Summary

In the closing weeks of the year 1775, the Continental Congress committed the revolting colonies irrevocably to a definite and extensive establishment of an American navy. The fleet, which had been created earlier, and which, during the first week of December, had seen John Paul Jones raise the Grand Union flag on board Alfred, had been one of expediency-adroitly engineered by those mem­bers who appreciated the importance of sea power, but who knew the impossibility of committing a reluctant Congress to so drastic a step. But sentiment had changed as British aggression mounted, and the long tabled Rhode Island resolution of the previous August (recommending a strong fleet be built) was reintroduced. Within a week, Congress agreed to build thirteen frigates, of from 24 to 32 guns, and appointed a Marine Committee with a member from each Colony. But policy, a sop to those who still strove for reconciliation, restricted the offensive to attacks against English war vessels or merchant ships and transports carrying supplies or troops to the British fleet and army in America. Congress, or some of its members, fatuously still thought of good King George III, and blamed the war on a corrupt ministry.

In New England waters, one of Washington's small cruisers intercepted a British tender carrying dispatches from Virginia to Boston. These documents, revealing the measures being taken by the Colonial governors to suppress the rebellion in the South, were laid before Congress late in December. As a result of this intelligence, the Hopkins Fleet was left to the direction of the original Naval Committee, with fond desires that it would destroy Lord Dunmore's force in Vir­ginia. December thus witnessed the assignment of the Continental naval officers to their respective vessels and the establishment of their rank which the Congress, almost a year later, would completely upset.

All these measures and many others were observed and recorded by an astute semiofficial French agent whose report, written almost at year's end, would influence the French Court's decisions in support of the American cause.

The British were penned tightly in Boston, and Dunmore was forced out of Norfolk by defeat at the Great Bridge. Cherished hopes of driving the enemy from Canada, however, had ended, along with the year 1775, in the death of Richard Montgomery and the defeat of the American army before Quebec.