Willing Lass	Commander Thomas Williams
Sloop-of-War [Brig/Sloop]	1 March 1781-27 April 1781
Virginia Privateer Brig

Commissioned/First Date:	1 march 1781
Out of Service/Cause:	27 April 1781/[sunk] at Battle of Osborne’s Landing

Owners:

Hunter, Banks & Co. of Richmond, Virginia

Tonnage:

160

Battery:

Date Reported: 1 March 1781 Number/Caliber  Weight        Broadside 16/ Total: 16 cannon/ Broadside: 8 cannon/ Swivels: Date Reported: 19 March 1781 Number/Caliber  Weight        Broadside 10/4-pounder      40 pounds  20 pounds Total: 10 cannon/40 pounds Broadside: 5 cannon/40 pounds Swivels:

Crew:

1 March 1781: 96 [total]

Description:

Officers:

Cruises:

Prizes:

Actions:

(1) Battle of Osborne’s Landing, 27 April 1781

Comments:

The 160-ton Virginia Privateer Brigantine Willing Lass was re-commissioned on 1 March 1781 [See Maryland Privateer Brig Willing Lass]. She was now owned by Hunter, Banks & Co. of Richmond, Virginia. Thomas Williams was retained as commander. Her battery remained the same (sixteen guns) but the crew was raised to ninety-five men. Her bond for $20,000 was executed by Williams and John Banks of Richmond.¹

Her career was short, for it was the time of Arnold’s invasion of Virginia. By mid-March 1781 several gathered at “Hood’s,” under the direction of Captains Mitchell and Lewis. Governor Jefferson, in a letter to Major General Marquis de Lafayette on 19 March 1781, stated these were private property. Among them is the brig Willing Lass, stated to have been armed with ten 4-pounders.²

Willing Lass was listed among those vessels sunk or captured by the British on 27 April 1781 at Osbornes’s Landing.³

¹ NRAR, 493

² Ford, Paul Leicester (ed.), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, G. P. Putnam’s Sons: New York, 1893, II, 501-505

³ Davis, Robert P., Where a Man Can Go: Major General William Phillips, British Royal Artillery, 1731-1781, Westport, CT, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999, 167-168 and 172n12

Posted 8 April 2011

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