Captain Robert Niles and the Connecticut State Navy

sheldon s. cohen

NLIKE most military campaigns of the Revolution, U American naval activities have scarcely received the attention they deserved. William J. Morgan, former editor of the Naval Documents of the American Revolution series, and a distinguished maritime historian, has noted that, “all too fre- quently historians of the American Revolution have ignored the maritime aspects of the conflict, or, at best, have reflected slight understanding of that decisive element.” The lives, exploits, and achievements of men such as John Paul Jones, Esek Hop- kins, Joshua Barney, Abraham Whipple, and John Barry have received considerable scholarly coverage; but other American naval figures also performed valuable, yet unheralded, services during this struggle for independence. Any new historical em- phasis on the maritime aspects of the American Revolution may allow for greater expositions of the careers and contributions of some of these lesser-known mariners, such as Connecticut’s Captain Robert Niles.1 The first son of a respected farmer, Robert Niles was born on 2 September 1734 in Groton, Connecticut. Although Gro- ton and the nearby commercial center New London were part of an extensive maritime network, Niles’s first experience with the military was in militia service. In February 1757, during the French and Indian War, he enlisted as a clerk in Colonel

1William J. Morgan, review of William M. Fowler, Rebels Under Sail: the American Navy during the Revolution (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976)intheAmerican Historical Review 82 (1977): 176.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 85 Phineas Lyman’s regiment. He was discharged the following December, but the next March, commissioned as a second lieutenant in a company commanded by John Stanton of Gro- ton and under Colonel Nathan Whiting’s regimental command. Niles returned to Connecticut after the campaign of 1758;the following April, he was again listed in Captain Stanton’s company of recruits. The company was stationed at Lake George in northern New York by June 1759, though it was then noted that Lieutenant Niles had not joined his unit. A final wartime entry showed his reappointment as a company officer in Con- necticut’s muster of March 1760.2 After the French and Indian War, Niles had relocated with his growing family to Norwich in New London County, on the Thames River, and became involved in the expansion of trade with the West Indies as increasing numbers of New En- gland ships set their courses for Grand Turk, Antigua, and other Caribbean ports. The vessels, usually owned by prominent colony merchants such as Nathaniel Shaw, Jr., varied both in size and safety, but opportunities for profit and adventure at- tracted many young sea captains who were willing to undertake the arduous and often treacherous voyages.3 And for several of these Connecticut merchant captains such as Charles Bulkeley, Elisha Hinman, Seth Harding, and Robert Niles, these trips provided maritime training for subsequent wartime commands. As for Niles’s own experiences, these pre-Revolutionary trading voyages were not without excitement. The Connecticut Gazette reported on 18 September 1767 that at the beginning of the month, Niles, returning home near Turks Island and Bahama had chanced upon five survivors of a Philadelphia vessel that had capsized and left these mariners clinging to the overturned bottom. Niles rescued these mariners, who claimed that their

2Charles J. Hoadly, ed., “Rolls of Connecticut Men in the French and Indian War, 1756–1762,” The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, May 1757–March 1762, Connecticut Historical Society Collections (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1880), 6:95, 97, 224, 228, 356, 9 (1903–05):190, 10 (1906–09):45, 126, 178 (hereafter referred to as Hoadly, Public Records of Conn.). 3Dorothy B. Goebel, “The New England Trade and the French West Indies 1767– 1774, A Study in Trade Policies,” William and Mary Quarterly 3rd ser., 21 (1963):331– 35, 360–72.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 86 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY ship “not being sufficiently Ballas’d” was unable to manage the vagaries of weather they had encountered.4 A patriot, Niles was among forty-seven older members of local militia companies that petitioned the Connecticut General Assembly in May 1775 to establish them into an independent militia company called the “Norwich Light Guards.” Although their petition was not granted, Niles continued to volunteer his services for the insurgent cause. On 6 July, Connecticut’s Gov- ernor Jonathan Trumbull recognized Niles’s abilities when he recounted the request of Colonel Edward Mott, the colony’s engineer at Fort Ticonderoga, to send “a Captain (Robert) Niles as commander for one of the several armed vessels upon Lake George.”5 Shortly thereafter, Niles led a naval action when, the brig Nancy, owned by Josiah Winslow, a Boston loyalist, was forced into Stonington Harbor by bad weather. The ship, under the command of Thomas Davis, was returning from the West Indies with a valuable cargo including 19,000 gallons of molasses. The opportunity was not lost on Joseph Trumbull, commissary general for Connecticut’s troops, who wrote to New London County Justice Christopher Leffingwell, a Nor- wich resident, that General Washington desired to have the cargo “secured for the use of the Army.” In Norwich, Leffin- gwell, a close friend of Niles, reacted immediately to Colonel Mott’s request regarding Niles, and the town’s Committee of Inspection also chose him to lead the seizure of the vessel. On 10 July 1775, Niles and his men sailed in a large armed sloop to Stonington, captured the Nancy, and brought her back to

4The Connecticut Gazette and Universal Intelligencer, 13 September, 4 October 1767; Louis F. Middlebrook, Maritime Connecticut During the American Revolution, 1775–1783 (Salem, Mass.: Essex Institute, 1925), 1:7–8. 5Militia Papers, 2nd ser., 2148,a-c,p.9, and Revolutionary War, 1763–1789, 1st ser., 4 (pt. 2):254–58, Connecticut State Archives, Hartford, Conn. (hereafter referred to as Conn. State Archives). Edward Mott to Jonathan Trumbull, 6 July 1775,Jonathan Trumbull to Philip Schulyer, 6 July 1775, Trumbull to Christopher Leffingwell, 28 July 1775, John Deshon to Leffingwell, 6 August 1775 in Naval Documents of the American Revolution, William B. Clark et al., eds., 12 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Division, Department of the Navy, 1964–2014), 1:829–33, 999, 1077–78 (hereafter referred to as Naval Documents of the Revolution). Joan Nafle, To the Beat of a Drum: A History of Norwich, Connecticut during the American Revolution (Norwich: Conn. Old Town Press, 1975), pp. 79–80.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 87 Norwich. The ship and her cargo were to be the object of bitter legal and political contention for more than a year until the General Assembly finally settled the matter. Even though Connecticut had not yet granted Niles an official commission, the seizure of Nancy served to give him sufficient acclaim to be awarded his next command.6 On 1 July 1775, Connecticut became one of the first Amer- ican colonies to establish its own navy. Twelve of the thirteen states (New Jersey was the exception) did. The Connecticut General Assembly resolved that the “two vessels of a suitable burthen be immediately fitted out and armed with a proper number of cannon, swivel guns, and small arms and furnished with necessary warlike stores and well officered and manned for the defense of the sea coasts in this colony under the care and direction of his Hon., the Governor and Committee of the Council (the Council of Safety) appointed to assist7 him in the recess of the General Assembly.” Three weeks later this executive body selected a committee to visit certain Connecticut seaport towns to search for proper and suitable vessels, as well as officers and men to sail them. On 2 August, the committee initially reported that “sundry vessels may be had on reason- able terms, but none can be found perfectly accommodated for war vessels.” After some discussion, the governor and Council of Safety decided to purchase and fit out a brig belonging to Captain William Griswold of Wethersfield and also to charter “a vessel of small burden and a fast sailor [sic.] of about 20, 25, or 30 tons.” The larger of these ships was the brig Minerva, captained by Giles Hall of Wallingford. The “smaller vessel” was to be used primarily for intelligence-gathering missions, and Robert Niles, who received his commission in Lebanon on

