Name of Vessel:

Raleigh

Master of Vessel:

Captain Edward Travis

Rig of Vessel:

Brig

Date of Capture:

25 April 1777

Place of Capture:

Off the Chesapeake Capes, Virginia

Captor:

HM Frigate Thames

Home Port:

From What Port:

Virginia

To What Port:

Cargo:

Tonnage:

Battery:

10x4

Crew:

60

Owners:

Virginia Navy

Prize master:

Prize crew:

Ordered Into:

New York, New York

Into What Port:

New York, New York

Date Arrived:

Date Tried:

1777

Date Sold:

Action:

No

Recaptured:

No

Comments: Virginia Navy Brig Raleigh (Captain Edward Travis) was bound out on a cruise in late April 1777. Raleigh sailed on 24 April. She took charge of several merchant vessels and ran out on an “exceedingly dark” night, past the blockading British vessels. The merchant vessels got clear, but Raleigh did not. In the early morning she encountered HM Frigate Thames, 32 guns, outside the capes. The British reported that she was a “Privateer” of ten guns, and rather curiously, that her commander was John Barrett, Raleigh’s first lieutenant. Raleigh was kept with the Thames for a few days, at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay.

Raleigh was sent into New York, New York. She was tried and condemned in the New York Vice-Admiralty court in 1777, where she appears as the Rawleigh, an American “ship of war.” Her crew was sent to the prison ships there. So rigorous was their treatment that, upon a representation of their situation, reprisals were ordered upon some members of the crew of the British frigate Solebay, who had been captured by a Virginia Navy vessel. At least two members of Raleigh’s crew died in captivity. These were Captain of Marines Joseph Bankhead and First Lieutenant John Barret. Barret died about May 1778.

[NDAR, VIII, 459 and note, 942, 997-998, 1053-1063; HCA 32/436/36/1-6; Stewart, Virginia’s Navy of the Revolution, 42, 142, 144; Claghorn, Naval Officers of the American Revoution, 16]