for your little fleet" and money to procure
supplies. He was directed to inform General Washington of such stores as
he might capture which are necessary for the use of the army. He was to
sink or destroy the vessels which he could not remove to safety. His
"despatch, activity, prudence and valor," were relied on to bring
success. If Barry's project to destroy British shipping by explosive
machines did not succeed, another form of endeavor dependent more upon
skill and bravery would accomplish results as satisfactory as had been
hoped for by the floating "score of kegs or more that came floating down
the tide."

The Supreme Executive Committee of Pennsylvania, then at Lancaster, on
February 7, 1778, notified the Navy Board, then at Burlington, New
Jersey, that "a spirit of enterprise to annoy the enemy in the river
below Philadelphia had discovered itself in Captain Barry and other
officers of the Continental Navy, which promised considerable advantage
to the adventurous as well as to the public."

The Council had waited to find Captain Barry's example inducing the
officers and men of the State fleet to engage in the enterprise--of
taking all they could get from the enemy, so that any benefit arising
from the plan should accrue to those who signalized themselves in the
time of danger. So Captain Barry during the night, with four rowboats
with twenty-seven men, started from Burlington and succeeded in passing
Philadelphia undiscovered and so unmolested by the British. Barry was
acting under orders of General Anthony Wayne, a fellow-member of the
FRIENDLY SONS OF ST. PATRICK, who sent a detachment from Washington's
army to aid in the enterprise. After passing Philadelphia, Barry began
the destructive work of destroying forage. On February 26, 1778, he
arrived off Port Penn and from there, that day, wrote General Washington
at Valley Forge that he had "destroyed the forage from Mantua Creek to
this place," amounting to four hundred tons. He would have proceeded
further but "a number of the enemy's boats appeared and lined the Jersey
shore, depriving us of the opportunity of proceeding on the same
purpose." Barry discharged all but four of Washington's men, whom he
kept to assist in getting the boats away, as his men were rendered
incapable through fatigue.

On March 7, 1778, off Bombay Hook, Barry with twenty-seven men in five
rowboats captured the "Mermaid" and the "Kitty," transports from Rhode
Island, laden with sup