6Sheldon S. Cohen, “We Dare Oppose Them, The Connecticut State Navy in the Revolution,” The Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin, 47 (July, 1982):1–10; Minutes of the Connecticut Council of Safety, 2 August 1775, Robert Niles to Jonathan Trumbull, 25 September 1775, in Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 1:796–97, 1041–42, 2:243; Hoadly, Public Records of Conn., 15:516–17.Naﬂe,To the Beat of a Drum, p. 73. Middlebrook, Maritime Conn. in the Revolution, 1:33–39, 193, 2:13. 7Cohen, “We Dare Oppose Them,” pp. 8–12; Captain Robert Niles to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, 25 September 1775, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 2:203; Middlebrook, Maritime Conn. in the Revolution, 2:193.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 88 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY 7 August was to be its commander with Benjamin Huntington and John Deshon assigned to see her made ready for sale.8 On Monday, 14 August, Huntington, a member of the government’s search committee, reported that the fifty-ton schooner Britannia, owned by Thomas Hancox of Stonington, was available for purchase. The vessel needed some work on her sails and rigging, but the Council of Safety nevertheless authorized Niles and Deshon to purchase the vessel for no more than £200. The following Thursday, Britannia, now more appropriately named Spy, was purchased and then sailed into Norwich Harbor, about twenty-two miles distant, and, by the beginning of September, placed under orders “to be armed and otherwise fitted out.”9 At Norwich, the careful and costly task of readying the rechristened ship began in earnest. On 4 September, the Coun- cil of Safety dispatched three recently detained men to augment Niles’s limited labor force and, ten days later, ordered delivery of 150 pounds of gunpowder for its six newly installed four- pounder cannon. Still, lack of finances impeded the completion of the ship’s refitting. On 8 September, allotted £100 for fitting out Spy, Niles complained to Trumbull on the twenty-fifth that this sum was still not sufficient for completing the work and that he needed at least £300 more, to cover the cost of can- vas duck for the sails. Trumbull replied with an order for only half the amount. Nevertheless, by 18 November 1775, accounts showed Niles had received £400.10 Despite the fact that Spy had not completed her prepa- rations for combat at the time of this accounting, she initi- ated her first naval operation. Niles had noted in his letter to

8Minutes of the Connecticut Council of Safety, 2 and 14 August 1775,Clarket al., Naval Documents of the Revolution,1:1041–1042, 1087; Hoadly, Public Records of Conn., 15:109–113. 9Naﬂe, To the Beat of a Drum, pp. 79–80; Minutes of the Conn. Council of Safety, 14 August and September 1775, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 1:1041–42, 2:12. 10Naﬂe, To the Beat of a Drum, p. 80; Hoadly, Public Records of Conn., 15:99– 100, 109–10, 114–15; Middlebrook, Maritime Conn. in the Revolution, 1:28–29:The accounts may be found in Revolutionary War Documents, 1763–1789, 1st. ser., 3:115, 496–97, 9:238, Conn. State Archives.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 89 Governor Trumbull on 25 September 1775 that he had re- cruited only nine men for his crew but expected a full com- plement in a day or two when he would be ready to make his first cruise. Spy, with over twenty additional recruits, was sent into action on 7 October when the ship Peggy, captained by William Barron, owned by a Newport Loyalist, and loaded with pig iron, staves, and an estimated 8,000 bushels of wheat, ran aground off Stonington Harbor. Peggy was en route from New York City to Falmouth, present-day Portland, Maine. Fearing that the cargo might fall into enemy hands, word was quickly sent to Norwich. The Norwich Committee of Inspection which was subordinate to the Connecticut Council of Safety ordered Niles to sail to Stonington and bring the ship back. After Niles unloaded part of the Peggy’s cargo to free her from the shoal, he escorted her to the nearby, more well-protected harbor at Norwich, and notified her owners of his action. The ship’s owners, however, petitioned the General Assembly on 19 October to release the impounded vessel. Because the legal procedures regarding a detained ship’s status were not yet determined, nei- ther could Niles claim the vessel, nor the Norwich Committee of Inspection confiscate her cargo. The committee’s hopes that the ship’s cargo might be sequestered for military use were also thwarted. In the end, the Continental Congress allowed the vessel to proceed, but with a new captain.11 Spy spent the rest of 1775 gathering intelligence along Long Island Sound. On 23 November, Connecticut’s Council of Safety noted a report from Captain Niles asking for instructions concerning a suspicious vessel loading provisions at Sag Harbor for Nantucket allegedly without a proper permit. Un- der the authority of a resolution passed by the Continental Congress governing these situations, the council ordered the vessel to be sent immediately to Niles who was to determine its legal status. Spy later joined her sister warship, Minerva, under Captain Giles Hall, in an unsuccessful search on Long

