren |
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| Warren | (1) Commander John Phillips |
| Armed Sloop | 5 July 1776-16 August 1776 |
| Massachusetts Privateer Sloop | 2) Commander Wyatt Barlow
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| Commissioned/First Date: | 5 July 1776 |
| Out of Service/Cause: |
| Owners: | Lemuel Williams and Leonard Jarvis of Dartmouth, Massachusetts |
| Tonnage: | 60 |
| Battery: | Date Reported: 5 July 1776 Number/Caliber Weight Broadside 6/ Total: 6 cannon/ Broadside: 3 cannon/ Swivels: Date Reported: 21 August 1776 Number/Caliber Weight Broadside 6/ Total: 6 cannon/ Broadside: 3 cannon/ Swivels: |
| Crew: | (1) 5 July 1776: 51 [total]
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| Description: |
| Officers: |
| Cruises: | (1) [Dartmouth], Massachusetts to sea and return, [15] July 1776-16 August 1776
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| Prizes: | (1) Ship Argo (William Cochrane), 31 July 1776
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| Actions: |
Comments:
Massachusetts Privateer Sloop Warren was fitted out at Dartmouth, Massachusetts by Lemuel Williams and Leonard Jarvis of that town. She was listed as a 60-ton vessel with six guns and fifty men. The owners petitioned for a commission for Commander John Phillips on 6 July 1776.1 Her $5000 Continental bond was signed by Phillips and by Williams and John Frannis of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts.2 The commission was issued on 9 July 1776. Warren sailed on her first patrol about 15 July 1776.3
Two valuable prizes were captured on Warren’s first cruise, the first of which was the 170-ton ship Argo, taken on 31 July 1776. She was escorted into Dartmouth by the Warren on 16 August 1776. Argo had a cargo of sugar and molasses, and was bound from the West Indies to Newfoundland. This vessel was skippered by William Cochrane of Watertown, Massachusetts and owned by Thomas Boylston of Boston, although her registry was to Lane and Fraser of London. Argo was libeled on 12 September 1776 and tried on 12 October 1776.4
The other vessel was the very large, 400 ton ship Isaac (George Ashburn), en route from Jamaica (via Tortola) to Liverpool, England, with a cargo of sugar, molasses, and cotton. Although armed with four cannon she did not fight. Isaac was ordered into Cape Ann, Massachusetts. She had an uneventful trip until she approached the cape on 24 August 1776. At the break of Sunday dawn, 0500, Isaac was sighted by HM Frigate Milford, 24 guns, laying at anchor nine miles south of Thatcher’s Island. Milford saw her to the northwest, steering south, and came to sail. By 0800 the Isaac’s prize crew had seen the British frigate and had tacked to the north. Milford followed in hot pursuit, closing rapidly on the lumbering Indiaman. At 1400 Milford was close enough to begin firing her bow chasers, cranking out twenty rounds as she gradually closed in on Isaac. But Marblehead harbor loomed ahead and the Isaac’s prize crew brought her in under full sail. Milford was directly behind her, and, as soon as the Isaac cleared the line of fire, the forts at Marblehead opened fire on the Milford. The British frigate got fifteen more shots in as the Isaac steered up the channel with the dexterity of fright, then sheered off and put out to sea. It was a very near thing though: one witness declared that Isaac would have been taken if she had had only two more miles to go to find safety. Isaac was libeled on 29 August, tried on 17 September 1776, and put up for sale at Beverly on 19 September.5
After her return, Phillips left the Warren and a new commission was sought for Commander Wyatt Barlow on 21 August 1776.6 Her battery and crew were unchanged.7The commission was readily granted: her $5000 Continental bond being signed by Barlow and by Walter Spooner and Edward Pope.8 Warren sailed from Dartmouth on 24 August 1776, at 1500, with “A Fine Brease.”9 On the 26th the weather turned dirty and Warren anchored in Holmes’ Hole, Nantucket. Barlow soon shifted over to Nantucket Point, speaking a vessel on the way.10 By the 28th Warren was out in the ocean, in a “Jumbling sea,” building up to a storm. The guns were housed in preparation for bad weather.11 Warren sighted her first sail on 3 September “All Hands to Quarters.” The chase was run down and stopped, but was only a schooner from Marblehead to Martinique with fish, “Honestly Cleared out frm Port.” Another sail was chased in the afternoon, but she proved to be already taken, quite literally, and was en route to Cape Ann.12 Another sighting on 14 September led to a chase, during which the wind failed, and the oars were broken out. This was another miss: she was a French schooner making for Bordeaux.13 The next day two more sail were met, both American vessels: one a privateer, the other the Connecticut Navy Brig Defence (Captain Seth Harding).14 On the 17th a vessel appeared in pursuit of the Warren and came up fast. After an all day chase she came up, proving to be a friendly sail: Rhode Island Privateer Sloop Batchelor (Commander William Ladd). By this time Barlow was thinking a change of location might help: plans were laid to try the waters off Newfoundland.15 Another sail was sighted on the 20th, the wind died again, and the oars were broken out.16 On the 23rd whales were sighted to windward, “A school of them In A Fine Humour.” Whether out of frustration or playfulness, Warren “Fird two Guns at them.”17 Sometime after 25 September Warren returned to Dartmouth from her fruitless cruise.18
The next cruise was underway by 28 October 1776, when Warren was at sea. She sighted a sail, which proved to be from Martinique to Salem.19 On 6 November another ship was chased to within gunshot, when a great storm hit.20 The storm continued until 8 November and prevented cooking and caused sickness among the crew.21 The next day it grew worse: “. . . it Blows a Very Gale the Wind to the westward Starting Each way A Very Bad sea A Going seven A Clock Looks very Dubarious . . .”22 Warren survived the storm to meet another wreck on 22 November, to the crew of which a few provisions were spared.23 Not long after Warren steered for home.
