Sir George Collier and the Digital N.D.A.R.

Last month I wrote about a Royal Navy commander named George Collier and his capture of the U.S.S. Hancock.

In the late nineteenth century the Dictionary of National Biography published an entry on Collier that said:

In 1775 he seems to have been sent to North America on some special service, the circumstances of which have not been chronicled, but which obtained for him the honour of knighthood.

That’s intriguing! Of course I want to know what Collier’s special mission was.

More Than Nelson states that King George III knighted Collier on 27 January, indicating he’d sailed to North America in 1774. But still no clue about why.

I held out hope that the Naval Documents of the American Revolution project, launched in 1964, dredged up the answer. The first volume even starts in 1774. But alas, Collier doesn’t come on board until December 1775 when the Admiralty gave him command of H.M.S. Rainbow.

But some good news: Looking for that source led me to the Naval Documents of the American Revolution Digital Edition, which offers fully searchable files of the existing thirteen volumes. (In addition, the Naval History and Heritage Command Center offers P.D.F. files of those same volumes.) This is an excellent resource for researchers.

And now for the bad news: Volume 13 of the N.D.A.R., published in 2019, leaves off on 15 Aug 1778. The French fleet has barely entered the fray, and the Spanish are yet to appear.

The process of assembling, transcribing, annotating, and editing sources related to the war at sea continues. The first five volumes of the N.D.A.R. were published over a span of seven years (1964-1970) while the last five took forty-two years (1977-2019). Since information technology improved tremendously in those same decades, the volumes could be coming out more quickly if the project had the same level of staffing as in its earliest years. And that’s a matter of the federal budget.

There are still five years of the Revolutionary War to get through. Indeed, the last phases of the war after Yorktown were primarily fought at sea between the navies of the European great powers. Would it be possible for the N.D.A.R. volume covering the Battle of the Saintes to appear by the Sestercentennial of that event in 2032?

Back in Halifax Harbor

As described yesterday, on 8 July 1777, after a chase and running battle lasting almost forty hours, H.M.S. Rainbow captured the Hancock, the Continental Navy’s leading frigate.

The Hancock was on its maiden voyage, less than two months out of Boston. It was commanded by Capt. John Manley, the first naval hero of the U.S. of A. There were more than two hundred American sailors on board.

Also captured on that ship was the surgeon, Dr. Samuel Curtis of Marlborough. (Following his story is how I embarked on this voyage.)

The Rainbow’s victory did set some people free: the commander of the captured British privateer Fox and about forty of his crew, being held on the Hancock while a Hancock lieutenant and crew took over the Fox.

Cdr. Sir George Collier, master of the Rainbow, did the same with his new capture. He sent Lt. Thomas Haynes and a prize crew to take control of the American ship.

Once Collier realized there were almost as many American crewmen present as British, he decided both ships should head for Halifax to unload their prisoners before those men got any ideas about retaking their vessel.

“I had the great Satisfaction on my Arrival,” Collier then wrote from that port, “to find the Flora and the Fox both here; she had retaken the latter shortly after I passed her.” Capt. John Brisbane’s Flora had forced the surrender of the American prize crew on the Fox and brought it into the same harbor.

Thus, on 6 July Collier had spotted four vessels in American hands, and two days later two of those ships were under British control and a third destroyed. Only the U.S.S. Boston had escaped. The Royal Navy had suffered minimal casualties.

In addition, the American Tartar, the largest of the privateers to leave Boston at the same time as the Hancock, was captured by H.M.S. Bienfaisant on 28 August with about 130 more men.

Though the spring 1777 cruise had started out well for the Americans, with several captures, it ended in failure. The losses were especially hard on New England since so many of the men on those ships came from the region.

U.S.S. Hancock and H.M.S. Rainbow

We now return to the sea battle between Capt. John Manley of the Continental Navy’s Hancock and Cdr. Sir George Collier of the Royal Navy’s Rainbow.

Manley was concerned about getting away from the more heavily armed British warship, especially after the other vessels in his fleet, the Fox and the Boston, sailed off in different directions. Before then, he had had a 3:2 advantage over the British, but that was gone.

Collier aimed to capture the Hancock, which one of his officers recognized as a new American vessel commanded by a top American captain, so he kept up the chase.

