ate fleets had arrived in the upper Delaware
near Bordentown, Washington, in November, 1777, notified the
Continental Navy Board there was danger of a British force being sent to
destroy the vessels. So he directed they should be sunk. Barry was, by
the Board, on November 2d, directed to move the "Effingham" "a little
below White Hill" (now Fieldsboro, N.J.) "where she may lie on a soft
bottom. You are to sink her there without delay by sunset this evening."
But Barry was loath to sink the vessel he had been appointed to command
and fight. Later in the month Francis Hopkinson, of the Navy Board,
delivered to Captain Barry, as Senior Officer, "orders, in writing," to
sink or burn the ships. Captains Barry and Read had taken every measure
to defend the vessels which Barry declared he believed would be
effectual in repelling any force the enemy would send to destroy them.

Barry and Read protested to the Board against the sinking, saying that
if Washington knew the security of the ships he would not order the
sinking. Barry offered to go and inform him, but Hopkinson declared
Washington had been informed and his order would be carried out. He told
Barry that the order should be obeyed; that he would take Washington's
opinion in preference to Barry's.

"I told him," related Barry in his defense, when summoned before
Congress sitting at York, for disrespect to the Navy Board, "that
nevertheless I knew more about a ship than General Washington and the
Navy Board together. That I was commissioned by Congress to command the
'Effingham' and, therefore, expected to be consulted before she was
destroyed."

"You shall obey our orders," was the quick and somewhat heated reply.
Whereupon Barry left him "of course in high dudgeon," said Barry. "I
immediately repaired to my ship, got all clear--and the orders were
punctually obeyed"--while Hopkinson himself was on board giving orders
which did not permit the vessel to keel and so was "very near
upsetting." When Barry reported the condition of the ship to the Navy
Board, he was told "it was a misfortune and we must do the best to
remedy it," to which Barry replied that nothing would be wanting on his
part.

Two attempts to raise the "Effingham" failed for want of men and
material, whereupon Mr. Hopkinson said he would raise her himself--"an
insult I overlooked, having the getting up of the ship much at heart,"
Barry told Congress. So he got everything ready and sent for as many of