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ZEEB ROAD, ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1 R 4EJ, ENGLAND 8100267 T il l e y, Jo h n An d r e w THE ROYAL NAVY IN NORTH AMERICA, 1774-1781: A STUDY IN COMMAND The Ohio State University Ph.D. 1980 University Microfilms I ntern stionsi300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Copyright 1980 by Tilley, John Andrew All Rights Reserved THE ROYAL NAVY IN NORTH AMERICA, 17 74-1781: A STUDY IN COMMAND DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By John Andrew Tilley, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 1980 Reading Committee: Approved By Harry L. Coles R. Clayton Roberts Paul C. Bowers V Adviser Department of History To the Memory of PHILIP P. POIRIER Professor of British History at The Ohio State University, 1952 - 1978. 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I fear this will be a long list, for I have partaken of the time, knowledge, and good nature of many people. At the top must come my adviser. Professor Harry Coles, who was a source of encouragment and sober advice from the beginning of the project to the end. The others members of the reading committee. Professors Paul Bowers and Clayton Roberts, offered numerous helpful suggestions and gave freely of their time during a season of the year in which I had no right to ask them to do so. My good friend and colleague Dr. John Rowland read the early chapters of the manuscript and offered ruthlessly constructive criticism as well. My research trips were enjoyable not only for the information they produced but for the opportunity they gave me to become acquainted with so many knowledgeable and outgoing people. At the Clements Library in Ann Arbor I was received with the greatest possible cordiality by the Curator, Mr. John C. Dann, the Curator of Manuscripts, Mrs. Arlene Shy, and her assistant, Mrs. Barbara Mitchell, even when I was so indiscrete as to arrive on the eve of iii the OSU/Michigan football game. Mrs. Shy’s husband, Professor John Shy, frequently stopped by to offer encouragement, as well as advice on the use of the manu­ script collections with which he was so familiar. At the Naval Historical Center in the Washington Navy Yard I received the valuable help of Dr. William J. Morgan, the Director of the great Naval Documents of the Revolution project, and his staff, including Dr. William S. Dudley, Mr. E. Gordon Bowen-Hassell, and Chief Yeoman George K. McCuistion. All of them went beyond the call of duty in providing me with space and equipment to do research in the midst of their office facilities, and taking time away from their own work to offer expert advice. The staff of the Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, also was most helpful, not only in making my visit produc­ tive but in making many of the important transcripts available to me through the Inter-Library"Loan Service when my teaching duties kept me in Columbus. In London the staff of the Public Records Office was cheerfully tolerant of my bumbling efforts to sort out the intricasies of that great and highly computerized repository, the atmosphere of which might be oppressively mechanical were it not for the informal courtesy which seems to characterize everyone who works there. At the National Maritime Museum the staff of the Caird Library, iv including Mrs. Jacqueline Skidmore, Mrs. Lynne Bland, Mrs, Vanessa Elsworth, Mr. Malcolm Barr-Hamilton, Mrs. Kay Chapman, and Mrs. Mary Allard, provided every possible courtesy and convenience, including "electric fires" for American researchers unaccustomed to working in the absence of central heating. My friends Noel and Brenda Smith, Roger and Jo Chesnau, and Ray Rimell took me in tow throughout my stay in London. I hope the pleasure I derived from my visit to England will be noticeable in the pages that follow. The last debt to be acknowledged is the one I owe to my father. I hope he already knows what his contri­ bution was, as I am incapable of describing it. V VITA November 2, 1950 . Born - Columbus, Ohio 1973 ................. B.A., Capital University, Columbus, Ohio 1975-1980 ........... Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1975 ................. M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio PUBLICATION "The Development of American Revolutionary Naval Policy, April, 1775 - July, 1776," Nautical Research Journal, Vol. XXV, Nos. 2, 3 nd 4, June, September, and December, 1979 FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field; American Military History American History, 1763-1815. Professor Paul C. Bowers British History Since 1714. Professor Philip P. Poirier Modern Chinese History. Professor Samuel C. Chu VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................ lli VITA...........................................................Vi LIST OF F I G U R E S ........................................... viii PREFACE....................................... 1 INTRODUCTION................................................... S Chapter One. Samuel Graves, June, 1774-April, 1775 . 16 Two. Samuel Graves, April-June, 1775 70 Three. Samuel Graves, June, 1775-January, 1776 ........................................ 126 Four. Molyneux Shuldham, January-July, 1776 . 177 Five. Richard, Lord Howe, John Byron, and James Gambier, July, 1776-April, 1779 . 189 Six. Harriot Arbuthnot, August, 1779-July, 1780 .......................................... 201 Seven. Harriot Arbuthnot, July, 1780-July, 1781 ........................................ 2 6 2 Eight. Thomas Graves, July-October, 17 81 .... 350 Nine. Conclusion .......................... 433 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................. 444 Vll LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Map of the British Colonies in North America............................... 20 2. Map of Boston Harbor and Environs........... 30 3. Map of the New England Colonies.............. 35 4. Map of New York and E n v i r o n s ............... 208 5. Map of Charleston and E n v i r o n s ............ 229 6 . Map of Rhode Island........................ 2?2 7. Battle of Cape Henry: First P h a s e ...........315 8 . Battle of Cape henry: Second Phase .... 318 9. Map of Chesapeake B a y ...................... 32? 10. Map of the West I n d i e s ......................352 Vlll PREFACE Historians give no indication, even in the wake of the vainglorious bicentennial celebration of 1976, that they are tired of writing about the American Revolution. The events leading up to the creation of the United States seem to be irresistably attractive. Novelists, poets, artists, dramatists, and the public as well as professional scholars have considered literally thousands of aspects of the subject, and undoubtedly will continue to do so indefinitely. There is no reason why they should not. The Revolution is an ideal topic for study in that, besides offering a vast amount of material to the research­ er's perusal, it is susceptible to examination from a virtually limitless number of directions. The Revolutionary War, as distinct from the Revolution as a political or ideological phenomenon, has received its share of attention. The peace treaty scarcely had been signed when the heroes of Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga, Valley Forge, and Yorktown were installed among the ranks of the legendary, and the American military tradition began to trace its history to 1775. The war's 1 intimate scale and awesome consequences made it into an epic, an almost biblical pageant played out by men in red coats on one side and men hiding behind trees on the other. In the past few decades such exemplary historians as William Willcox, John Shy, and Piers Mackesy have made the military phase of the Revolution the subject of dignified scholarship, and the stream of documentary col­ lections being published in this country and in England undoubtedly will stimulate the writing of many other dis­ tinguished books. So far, though, one basic point about the war generally has been overlooked, or at best has received a deferential nod from an author writing about something else. The War of American Independence was, to at least as great an extent as it was anything else, a naval war.