The Continental Navy ’ s Shakedown Cruise
kins would have to make do with converted merchantmen . In addition to Alfred , and the squadron consisted of the ship Columbus ( twenty guns ), the brigs Andrew Doria and Cabot ( fourteen guns each ), the sloops Providence and Hornet ( twelve and ten guns respectively ), and the schooners Wasp and Fly ( eight guns each ). 7 Military service was also a new experience for the majority of the officers and men . Like Commodore Hopkins , Captain Dudley Saltonstall of Alfred had served in privateers . Nicholas Biddle , commanding Andrew Doria , was the only captain in the squadron who had served in the Royal Navy , and then only as a lowly midshipman . 8
Incessant winter weather and icy conditions kept the squadron stuck in the Delaware River well into February 1776 . On the 14th , Commodore Hopkins distributed signals and general instructions for the anticipated expedition . The eight ship captains were ordered to sail in company with the Commodore , and also “ to use all possible Means to join the Fleet as soon as possible ” at Abaco in the Bahamas if foul weather or other accident caused the squadron to separate . However , in his April 1776 report to President John Hancock of the Continental Congress , Hopkins wrote , “ I did not think we were in a Condition to keep on a cold Coast .” 9 The Commodore smartly had never intended to sail for Virginia ; Congress ’ s plan for the squadron had become public knowledge almost immediately . As early as 25 December 1775 , General George Washington had written to Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Reed in Philadelphia :
I fear the destination of the Vessels from your Port is so generally known as to defeat the end . two Men of War ( 40 guns ) it is said , put into New York the other day & were instantly ordered out — supposed to be for Virginia . 10
Even without two additional frigates at their disposal , British forces in Virginia would have met Hopkins and his squadron with significant organized resistance . The beleaguered royal governor , Lord Dunmore , had fled the capital at Williamsburg in June 1775 . Dunmore spent that summer and fall raising military support from loyalists and slaves from rebel masters and gathering what few regular British forces he could find . By December , Dunmore had seized the merchantman William for use as his headquarters and augmented his naval power with the sixteen-gun sloops-of-war Otter and Kingfisher and the twenty-eight-gun frigate Liverpool , in addition to the numerous armed tenders these vessels could deploy . Dunmore ’ s forces quickly became adept at raiding rebel plantations on the James River , capturing munitions , provisions , and other supplies while based out of Norfolk and Gosport . 11
Congress had recently been informed that “ a frigate of thirty guns , with metal proportionate ... would not only become master of these , [ Otter , Kingfisher , and Liverpool ] but of Dunmores ship Wm . & a vast many other vessels loaded with the floating property of Tories .” 12 Hopkins ’ s squadron , however , would have been no match
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