an immediate, ample and efficacious
succor in money, large enough to be a foundation for substantial
arrangement of finance, to revive public credit and give vigor to future
operations."

There was delay in sailing owing to a shortness of crew and the
inability to procure recruits. In the meantime Captain Barry was, on
November 10, 1780, appointed, by the Navy Board of the Eastern
Department, President of a Court-Martial, together with Captains
Hoystead Hucker, Samuel Nicholson and Henry Johnson, Lieutenants Silas
Devol, Patrick Fletcher, Nicholas E. Gardner and Samuel Pritchard,
Lieutenant of Marine, to meet on November 21st to try Lieutenant James
Degges to determine whether he was justified in revolting against the
authority of Captain Landais of the "Alliance" and usurping command on
the voyage from France. A Court-Martial was also held for the trial of
Captain Landais, and he was dismissed the service. There is much
interesting history connected with these trials, but they do not
properly enter into this recital further than to say that Captain
Landais' erratic conduct in command of the "Alliance" was due to mental
deficiencies as was afterwards generally acknowledged. These became so
manifest in the voyage to America that the officers took the command
from him.

On February 2, 1781, so impatient at the delay had become Colonel
Laurens that, as all other resources had failed, he applied to General
Benjamin Lincoln to allow recruits for the army fitted for marine
service to be engaged and nowhere so advantageously employed.

Patrick Sheridan, an enlisted soldier of Boston, is one known to have
been given leave to join the "Alliance." On February 11, 1781, the
"Alliance" sailed from Boston with Colonel Laurens, Thomas Paine, Comte
de Noailles, brother-in-law of Lafayette and other celebrities. On the
way to France the "Alliance" captured, on March 4th, the British cruiser
"Alert," which had possession of the "La Buonia Compagnia," a Venetian
ship which, "contrary to the Laws of Nations and every principle of
justice" had been seized by the British cruiser called the "Alert" from
Glasgow, Francis Russell commander, by whom the Venetian crew were put
in irons and otherwise cruelly treated.

Captain Barry released the Venetian "out of respect for the Laws of
Nations and the rights of neutrality." Colonel Laurens in reporting to
Congress, from L'Orient, March 11, 1781, where the "Alliance" had
arrived two days befor