11Robert Niles to Jonathan Trumbull, 25 September 1775, Trumbull to Jeremiah Wadsworth, 7 October 1775; Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 2:203, 338; Connecticut Gazette, 13 October 1775;Naﬂe,To the Beat of a Drum, pp. 80–82; Middlebrook, Maritime Conn. in the Revolution, 1:19.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 90 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY Island Sound for the suspected enemy sloop. Afterward, Spy returned to New London, where the crew’s wages were paid on 22 December, and Christmas leave granted.12 During early 1776, Niles and his small, armed schooner saw considerably more action. On 5–6 January, the governor and the Council of Safety denied a request from Silas Deane, acting on behalf of the Naval Committee of the Continental Congress that Spy be sent to carry new military recruits from New Lon- don to Philadelphia. Connecticut’s executive body explained it could not properly and safely permit Niles “to be absent so long,” evidently indicating their high regard for him. Its increasing esteem was further reflected at the same January meeting when it noted that “Cap. Niles be directed to raise and inlist [sic.] 20 men such as he can confide in to serve on board the schooner Spy for the term of one year.” With such assistance, the ship was prepared again for action, and on 26 January she was given orders to transport gunpowder to specific Connecticut seaports and afterward assist General Charles Lee in preparing the defenses of New York.13 The British evacuation of Boston in March 1776 had shifted patriot concerns toward the possibility of an assault on the strategically located area of lower New York or Long Island. Governor Trumbull wrote George Washington on 26 March that Captain Niles was cruising near Block Island and Montauk Point to provide intelligence on the intentions of the enemy.14 Spy, unable to detect any hostile activity, was ordered on 15 April on a new mission by the Connecticut government: Niles was to rendezvous with his friend, an experienced seaman and fellow townsman, Seth Harding, captain of the brig Defence, and join Commodore Esek Hopkins in Rhode Island. Hopkins had been appointed commander of the Continental Navy the previous October and was employing his ships to provide a

12Minutes of the Connecticut Committee of Safety, 23 November 1775,Clarket al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 2:1107–08;Hoadly,Public Records of Conn, 15:225–26. 13Jonathan Trumbull to Committee of Safety, 5–6 and 26 January 1776,Clarket al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 3:634. 14Jonathan Trumbull to George Washington, 26 March 1776, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 4:506, 566.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 91 defensive screen for rebel troops embarking from New Lon- don for New York. Rather than confront the small, hastily assembled American fleet, the British squadron near New- port, Rhode Island sailed for Halifax, Nova Scotia. As a result, the American troop-carrying ships easily reached their destina- tion, and Hopkins detached the two Connecticut vessels from his command. Four days after this release, the commodore wrote a letter to Governor Trumbull commending Niles for his services.15 The activities of Spy during the remainder of the spring of 1776 were not without danger. Captain Niles received additional grants from the Connecticut General Assembly to maintain the ship, but Commodore Hopkins had noted that the schooner would be “fitter for Service if she was ballasted with Iron plates from New York.”16 Despite this temporary defi- ciency, Niles continued his hazardous work transporting arms and munitions to New York, gathering intelligence, and sup- plying information on an increasingly threatening British naval presence in the area. This presence became quite evident to Spy on 29 May when she came upon the British frigate HMS Cerebus between Montauk Point and Block Island. Although spotted by the British warship and losing a topmast, Niles was able to speed away, reaching the safety of New London Harbor. Three weeks later, following repairs, Spy again risked capture off Block Island while warning American ships of the tightening British blockade.17

15Jonathan Trumbull to John Huntington, 26 March 1776, Jonathan Trumbull Pa- pers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections (hereafter referred to as MHS, Collections), 5th ser., 1:108; Hoadly, Public Records of Conn., 15:255–56, 8:2613–16; Resolves of the Connecticut General Assembly to Captain Robert Niles, 15 April 1776, Minutes of the Connecticut Committee of Safety, 15 April 1776; Esek Hopkins to Jonathan Trumbull, 19 April 1776. Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 4:832–33, 834–35; Middlebrook, Maritime Conn. in the Revolution, 1:23–29. 16Esek Hopkins to Jonathan Trumbull, 21 May 1776, Conn. General Assembly to Nathaniel Shaw and Robert Niles, 4 July 1776, Memorial of the Norwich Committee of Inspection to the Connecticut General Assembly, 15 June 1776, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 5:532–33, 546–47, 916. 17James L. Howard, Seth Harding, Mariner (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1936), pp. 12–13; Jonathan Trumbull to General George Washington, 17 July 1776, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 5:1113.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 92 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY On the fourth of July with the Declaration ending American hopes of reconciliation with Britain, the Connecticut Council of Safety ordered Niles and its other naval captains to seize any vessels encountered off New London and the northern shore of Long Island lacking proper clearances from the Con- tinental Congress. On 8 and 9 July, the council voted to pay Niles for past expenses, but also, specifically instructed the captain to continue his observations for hostile warships near Connecticut and simultaneously to prevent any illicit trade or smuggling.18 Soon afterwards, Niles sailed from New London to comply with his orders; however, the Connecticut attempt to stop unauthorized trade proved futile. On 16–17 July 1776,Trum- bull wrote to Washington at New York to explain the difficult situation and enclosed depositions of Niles and another state naval officer. Niles’s deposition was particularly revealing, not only of the willingness of so many independent minded and self-serving American ship captains to make quick profit by unlawfully trading with the enemy, but also the inability of Connecticut naval officers to get sometimes-patriot (and sometimes neutral-minded) merchant shipmasters to obey their commands. This fact was reflected in a 17 July 1776 deposition made by Niles before Winthrop Saltonstall, New London justice of the peace. In his sworn statement, Niles declared that about the beginning of that month, Spy had intercepted an anchored ship, “loaded with flour,” at Fischer’s Island off New London. Despite Niles’s orders to sail to nearby New London fearing that “her cargo would fall into the hands of the enemy,” the ship’s captain, citing safety concerns, refused to journey to the rebel-occupied port. Niles then stated he had seen other American vessels in the vicinity of Block Island that gave him “good and sufficient reason” to believe “that they are much employed in furnishing the enemy’s ships and vessels

18Norwich, Packet, 2 September 1776; Hoadly, Public Records of Conn., 15:468–70; Huntington Papers, Conn. Hist. Soc. Collections, 20:43–44; Revolutionary War Papers, 4th ser., pp. 334–35, Conn. State Archives; Conn. Council of Safety to Robert Niles, 4–6 July 1776, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 5:946, 963.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 93 with intelligence, Supplies, and every comfort in their power to afford.”19 Unable to confront the powerful British fleet, state and Con- tinental naval vessels were compelled to seek out isolated British or Loyalist merchantmen. On 27 July 1776, Spy as- sisted in salvaging valuable cargo from a prize ship taken earlier by the Continental brig Andrew Doria that had run aground near Stonington. In August, Spy, with a crew of fifty-six, captured her own enemy prizes. The first of these taken on 22 August was the schooner Hannah and Elizabeth, commanded by Ronald Bruce on a journey from Barbados with fifty-two hogsheads of rum and eight hogsheads of sugar.20 Hannah and Elizabeth, misidentified in Connecticut newspapers as Mary and Elizabeth, was brought into New London on 13 Septem- ber. Subsequently, on 2 October, the Council of Safety ordered the ship impressed for state use. The ship was condemned on 2 December, and five days later the Connecticut council ordered that two-thirds of the rum on board be “gauged [measured] and stored for the publick use, and the remainder of said cargo be sold at publick vendue.” A few days later, Spy seized an even larger prize: the merchant ship Hope, which had been bound from the West Indies to London. Hope, commanded by Cap- tain Ronald Bruce, was “270 tons burthen with a cargo of 257 hogshead of Sugar, 32 Puncheons [casks] of Rum, some Mo- lasses, Cocoa, and Coffee.” Unfortunately, the British frigate Galatea retook Hope on 4 September.21

