Note 91 — Chapter III

These vessels were fitted out from the ports of Salem, Beverly, Marblehead, and Plymouth. They were officered and manned chiefly by sea-captains and sailors who happened to be at that time in the army. They sailed under instructions from General Washington, to take and seize all vessels in the ministerial service, bound into or out of Boston, having soldiers, arms and ammunition, or provisions on board, and to send them into the nearest port, under a careful prize-master, to wait his further directions. The first person commissioned in this way by the Commander-in-chief was Captain Nicholas Broughton of Marblehead, who sailed in the schooner Hannah, fitted out at Beverly; and in his instructions he was described as "a captain in the army of the United Colonies of North America," and was directed to take the command of "a detachment of said army, and proceed on board the schooner Hannah, lately fitted out, &c. at the continental expense." Another of these vessels, called the Lee, was commanded by Captain John Manly. The names of three others of them were the Harrison, the Washington, and the Lynch. The name of the sixth vessel is not known, but the names of the four other captains were Selman, Martindale, Coit, and Adams. (Writings of Washington, III. 516.) When Washington received directions from the President of Congress to send two vessels to the mouth of the St. Lawrence, he wrote, on the 12th of October, that one of these vessels was then out, and that two of them would be despatched as directed, immediately. (Ibid., III. 124.) In the course of a few weeks, they were all out.