Name of Vessel:

Nancy

Master of Vessel:

Laurence Mackey

Rig of Vessel:

Schooner

Date of Capture:

[July] 1777

Place of Capture:

Captor:

Connecticut Privateer Sloop American Revenue and Rhode Island Privateer Sloop United States

Home Port:

From What Port:

To What Port:

Cargo:

Rum

Tonnage:

70

Battery:

Crew:

Owners:

Prize master:

Prize crew:

Ordered Into:

Bedford, Massachusetts

Into What Port:

Bedford, Massachusetts

Date Arrived:

[August] 1777

Date Tried:

24 September 1777

Date Sold:

Action:

No

Recaptured:

No

Comments: Connecticut Privateer Sloop American Revenue (Commander Samuel Champlin, Jr.) and Rhode Island Privateer Sloop United States (Commander Benjamin Pearce [Pierce]) sailed on a cruise from Bedford, Massachusetts in June 1777. The second  prize captured by the two, in July 1777, was the 70-ton schooner Nancy (Laurence Mackey) with a cargo of rum. She was sent into Bedford. She was libeled in the Massachusetts Maritime Court for the Southern District on 29 August 1777, with her trial set for 24 September 1777. Her cargo was sold for $17,437. Apparently the vessel was then moved to New London, arriving the last week of August 1777. On 19 November 1777, in an elaborate settling-up of accounts, Nathaniel Shaw noted that American Revenue had sixty-eight men aboard at the time of her capture, and the United States had thirty-eight aboard. Prize shares were being paid on this cruise by 28 November 1777.

[NDAR, X, 539-540 and 540 notes, 622-623; Middlebrook, Maritime Connecticut During The Revolution, II, 51-53; The Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser [Boston], Friday, August 29, 1777]

Revised 20 January 2009