19Richard Devens to John Adams, 17 May 1776; Artemas Ward to George Wash- ington, 7 July 1776, Jonathan Trumbull to George Washington, 16 July 1776,Journal of the Conn. Council of Safety, 6 and 8 July 1776; Deposition of Robert Niles, 17 July 1776, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 5:946, 963, 1098, 1115. 20Jonathan Trumbull to Robert Niles, 22 August 1776, Council of Safety to Robert Niles, 13 September 1776, 22 August 1776, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 6:22, 583, 804; Revolutionary War, 1st. ser., 4:334–35, 356–58, 30:114–20, Conn. State Archives. 21Connecticut Gazette, 13 September 1776; Conn. Council of Safety to Robert Niles, 26 June, 13 September, 3 October, 7 December 1776, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 7:164–66; Hoadly, Public Records of Conn., 13 September 1776– 78,February1788, 15:127, 164–66, 517. 4 July 1776, Trumbull Papers, Conn. State Archives; Robert Niles to Jonathan Trumbull, 13 September 1776, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 6:804, 807.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 94 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY The seizures of British merchant vessels failed to hinder Gen- eral Howe’s advances into New Jersey, and the Connecticut government feared a secondary British thrust into their own territory. Thus, on 2 October 1776, the Council of Safety ordered Niles to move with all possible speed to cruise Long Island Sound “betwixt Montack [Montauk] Point and Stam- ford” to observe enemy movements, warn American shipping, and if possible, “annoy the enemy.” Spy began this mission on 8 October with a crew of thirty-two, including two officers and five marines. On 7 December, Trumbull gave Niles an additional assignment—to convey supplies of rum, sugar, and other items for Washington’s army as far westward from Nor- walk as he could safely proceed. As one Connecticut scholar has noted, such provisions previously had been transported overland through the northwestern part of the state into New York reaching the Hudson River many miles north of British- occupied New York City. From there, the goods were conveyed across the river into northern New Jersey to waiting Continen- tal troops. This was the final service of the year for the Spy, which returned to Norwich by 8 January 1777 for refitting and paying off the crew.22 During the spring of 1777, Spy expanded her sphere of op- erations. On 7 March, Governor Trumbull ordered Niles to sail for Maryland or Virginia to purchase needed flour or bread, and “a few Barrels of Tarr or Turpentine if it be had.” Spy, with a crew reduced to fifteen, sailed about the end of March and returned with the flour to Connecticut in early May after brief stops at Philadelphia and Massachusetts. The lack of govern- mental payments had deterred some former members of the crew from signing on for this voyage. Still, with those seamen who sailed on the small schooner, the success of the spring voyage increased Niles’s stature with the state bureaucracy. As a result, on 12 May at the orders of the Council of Safety,

22Nathaniel Wales to Jonathan Trumbull, 4 July 1776; Conn. Council of Safety to Robert Niles, 2 October 1776, Trumbull to Ephriam Bill, 7 December 1776,Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 6:1145, 7:401; Chester M. Destler, Con- necticut: the Provision State (Hartford, Conn.: The American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Connecticut, 1973), pp. 15, 16, 30–35.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 95 Spy made a quick round-trip voyage loaded with goods to New Bedford, Massachusetts, and upon her return to Connecticut a week later, this committee awarded Niles £300 to enlist a crew for the remainder of the year. Then, on 3 June, they ordered that Niles was to have his choice of two of the state’s cannons, which were then being used in the defense of Dartmouth and New Bedford, Massachusetts.23 By the end of June, the new cannon had been emplaced, and Spy was again ready to sail. Her orders were to cruise “to New Haven and as far westward as may be prudent and toward Long Island, to annoy the enemy, and to give intelligence of any in- teresting discovery he may make or intelligence of the designs of the enemy he may get.” The British had already established fortified posts on western parts of the island; their warships were roaming the area; and their further military plans for the coming months were still unknown. Four days after these orders were issued on 30 June 1777, Niles wrote to Governor Trumbull that he had already taken five prisoners from Long Island and requested instructions as to their disposition. He was ordered by the governor to deliver most of the captives to specific locations in Connecticut and then proceed on his mission. After complying with these directions, Spy ventured into Long Island Sound about 19 July to check on reported movements of British warships assigned to guard the waters leading to New York City. The assignment almost ended in disaster: shortly after his departure, Niles was chased back into New London Harbor by three British frigates which fired “several broadsides with other random shots” at him.24 Still, the waters of Long Island Sound did provide prey for daring and able American seamen. On 27 July, Niles returned from a foray outside New London, bringing with him an empty sloop of eighty tons which he had snatched from a British