Capt. Manley ordered his crew to shift his water supply forward, hoping to make the Hancock sail faster. But this was a miscalculation. While the American frigate had “appeared to outsail the Rainbow,” in Collier’s estimation, it was now “out of Trim.”

As night fell on 7 July 1777, the Hancock was still ahead of the Rainbow, but by a shorter distance. Collier and his crew kept his enemy in sight “by Means of a Night-Glass.” This was a telescope with large lenses. In The Panorama of Science and Art (1828), James Smith explained:

The telescope called a night glass is nothing more than the common astronomical telescope with tubes, and made of a short length, with a small magnifying power. Its length is usually about two feet, and it is generally made to magnify from six to ten times. It is much used by navigators at night, for the purposes of discovering objects that are not very distant, but which cannot otherwise be seen for want of sufficient light, such as vessels, coast, rocks etc. From the smallness of its magnifying power, and the obscurity of the objects upon which it is employed, it admits of large glasses being used, and consequently has an extensive and well enlightened field of view.

The example above is offered by Fleaglass.

“At Dawn of Day,” Cdr. Collier wrote of Manley, “he was not much more than a Mile a-head of me; soon after which we saw a small Sail to Leeward.”

Remember the brig Victor, which Collier had left behind the previous morning because it was slowing him down? Under command of Lt. Michael Hyndman, it had caught up with the fight at last! Or rather, the fighting ships had come across it.

As the Hancock swept past the Victor, it fired its guns “and killed one of the Men at the Wheel.” The Victor wasn’t fast enough to remain in the action, but it did damage.

At this point the Rainbow was firing regularly from its bow guns, “with occasional Broadsides loaded with Round and Grape.” Suffering damage in its rigging and sails, the Hancock was moving even more slowly.

“At Half an Hour past Eight I was so near as to hail her,” reported Cdr. Collier, “and let them know, that if they expected Quarter, they must strike immediately.”

Capt. Manley didn’t answer right away. Sensing a new breeze, he had his crew “set some of the Steering Sails” on the side away from the Rainbow. Collier responded by firing another broadside. Manley finally “struck the Rebel Colours.”

TOMORROW: In the wake of the battle.

“We lost Sight of Capt. Manly”

We don’t have Capt. John Manley’s account of the 7 July 1777 sea battle I’ve been recounting, but we do have the entries from Capt. Hector MacNeill’s journal.

We even have MacNeill’s sketches, as published in 1922. The drawing above shows the situation after Manley set fire to a captured coal sloop and cut it loose as two British frigates approached.

Here’s what MacNeill wrote in that journal, spellings, abbreviations, and nautical terms intact:

Mounday, July 7, 1777. . . . two vesails [H.M.S. Rainbow and Victor] to the Eastward of us. At 4 a.m. see them again Bearring to the Eastwart. Still at 5 a.m. made a Saile [H.M.S. Flora] Bairing to W, we going WbS. She past us and gave us two guns, as soon as she got in our wake She put a Bout and stood for us and came up with us fast and we playd a way with our Stairn Chases.

At 11 a.m. Capt. Manly and the fox and frigate till Darck and could see the frigate two guns

after 11 we began to Engage and had it very warm, the fox being to Lewyard the frigat at hir and she Run be fore the wind. Ther was a two Decker [Rainbow] under our Lee, we ware a Stoping our Shot holes, we thought Not Safe to follow.

Tusday, July 8, . . . At 12 p.m. Capt. Manly put a Bout Stood after the fox, the two Decker gave Chace to him and fird Sevral guns. He stood away as fast as posable. The frigate [Flora] and fox made a Running fight, they stood away a Bout NNE, we stood about NWBN.

We lost Sight of Capt. Manly a Bout 4 p.m. But we keep Sight of the fox and our Ship put a Bout and stood for hir; at 35 Minnites shot off the fox, and thought the fox gaind of hir. The frigate mounted 32 or 36 Guns. We are Surrounded with Ships all Round.

At 5 a.m. we heard Guns for a Long time. We Expect some Engagement Soon. We had one [Gideon] Wasborn kiled out Rig[ht], one [Henry] Green a Quarter master wounded in the Leg, had it Cut of at 8 p.m., died at 4 A.M. See the Land.

Wednesday the 9. . . . The first part of this 24 hours Modrate pleasant we going under all the Saile that we Could Tack, the Latter part a fresh Gale in all Small Sailes. Expecting Every moment to make the Land. Saw a plenty of Rock wead and old Logs of wood. I Could hearitly wich the Hancock and fox was with us for we are all Most in a Good harbour thanks Be to God.

