Name of Vessel:

Rising States

Master of Vessel:

Commander James Thompson

Rig of Vessel:

Brigantine

Date of Capture:

15 April 1777

Place of Capture:

60 miles southwest of Belle-Île, France

Captor:

HMS Terrible

Home Port:

Boston, Massachusetts

From What Port:

Cape Cod, Massachusetts

To What Port:

Cargo:

Tonnage:

210

Battery:

16x6

Crew:

39

Owners:

William Davis (of Boston, Massachusetts), Philip Moore (of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Edward Carnes (of Boston), Mercer [R. R. Livingston] (of New York) and James Thompson of Boston

Prize master:

Lieutenant Calder

Prizecrew:

28 [total]

Ordered Into:

Portsmouth, England

Into What Port:

Portsmouth, England

Date Arrived:

27 April 1777

Date Tried:

Date Sold:

9 September 1777

Action:

No

Recaptured:

No

Comments: Massachusetts Privateer Brigantine Rising States was the former British Transport Brig Annabella, captured 17 June 1776. She was out of London, and was condemned in Boston. She was purchased by Davis, Moore, Cairns [Carnes], Mercer and Thompson and renamed Rising States. Joseph Lunt was employed by the owners to supervise her outfit as a privateer. She received new sails, yards and rigging, eight carriage guns, twelve swivels and four cohorns, and two new boats. She was commissioned as the 210-ton privateer Rising States on 18 October 1776 under Commander James Thompson of Boston, Massachusetts. She is listed as being armed with twenty guns (by which is meant eight guns plus twelve swivel guns) and as having a crew of 100 men. Her $10000 Continental bond was signed by Thompson and by William Davis and Samuel Allyne Otis, both of Boston.

She sailed on 29 January 1777 and headed for Europe. En route several prizes were made.

On the morning of 15 April, HMS Terrible (Captain Sir Richard Bickerton), a 74-gun ship-of-the-line was patrolling sixty miles southwest of Belle Isle. At 0500 she sighted Rising States in the lee quarter, wore ship, raised sail and commenced to chase. Rising States had seen her about the same time and bore away, Thompson setting all possible sail. Bickerton replied, setting studding sails and even the spritsail topsail. A French warship was sighted to windward and both French and British showed their colors. Terrible continued her pursuit. Rising States began throwing overboard her guns, and “every thing else we came a cross . . .” By 1100 Bickerton was close enough to raise his colors again and fire a ranging shot at Rising States. Thompson raised the American flag: provoking Bickerton to fire several more shots at her.

A sailor aboard the Rising States, Timothy Connor, commented that “ . . . they began firing at us their Nine pounders from their fore castle   when some came over us and some along side we knew that we was taken and that we would not be behind hand in returning the compliment we got out two of our stern chases and began firing them at the Ship . . .” Terrible noted the firing of two shots from the Rising States at 1200. Connor continued “. . . the Capt of the Ship enraged at our small ship firing upon him, (a 74 gun ship) ordered the Guner to get out three Eighteen pounders forehead and sink us when we came along side   but our having English prisoners aboard prevented its being put into execution.”

The chase continued, with Terrible banging away. Finally, at 1300 or 1400 Rising States struck her flag and shortened sail.

Terrible came up and sent over a boat with a boarding officer. The brig, he found, was armed with sixteen 6-pounders, eight of which had been thrown overboard during the chase. Her crew of sixty-one had been depleted by the capture of three vessels and now numbered only thirty-seven or thirty-nine. There were nineteen British prisoners aboard. A prize crew of twenty-seven men under Lieutenant Calder was put aboard. At 1930 Terrible and her prize made sail.

Connor says, in his journal, “ . . . as soon as we had struck they sent their Cutter on board and ordered Capt Thompson into the boat and pushed him off of the Quarter Deck and used him very ill   likewise carried all of our People, Prisoners and all, except Mr Martin and 3 boys, who was ordered to stay on board till they arrived at Spit-head.” The prisoners were placed on three quarters allowance of rations with Marine sentinels guarding them.

News of the capture was published in the Public Advertiser on 28 April. Rising States was noted as being armed with sixteen 6-pounders, ten swivels, four howitzers and as having a crew of sixty-one men when she sailed. The prize evidently made Spithead on 27 April, but Terrible, having had a difficult passage, only arrived on 30 April. Rising States was such a trim little vessel that the commanding admiral at Spithead recommended her purchase for the Royal Navy.

Among the American prisoners captured on the Rising States was her boatswain, Thomas Cummings. This man had formerly been a member of the crew of HMS Worcester and had deserted the British ship. Caught, he was sentenced to be flogged through the fleet, a sentence carried out on 12 May 1777.

Rising States’s crew of thirty-eight men were committed to Forton Prison on 14 June 1777, being the first Americans confined there. Within a few days Thompson, Fritze, Prichard, and fourteen more are recorded as “Run,” meaning escaped. One man is recorded as “Enterd,” meaning he enlisted in the Royal Navy.

Eleven prisoners escaped on the morning of 20 June by breaking through the wall, including Thompson and Fritze. By 23 June two escapees had been recaptured and brought back to Forton, where they were sent to the Black Hole. The two sailors reported they had left Thompson and Fritze the night before, both very tired.

By 2 July Thompson and Fritze had reached France. In reporting Thompson’s arrival Lord Stormont recorded he had cruised successfully; had arrived with no money but was given a “pretty large sum” by Franklin; and was going to Nantes to purchase a French vessel to cruise in the channel. Thompson “gives out, he hopes to take ample Revenge for the harsh Treatment he pretends to have received in Prison.”

By 10 July the Boston papers were reporting that the brigantine Rising States, out of Boston, Thompson, had been captured by a British frigate and taken in to Bristol.

Rising States was ordered sold for salvage by the Admiralty on 14 August 1777. She was sold on 9 September 1777 for £805 to Peter Packard. By 20 October 1777 she was being fitted out at Portsmouth as a British letter-of-marque vessel.

[NDAR, VIII, 768, 768-769, 794, 803-804, 805, 822-825, 840; IX, 5, 255, 399-400, 407-408 and 408 note, 423 and note, 426-427 and 427 note, 452-453 and 453 note, 523-525, 572, 635; X, 924-925; Allen, Massachusetts Privateers of the Revolution, 265; The London Gazette, Tuesday, February 10, to Saturday, February 14, 1778; HCA 32/442/11/1-37; Kaminkow, 238]