23Nathaniel Wales to Jonathan Trumbull, 4 July 1776, Conn. Council of Safety to Robert Niles, 2 October 1776, Trumbull to Ephriam Bill, 7 December 1776,Clarket al., eds., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 6:1145, 7:401; Destler, Connecticut: the Provision State, pp. 15, 16, 30–35. 24Jonathan Trumbull to Nathaniel Shaw, 30 June 1777, Robert Niles to Trumbull, 4 July 1777, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 9:190–91, 245–46.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 96 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY convoy heading from Newport, Rhode Island to Long Island. On 1 August, Niles had combined with Captain Joseph Coak- ling of the ten-gun sloop Revenge to capture an enemy sloop loaded with wood and other contraband items. The prize, the Ferguson, was originally named Polly, and had been abandoned to the British the previous year during the American evacuation of New York. Her former owners in Norwalk subsequently made unsuccessful efforts to reclaim her from the state.25 Niles’s most valuable prize of the year was still to come. Once again the location for the capture was Long Island Sound where tides, currents, and shoreline had become so familiar to him. On 10 September 1777, his knowledge and skill were put to use when Spy confronted the sloop Dolphin, out of British- occupied Newport. Despite Dolphin’s larger size (eighty tons) and superior firepower (ten guns), Niles surprised the ship at anchor off Long Island and forced her to lower her col- ors. Afterwards, he escorted the ship with her valuable cargo of lumber back to Norwich. There, on 19 September, three prominent townsmen were appointed to appraise the vessel’s worth, and the hearing was held the following month. Dolphin’s sale price was £ 981.6s.4d. (after court expenses), half of which went to the ship’s crew, the other half, to the state of Con- necticut, which purchased the vessel. Niles, who had bought a part of the ship’s cargo, was then selected as Dolphin’s new skipper. His experienced mate and marine officer, Lieutenant Zebediah Smith, was temporarily upgraded to command Spy.26 The new addition to Connecticut’s state navy was pressed into service soon after refitting and repair. Wartime supplies were becoming increasingly difficult to obtain because of the tightening British blockade. The then-neutral Dutch island of St. Eustatius offered one available source for increasingly scarce supplies. Consequently, because of Niles’s prewar experience in the West Indian trade, the Connecticut government

25Conn. Council of Safety to Jonathan Trumbull, 28 July and 1 August 1777,Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 9:331, 354. 26Conn. Council of Safety to Governor Jonathan Trumbull, 5 and 22 September 1777, Captain Seth Harding to Jonathan Trumbull 5 September 1777, Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 9:392–93, 399–400, 879, 950.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 97 authorized him to secure on loan, £5,000 worth of supplies from island merchants of various nationalities willing to trade with the insurgent Americans. Niles enlisted a crew and, shortly before the end of 1777 embarked for the West Indies. Arriving at St. Eustatius in early January 1778, he borrowed enough funds from sympathetic merchants to obtain a cargo of sul- fur for making gunpowder. He returned to Connecticut after approximately a month, whereupon the Council of Safety directed him to dispose of his cargo. On 16 March, he appeared in Lebanon to offer an account of his voyage to the state’s executive and to complete a financial settlement.27 Encouraged by this successful West Indian venture, the governor and Council of Safety on 27 April 1778 authorized the sale of one hogshead of sugar and one of molasses to assist with the purchase of stores and other articles to fit out Dolphin and Spy for another voyage to the West Indies. Niles was to command this new expedition while Zebediah Smith, awaiting new government orders, remained as master of Spy.28 Events outside Connecticut, however, intervened to alter this planned expedition and send Niles on his longest and most important assignment of the war. With the conclusion of the commercial and military al- liances following the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, the Continen- tal Congress faced the problem of getting the ratified treaties back to France. This was not a simple task; the British army still occupied Philadelphia, New York, and Newport, and its fleet effectively blockaded Chesapeake Bay and other rebel ports. Aware of these obstacles, the Congress, on 5 May 1778, ordered that “six copies of the treaties with the ratification agreed to, be made out and transmitted by the Committee for Foreign Affairs to the commissioners of the United States at

27Barbara W. Tuchman, The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution (New York, Random House, 1988), chap. 6; Conn. Council of Safety, 16 March 1778,Clark et al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 11:656–59; Middlebrook, Maritime Conn. in the Revolution,1:32–33. 28Jonathan Trumbull and Conn. Council of Safety, 21 and 27 April 1778,Clarket al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 12:161–62, 181; Middlebrook, Maritime Conn. in the Revolution, 1:41–43.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 98 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY the Court of France by different conveyances.” It was also ordered that the Marine Committee of Congress provide vessels “for carrying the said dispatches.”29 The Marine Committee lacking its own ships turned to other sources and drafted individual letters to the Navy Board of the Eastern Department in Boston, John Langdon, naval agent at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Connecticut’s Governor Jonathan Trumbull requesting the preparation of swift sailing packets, or other dependable ships to carry dispatches to France. In the letter to Trumbull, Spy was speciﬁcally cited as the preferred vessel to be used for this mission abroad. In addition to these individual letters of the Marine Committee, letters to the American Commissioners in Paris and instructions dated 15 to 19 and 29 May from the Congressional Committee for Foreign Affairs were sent to the three American locations. These instructions also emphasized the need for sending the packets with secrecy and dispatch, and also called for sinking these important documents in case the vessel should be “unfortunately taken.”30 Connecticut’s government moved quickly to comply with these congressional requests. In late May 1778, the General Assembly requested the governor order the preparation of the Spy for the voyage. Niles, who had been readying Dolphin for her West Indies voyage, was now transferred back to his former ship while another experienced mariner, Captain Zebe- diah Smith, took command of Dolphin. The Norwich captain zealously worked his crew of about thirty men to ready the schooner and load a cargo of valuable ivory from New London

29Worthington C. Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, 34 vols. (Wash- ington, D.C., Govt. Printing Office, 1889), 3:953–99; Richard Lee and James Lovell to Jonathan Trumbull, 19 May 1778, Trumbull Papers, MHS, Collections, 7th ser., 2:234. 30Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (Washington, D.C., Govt. Printing Office, 1889), 2:953–99; Navy Board of the Eastern Department to Jonathan Trumbull et al., 5 May 1778, Trumbull Papers, MHS, Collections, 7th ser., 1:234; Marine Committee to American Commissioners in Paris, 19 May 1778, Leonard W. Labaree et al., eds., Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 26:539 (hereafter referred to as Franklin Papers); libels filed in the Massachusetts Court of the Middle District, 14 May 1778, and Jonathan Trumbull to American Commissioners in France, 29 May 1778,Clarket al., Naval Documents of the Revolution, 12:350–51, 479.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 99 merchant Nathaniel Shaw, Jr. Niles also carried several additional dispatches from the Continental Congress. One from Governor Trumbull asked the three American commissioners in Paris to advance Niles enough money to pay the captain and his crew and, if possible, to arrange to have Spy loaded with a military cargo of lead for her return voyage. Shortly after these additional messages were prepared, Spy was ready for sea. Then, on 29 May, Trumbull sent a message to the Ameri- can commissioners in which he identified Niles and his mission. In addition, he sent a message to Niles reminding him of the importance of his upcoming and lengthy journey and wishing him good fortune. With the signing of the last cargo invoices by Captain Niles on 9 or 10 June 1778, the schooner slipped carefully out of Stonington Harbor on her climactic wartime voyage.31 This long, taxing, and hazardous journey was new to Spy as well as her captain. Nevertheless, the little patriot cockleshell overcame the perils of an Atlantic crossing, followed Niles’s careful commands, avoided lurking British warships as well as hostile privateers off the French coast, and, according to Benjamin Franklin, arrived at the port of Brest in the fast time of twenty-two days. Although other sources gave slightly different time spans for the voyage, Niles was in France in July on the second anniversary of American independence and traveled the more than three hundred miles in five or six days from Brest to Paris to deliver his dispatches and the copy of the ratified treaties to the American commissioners. There, Captain Corbin Barnes of Dispatch from Massachusetts subsequently joined him in Paris having arrived in France with his copy of the treaty, albeit several days later.32

