Feby 1778 Saturday 14
Moored in Hampton Road Virginia— AM hove up the Small Bower anchor and hove Short on the Bt. Br. found the small Br. Cable very bad; unbent the Small Bower Cable & bt. ye. Sheet Cable to ye Small Br. Anchr. Moored in Hampton Road Virginia— Light Airs [PM] saw a Sail off the Capes from the Mt. head at 7 Sent the Boats Man'd & Arm'd with two Lieutenants with an Intent to Cut out the Vessels out of the Channel within the Bar; found them on ground. burn'd two Sloops load'd with Tobacco and took 12 Prisoners.1 Two of our people dangerously wound'd. lost Six Cut Lashes and 5 Pistols in last Nights Expedition—Moored Ship
D, UkLPR, Adm. 51/828, fol. 9.
1. Sloop Shore, George Rogers, master, owned by the State of Virginia, mounting 4 guns, a crew of 9 seamen, from James River to Cape François, with 82 hogsheads of tobacco, taken off Hampton Creek, burned; and sloop Defiance, John Rogers, master, owned by the York River Company of Williamsburg, mounting 4 guns, a crew of 9 seamen, from James River to Martinique, with 93 hogsheads of tobacco, staves, &c., taken off Hampton Creek, burned. Howe's Prize List, 23 Apr. 1778, UkLPR, Adm. 1/488, fols. 240-41. George Rogers had been commissioned captain of the Virginia State trading sloop Shore on 19 Dec. 1777. Journals of the Council of the State of Virginia, edited by H. R. McIlwaine (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1932), 2: 50.