g and equipping
the army. The cause of independence upon the ocean was left to shift
for itself. But, as the war spread, the depredations of British
vessels along the coast became so intolerable that some colonies
fitted out armed vessels for self-protection. Private enterprise sent
out many privateers to prey upon British commerce, so that the
opening months of the year 1776 saw many vessels on the ocean to
support the cause of the Colonies. To man these vessels, there were
plenty of sailors; for even at that early day New England had begun to
develop that race of hardy seamen for which she is still noted in this
day of decadence in the American marine. There was, however, a sad
lack of trained officers to command the vessels of the infant navy.
Many Americans were enrolled on the lists of the ships flying the
royal banner of England, but most of these remained in the British
service. The men, therefore, who were to command the ships of the
colonies, were trained in the rough school of the merchant service,
and had smelt gunpowder only when resisting piratical attacks, or in
serving themselves as privateers.

For these reasons the encounters and exploits that we shall consider
as being part of the naval operations of the Revolutionary war were of
a kind that would to-day be regarded as insignificant skirmishes; and
the naval officer of to-day would look with supreme contempt upon most
of his brethren of '76, as so many untrained sea-guerillas.
Nevertheless, the achievements of some of the seamen of the Revolution
are not insignificant, even when compared with exploits of the era of
Farragut; and it must be remembered that the efforts of the devoted
men were directed against a nation that had in commission at the
opening of the war three hundred and fifty-three vessels, and even
then bore proudly the title conferred upon her by the consent of all
nations,--"The Mistress of the Seas."

It was on the 19th of April, 1775, that the redoubtable Major Pitcairn
and his corps of scarlet-coated British regulars shot down the
colonists on the green at Lexington, and then fled back to Boston
followed by the enraged minute-men, who harassed the retreating
redcoats with a constant fire of musketry. The news of the battle
spread far and wide; and wherever the story was told, the colonists
began arming themselves, and preparing for resistance to the
continually increasing despotism of the British authorities.

On the 9th of May, a