31Cargo Invoices, Capt. Robert Niles, Spy, departure, 5 June 1778, Shaw Papers, no. 5158, Yale University Library, New Haven, Conn.; Thomas Mumford to Silas Deane, 4 June 1778, “The Deane Papers: Correspondence between Silas Deane, his brothers and their business and political associates, 1771–1795,” Conn. Hist. Soc. Collections 13 (1930):129–30; Jonathan Trumbull to American Commissioners, 29 May 1778, Benjamin Franklin to Robert Niles, 29 May 1778, Robert Niles to Benjamin Franklin, 6 July 1778, and Thomas Simpson to Robert Niles, 4 July 1778, Labaree et al., Franklin Papers, 26:539–40, 27:134. 32Eastern Navy Board to American Commissioners, 8 June 1778,Jonathan Trumbull to American Commissioners, 29 May 1778, Samuel Tucker to American

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 100 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY Niles moved methodically in France toward completing his assignments and returning home as soon as practicable. On 22 July, the American commissioners, then residing in the Paris suburb of Passy, drafted a letter to Jonathan Trumbull notifying him of Niles’s arrival, informing him they had advanced the captain money, and were ordering some lead to be loaded on board Spy.33 Another letter was sent that day to Jean-Daniel Schweighauser, the United States commercial agent at Nantes, asking him to arrange the possible loading of “14 or 15 ton[s] of Lead” in Spy along with any other articles that Niles might request. Four days later, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that he was sending her “a small present of Tea by Captain Niles.” Then, on 6 August, Niles sent a note to Franklin from Nantes, stating that he would “make all poss[ible] dispatch” to proceed on his voyage homeward and notifying Franklin of a bill of £1364 for cargo costs.34 This note was not his ﬁnal farewell message. On 27 October 1778, Niles wrote to Franklin describing the calamitous events of his attempted voyage home: his capture by an English Chan- nel Island privateer, La Bazley, in the Bay of Biscay on 29 or 30 August and his interrogation on 12 September, perhaps by a rather lenient Jersey Admiralty Court or other ofﬁcials. Also, while it was not likely mentioned, the Americans may have bribed Captain Noah Gautier, master of the privateer, to send Niles to Bordeaux rather than be handed over to the Royal Navy for detention.35

Commissioners, 3 July 1778, and Robert Niles to Benjamin Franklin, 4 July 1778, Labaree et al., Franklin Papers, 26:539, 27:34, 134–35, 227–29. 33American Commissioners in France to Governor Jonathan Trumbull, 22 July 1778, Labaree et al., Franklin Papers, 27:134–35. 34American Commissioners to John Schweighauser, 22 July 1778 and Robert Niles to Benjamin Franklin, 6 August 1778, Labaree et al., Franklin Papers, 27:134, 175. John to Abigail Adams, 26 July 1778, Gregg Lint et al., eds., The Papers of John Adams, (Boston, Mass., Massachusetts Historical Society, 1965), 7:210 (hereafter referred to as Adams Papers). 35See, for example, Prize Court Papers for the War of 1775–1783,Capturedship Spy, High Court of Admiralty, 32//308/1/1-2, National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom (hereafter referred to as NA); Robert Niles to Benjamin Franklin, 27 October 1778, Labaree et al., Franklin Papers, 27:652–53.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 101 Franklin, upon learning of Niles’s plight, acted immediately to aid his second attempt to return to America and wrote to the Yankee captain on 3 November 1778 sympathizing with his recent “Misfortune” and authorizing him, “to obtain from Mr. [John] Bondfield whatever sums may be necessary to forward your return.” Niles, who had been in Bordeaux in late Oc- tober and early November, used the money he subsequently received to travel back to Nantes and await the best opportunity for a safe passage home. He was definitely at liberty in Nantes during January 1779 when he wrote to the American commissioners on the twenty-seventh of that month to confirm that while in captivity on Jersey, he was told by the captain of a British privateer that one of the owners of the privateer was Peter Frederick Dobree. Dobree was a son-in-law of Jean- Daniel Schweighauser, the American commercial agent, and may well have been working for both sides, a practice done by several individuals during the conflict. Shortly after making this deposition Niles embarked on his next attempt to return to America.36 Captain Niles’s second try had also ended in failure. The American skipper, at that time, was evidently a passenger on board a ship departing from France. Ostensibly it was a merchant vessel sailing to America from one of several possible French ports. As luck would have it, though, this vessel was one of several ships that British warships or privateers seized off the French coast in late 1778. In this instance, it appears that Niles was on board one such ship departing for America sometime after 9 November. But once again, his vessel was seized by another prowling Jersey privateer, probably the Mars.37 Niles was again detained on one of the Channel Islands with his captors deciding the possible sale of the ship and the

36Benjamin Franklin to Robert Niles, November 1778, 22 January 1779, Niles to American Commissioners, 22 January 1779, Labaree et al., Franklin Papers, 5:28; 21, 409–10; John Adams to Abigail Adams, 26 July 1778, Lint et al., Adams Papers, 7:210–11. 37Robert Niles to American Commissioners, 22 January 1779, Labaree et al., Franklin Papers, 28:409–10; Robert Niles to Continental Congress, 13 March 1779, 3:3844, John P. Butler, comp., Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (Wash- ington D.C. Govt. Printing Ofﬁce, 1978), p. 3844.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 102 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY subsequent disposition of her captain, crew, and travelers on board. In this particular case, Niles, who claimed that his captors had previously treated him well, once more found that his luck persisted. As the year came to a close, royal ofﬁcials, perhaps members of an admiralty court, concluded that Niles should not be put on board the nearby Royal Navy warship, HMS Seaford, as had been the case for most of his unfortunate crewmen who had been subsequently dispatched to prisons on England’s mainland.38 Forton and Mill were the primary detention locales to which the greatest number of Americans, captured at sea—almost three thousand—were sent. Forton was located in Gosport, across Portsmouth Harbor in Hampshire. Mill was situated between Plymouth and Devonport in Devon. These prisons oper- ated from the spring of 1777 until September 1783. Although Mill Prison was more onerous than Forton, both shared many of the same unpleasant features. Each was governed under a strict set of rules, and had armed guards to maintain order and supervise punishments. Both penal institutions had poor provi- sioning, were overcrowded and disease-ridden, lacked proper sanitation and adequate medical care, and were marked, of course, by the continual boredom of captivity. Indeed, Niles was treated more leniently by British ofﬁcials and was not dispatched to either of these prisons possibly because of his rank and the fact that the British government had been developing a plan of conciliation with the American states.39 Niles, nevertheless, was eventually able to effect his departure from France. Released from detention on Jersey in early January 1779, Niles was back, residing as a free man in Nantes. His situation, however, was compounded by the fact that he had little, if any, cash to pay for travel back to America and his home in Connecticut. Nevertheless, through Benjamin Franklin and