1 NDAR, “Journal of the Massachusetts Council,” V, 932-934; “”Petition for Commission for John Phillips to Command the Massachusetts Privateer Sloop Warren,” V, 934; “Journal of the Massachusetts Council,” V, 986-987.
2 Allen, Massachusetts Privateers of the Revolution, 319
3 NDAR, “Journal of the Massachusetts Council,” V, 932-934; “”Petition for Commission for John Phillips to Command the Massachusetts Privateer Sloop Warren,” V, 934; “Journal of the Massachusetts Council,” V, 986-987.
4 NDAR, “Boston Gazette, Monday, August 19, 1776,” VI, 231 and note; “Dr. David Cobb to Robert Treat Paine,” VI, 232-233 and 233 note; “New-England Chronicle, Thursday, August 22, 1776,” VI, 261-262 and 262 note; “Libels Against British Prizes Filed in the Massachusetts Admiralty Court for the Southern District,” VI, 788-789; “Petition of Edward Elmes,” VII, 1186-1187
5 NDAR, “Master’s Log of H.M.S. Milford,” VI, 298 and note; “William Knox to Colonel Henry Knox,” VI, 298-299; “New-England Chronicle, Thursday, August 29, 1776,” VI, 346-347; “Libels Filed in Massachusetts Admiralty Court Against Various British Prizes,” VI, 347-348; “Petition of Thomas Cragg to the Massachusetts Council,” VI, 675-676 and 676 note; “Sale of Prize Ships and Cargoes at Beverly, Plymouth and Bedford,” VI, 899-900; “London Chronicle, Saturday, October 5 to Tuesday, October 8, 1776,” VII, 679; “Extract of a Letter from Exeter, Dec. 25.,” VII, 806. She became the Massachusetts Privateer Ship General Mifflin. NDAR, “News from Whitehaven,” IX, 490-492
6 NDAR, “Journal of the Massachusetts Council,” VI, 248-250 and 250 note
7 Claghorn, Naval Officers of the American Revolution, 15
8 Allen, Massachusetts Privateers of the Revolution, 320
9 NDAR, “A Journal Kept By Ephraim Briggs On Board of the Good Sloop Warren A Bold Privateer From Dartmouth to the Lattd of 33:,” VI, 291 and note
10 NDAR, “A Journal Kept By Ephraim Briggs On Board of the Good Sloop Warren A Bold Privateer From Dartmouth to the Lattd of 33:,” VI, 305
11 NDAR, “A Journal Kept By Ephraim Briggs On Board of the Good Sloop Warren A Bold Privateer From Dartmouth to the Lattd of 33:,” VI, 332
12 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept By Ephraim Briggs On board of the Good Sloop Warren A Bold Privateer From Dartmouth to the Lattd of 33:,” VI, 661
13 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept By Ephraim Briggs On Board of the Good Sloop Warren A Bold Privateer From Dartmouth to the Lattd of 33:,” VI, 830
14 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept By Ephraim Briggs On board of the Good Sloop Warren A Bold Privateer From Dartmouth to the Lattd of 33:,” VI, 850 and note
15 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept By Ephraim Briggs On board of the Good Sloop Warren A Bold Privateer From Dartmouth to the Lattd of 33:,” VI, 880 and note
16 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept By Ephraim Briggs On board of the Good Sloop Warren A Bold Privateer From Dartmouth to the Lattd of 33:,” VI, 907
17 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept By Ephraim Briggs On board of the Good Sloop Warren A Bold Privateer From Dartmouth to the Lattd of 33:,” VI, 969
18 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept By Ephraim Briggs On board of the Good Sloop Warren A Bold Privateer From Dartmouth to the Lattd of 33:,” VI, 982
19 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept By Ephraim Briggs Obourd of the Good Sloop Warren A Bold Privateer A Second Cruize,” VI, 1433-1434
20 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept by Ephraim Briggs Obourd of the Good Sloop Warren A bold privateer A Second Cruize,” VII, 68
21 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept by Ephraim Briggs Obourd of the Good Sloop Warren A bold privateer A Second Cruize,” VII, 92
22 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept by Ephraim Briggs Obourd of the Good Sloop Warren A bold privateer A Second Cruize,” VII, 99
23 NDAR, “A Journiel Kept by Ephraim Briggs Obourd of the Good Sloop Warren A bold privateer A Second Cruize,” VII, 242
| Posted 12 May 2010 |
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