Note 403 — Chapter XI · THE NAVY OF MASSACHUSETTS

Massachusetts Revolutionary Archives, XL, 110-11. The influence on the naming of vessels of the friendly relations existing between the United States and France during the Revolution early manifested itself. On December 27, 1776, the Massachusetts Board of War changed the names of its trading vessels as follows: ships, “Julius Cæsar” to “Bourbon,” “Venus” to “Versailles,” and “Friend” to “Paris;” brigantines, “Charming Sally” to “Penet,” and “Isabella” to “Count D’Estaing.” The brigantine “Penet,” which was named for a French merchant at Nantes, a member of the firm of Pliarne, Penet and Company, agents for the United States, has been sometimes confused with the brigantine “Perch,” which was obtained by Massachusetts in the fall of 1777 for the sole purpose of conveying the news of Burgoyne’s surrender to the American Commissioners at Paris. The letters and dispatches were intrusted with Jonathan Loring Austin, secretary of the Board of War, who after a passage of thirty days reached the Commissioners at Passy on December 4, 1777.—Board of War Minutes, December 27, 1776; Hale’s Franklin in France, I, 155.