38Robert Niles to American Commissioners, 22 January 1779, Labaree et al., Franklin Papers, 28:409–10. Accounts of French banker, Ferdinand Grand, reveal that in early February 1779, he gave money to Niles to facilitate his return to America. Fer- dinand Grand accounts, 1777–1779. Founders Online (www.Founders.archives.gov). 39Sheldon S. Cohen, Yankee Sailors in British Gaols; Prisoners of War at Forton and Mill, 1777–1783 (Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1995), pp. 7–278.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 103 his French banker friend, Rodolphe-Ferdinand Grand, monies were evidently sent to the destitute American. It was also possible Schweighauser offered him employment, but there is no record that Niles accepted it. Similarly, he decided not to serve on any of the privateer raiders in the French channel seaports that Franklin had sponsored.40 Whatever his reasons for remaining in France, he continued at liberty until sometime in mid- to late June, when he departed, perhaps on a then neutral Dutch ship, to America. His Atlantic journey this time was seemingly uneventful, and he arrived home on 17 July 1779. Niles may have visited his family in Norwich ﬁrst before trav- eling another forty-one miles to Hartford. On Tuesday, 20 July 1779, Connecticut’s General Assembly noted that, “Cap. Niles came in (to the Assembly session) having arrived home last Saturday after having been twice captured.”41 Back in Connecticut after an almost fourteen month absence, Niles related his adventures to family and friends as well as state and American naval ofﬁcials. Simultaneously, he also sought compensation for his services and expenses from the state. He also sought payments for Richard D. Jennings, the sympathetic St. Eustatius merchant who had provided contraband for the American cause. Niles also desired wages for his crew on Spy, some of whom had returned to America and had not been paid since June of 1778. Satisfaction of this request proved to be long in coming. On 28 July 1779 Connecticut’s Council of Safety ordered that “eight hundred pounds lawful money be drawn in favor of Captain Niles to be disbursed as wages among the crew of Spy.” Niles, however, had asked for £1420 in specie as the total cost for wages and expenses, but because he had received the funds in currency, the next spring he petitioned the General Assembly for more funds, noting

40Stacy Schiff, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2005), pp. 16, 87, 94–100, 103, 108, 115;Robert Niles to American Commissioners, 22 January 1779, Labaree et al., Franklin Papers, 28:409–10. 41Hoadly, ed., Public Records of Conn., 2:368, 372, 391, 447, 3:87, 98–99, 155, 4:126.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 104 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY the depreciated state of Continental currency and the “neces- sitous circumstances” of his crewmen’s families.42 On 15 May 1780, the state legislature, meeting in Hartford, voted Niles another ﬁve hundred pounds in Continental currency and recommended that a committee examine and adjust his accounts according to a depreciation table. The assembly added that any further funds found due him should be charged to the United States since Spy had been engaged in congressional service when Niles undertook his trans-Atlantic mission. Niles had already given the Congress a list of his expenses in September 1779, but they had referred the account to the Confederation Board of Treasury. While the bureaucratic committee ﬁnally acted in June 1781, they disallowed or reduced a considerable portion of the expenses claimed. Nevertheless, the next month the Congress granted $133 in specie to Niles. Simultaneously, in the cases of claims for at least four of his captured crewmen, the Connecticut legislature allotted special sums for relief.43 The mission to France was to be Niles’s last active naval service of the war. He was in his mid-forties by the time of his return, and his arduous and perilous experiences may have dampened his enthusiasm for further hazardous duty. Family matters also caused concern. His father had died shortly after his departure for France leaving him with problems concerning the estate. His daughter, Mary, was at the marriageable age of nineteen, and his son, Frederick, at seventeen, was on the verge of manhood. Niles’s oldest son, Robert, who had been captured while serving on Connecticut’s state navy privateer

42Samuel Huntington and Jesse Root to Jonathan Trumbull, 25 September 1779, Trumbull Papers, pt. 3, MHS, Collections, 7th ser., 2:441; Hoadly ed., Public Records of Conn., 2:391, 477. Both Samuel Huntington and Jesse Root, from New London County, were members of the Connecticut Council of Safety. On 18 December 1779, the Connecticut Governor and Council of Safety approved a payment to Michael Pepper, a crewman on board Spy who had been sent to England as a prisoner. There, he was incarcerated before his eventual release and returned to America. 43Hoadly, Public Records of Conn., 2:368, 391, 447, 3:87, 98–99, 155, 165, 541, 4:120; Revolutionary War Papers, 1st. ser., 18:293–95, Conn. State Archives; Samuel Huntington to Jonathan Trumbull, 25 September 1779, Trumbull Papers, pt. 3,MHS, Collections, 7th ser., 2:441.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 105 Oliver Cromwell, was recovering after his release from a British prison ship.44 Meanwhile, Niles was obliged to resolve matters relating to several notes of credit or loans he had made while on service with the state navy. The issue of one such advance made in the West Indies in January 1778 from Richard D. Jen- nings, the aforementioned St. Eustatius merchant, took over thirteen years to resolve. Yet, despite such personal concerns, Niles did assist the patriot cause during the final years of the war. In September 1780, Governor Trumbull and the Gen- eral Assembly allowed him to carry foodstuffs by water from Wethersfield to Norwich. Also, during that year and the next, he served on local committees to raise troops for the Continen- tal army. The need for such combatants appeared quite evident in the wake of turncoat Benedict Arnold’s raid (6 September 1781) on New London. Less than six weeks later, however, this slight reverse was more than offset by the surrender of General Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown.45 Niles returned to seafaring for several years after the Treaty of Paris (September 1783). At first, he captained merchant vessels along familiar routes to the West Indies. Then, in 1786, he commanded a regular packet, Juno, carrying passengers and mail between Norwich and New York. He was also active as a selectman, signing and forwarding petitions for county road repairs, town privileges, boundaries, and establishing a local fire company. Such civic efforts were noted by the Connecticut legislature, which, in October 1784, granted him a short-term loan. In 1800, he retired from his maritime pursuits, noting that “his years and infirmities made him sensible that he ought to relinquish an employment filled with care.” Still, he demon- strated his interest and connection with maritime affairs by donating to the state of Connecticut a punchbowl dated 1792,

44Francis M. Caulkins, History of Norwich, Connecticut, From its First Possession by the Indians to the Year 1866. (Hartford, Conn.: Francis M. Caulkins, 1866), 2:477; Manuscript Notebooks of Francis Caulkins, 2nd ser., 3:65, New London Historical Society, New London, Conn. 45Joel N. Enos, “Robert Niles of Braintree, MA,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 85 (1931):148–49; Hoadly, eds., Public Records of Conn., 2:343, 368, 391, 447.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 106 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY which showed an armed American merchantman. Today, it can be found among other artifacts at the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford.46 By 1800, Niles had also experienced considerable domestic tragedies. His oldest son, Robert, was lost at sea in 1780;his younger son, Frederick, died in 1784; and his daughter, Mary in February 1787, less than a year after her marriage to Captain Andrew Perkins, a close friend and fellow Baptist from Nor- wich. Niles had a grandson, George, by his son Robert, but the boy died in 1784 at only four years of age. His ﬁrst wife, Abi- gail, died in February 1796, but later that year, Niles married Polly (Mary) Fitch of Norwich. When Polly died in January 1799, less than three years after the nuptials, he married her widowed sister Hannah (Fitch) Brown. Niles took care not only of her and some of her children, but also of a daughter, Han- nah, born to them 15 July 1805. The adverse effects of such family calamities must have affected the Norwich mariner, but he seemed to have accepted them with a spirit of equanimity not unknown to Yankee seamen of his day.47 Serious monetary reverses overshadowed any joys of father- hood at age seventy. Niles had been able to accumulate an estate worth about $4,000 by the time of his retirement from the sea in 1800. That same year, he had advanced $1,200 of his savings to James Brown, a stepson from his recent marriage. Brown used the money to establish a carriage factory in Nor- wich, but chronic illnesses rendered him incapable of managing the new enterprise. As business worsened, Niles became further involved with making loan repayments including interest to Samuel Woodbridge, a Norwich merchant and a relative of his stepson. Woodbridge went bankrupt, and the catastrophic Embargo Act of 1807 brought a ﬁnal demise to the carriage undertaking. By March 1808, creditors had begun to attach Niles’s property, and the following year, with an indebtedness of $12,783, he was obliged to petition the General Assembly

46Travel, Highways, Ferries, Bridges, Taverns, Conn. State Archives, 1st ser., 13:55, 65, New Eng, Hist. & Gen. Reg.; Enos, pp. 149–50. 47Enos, “Robert Niles,” p. 152.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 ROBERT NILES 107 for relief. In October 1809, the state legislature granted this bankruptcy petition and appointed trustees to distribute Niles’s remaining estate to his creditors.48 Despite the personal humiliation of bankruptcy, Robert Niles lived out his final years in Norwich. His financial woes failed to erase the respect he had achieved from his wartime activities. Hannah died in 1810, and Niles apparently lived with his daughter though perhaps not in his former home in the town’s prominent “landing,” or Chelsea section of the community. Niles himself continued to worship in the new Baptist church, that he had earlier promoted through lottery petitions made to the state’s General Assembly, and was a member of a Norwich town committee planning Fourth of July observances.49 Niles expressed no sentiments about the War of 1812 which occurred during the latter years of his life; however, he was not reluctant to regale fellow Baptist congregants and Norwich’s townspeople with tales of his many journeys and escapades during the former conflict with Britain. And perhaps these dim- ming wartime memories even occupied most of his thoughts as advancing years gradually took their toll. Then, on 1 July 1818, the Norwich Courier reported his death and wartime service. Niles’s white, weather-beaten marble gravestone, memorializ- ing his personal contribution to France’s recognition of Amer- ican independence, stands today in the Norwich City, or Oak Street, cemetery.50 Robert Niles has received little note in early American maritime history. Nonetheless, he had surely performed noteworthy services as a Connecticut State Navy shipmaster. His overall ac- tions in this respect—in addition to his trans-Atlantic mission to France in early 1778—are definitely worthy of attention. At

48Insolvent Debtors, 2nd ser., 2:54–56, 4:346, Conn. State Archives; Naﬂe, To the Beat of a Drum, p. 80; Town Lands and Misc. docs., for Norwich Conn. at New London County Historical Society via Kayla Correll, Assoc. Director, New London County Historical Society to Sheldon S. Cohen, 21 October 2015. 49Naﬂe, To the Beat of a Drum, pp. 80–81; Enos, “Robert Niles,” pp. 152–54. 50Norwich Courier, 1 July 1818; Norwich, Connecticut Cemetery Inscriptions, Ec- clesiastical Affairs, 2nd ser., 42, 9:624, Conn. State Archives; Manuscript Notebooks, Caulkins Papers.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021 108 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY present, there has been comparatively minimal coverage de- voted to the activities of this often overlooked New England state maritime force, as well as the deeds of other state navies. Yet during the War of Independence, these small and admit- tedly vulnerable maritime ﬂeets, with the odds usually stacked against them, performed signiﬁcant services, such as assisting in the defense of the American coastline, interdicting enemy supply routes, gathering intelligence, and transporting needed supplies and ammunition. It can also be seen in such endeav- ors that Niles was a committed insurgent rather than merely a wartime adventurer, as were other men who served in the state navies. Perhaps, therefore, the further study of brave, dis- passionate, and resourceful men, the likes of Captain Niles, will add new historical naval dimensions to the study of our American Revolution.

Sheldon S. Cohen was born in Barberton, Ohio. He received his BA from Yale University, his MA from Harvard Univer- sity, and his PhD from New York University. He served in the United States Army as an artillery ofﬁcer from 1953 to 1955. He taught at Kent State University, Hunter College (CUNY), New York University, Bradley University, and at Loyola University Chicago from 1969 until his retirement in 1999.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00513 by guest on 29 September 2021