The bottom line was that MacNeill had engaged in the battle early on, but on the afternoon of 8 July the Hancock, Fox, and Boston sailed in different directions, and after four hours he “lost Sight of Capt. Manly.”

The next morning, Capt. MacNeill heard guns, so he knew there was a fight going on. But he didn’t head to the action to help. Instead, covinced there were “Ships all Round," he sailed as fast as he could for a safe harbor. “I Could hearitly wich the Hancock and fox was with us,” MacNeill wrote the next day. But the bottom line was that they weren’t.

In letters written a few days later, MacNeill emphasized some details not in his journal, such as Manley letting some captured sailors go, thus alerting the British of his fleet’s presence, while declining MacNeill’s advice to sail down to South Carolina instead.

As for his departure from the action, MacNeill told the Continental Congress’s marine committee: “We were constrain’d to keep the Wind for our own Security being neither able to Run from nor fight such force as then appear’d to Leward.” On Tuesday, 8 July, he now recalled, “I saw five Sail of the Enemy to the Leward of me three on the Lee bow and two on the Lee Quarter”—details not in his journal.

TOMORROW: Back in the action.

Captain Manley’s Temper

One of the striking details of Cdr. Sir George Collier’s account of the sea battle on 6-8 July 1777, recounted yesterday, is how his ship had almost no coordination with the other Royal Navy frigate in the fight.

Capt. John Brisbane had sailed the Flora up from New York on orders of Adm. Lord Howe. He happened to intersect the three Continental ships that Collier’s Rainbow was chasing down from Nova Scotia.

Brisbane and Collier didn’t expect to see each other. At first Collier thought Brisbane’s ship was an enemy vessel only pretending to be British. At one point in the maneuvers, Brisbane’s sailing master warned him that they might be so far north as to be out of their station.

I also wonder if the two Royal Navy officers were wary of giving up authority to the other. Collier was in home territory and (at least when the chase began) overseeing two ships, but as a captain Brisbane outranked him.

But the British captains weren’t the only ones who had trouble coordinating their attack.

Capt. John Manley on the Hancock was the star of the young Continental naval forces. Starting with command of one of Gen. George Washington’s schooners out of Beverly, Manley had racked up more and richer captures than any other captain. There was even a broadside ballad about him, illustrated with the engraving above.

But Capt. Manley also had a temper, and he was in continual conflict with other Continental naval officers. In October 1776 he complained about being ranked as second most senior captain in the navy, thus being “under the Command of one man, whose Ability I had reason to doubt.”

In April 1777, as I recounted back here, Manley insisted on a court-martial for his lieutenant, Joseph Dobel, for disobedience.

Then in early May, Manley summoned other captains onto his ship for a court-martial of eight men, including his pilot, ”for Mutiny.” 

One measure of Manley’s anger about those eight men is that the captains he summoned included Hector MacNeill and John Paul Jones, and they hated him.

TOMORROW: Divided command.

Commander Collier and “Part of the Rebel Fleet”

On the morning of 6 July 1777, H.M.S. Rainbow sailed out of Halifax harbor. It was a fifth-rate frigate equipped with 44 guns. Behind the Rainbow came H.M.S. Victor, a brig carrying 10 guns.

In command of that little Royal Navy fleet was Commander Sir George Collier (1738-1795, shown here).

That afternoon, the Rainbow “discovered Three Sail,” Collier reported. He “could form no Judgement of their Force, or what they were,” so he “immediately gave Chace.” After all, he was the navy.

The Victor was lagging three or four miles behind, so Cdr. Collier sent a signal to its captain to make more sail and speed up. As the day ended, the Rainbow’s crew could see they were chasing “large Ships” which looked “bound to some of the Ports of New England”—enemy territory.

Collier wrote, “I followed them with all the Sail I could croud.” At dawn his crew made out three ships plus a sloop “about 5 or 6 Miles distant.” Meanwhile, the Victor had fallen so far behind it was no longer in sight.

At this point Cdr. Collier was convinced he’d spotted the “Part of the Rebel Fleet, which had sailed some Time before from Boston.” Despite being outnumbered, he continued the pursuit. 

The Rainbow had indeed found Capt. John Manley’s growing fleet, consisting of his Continental frigate Hancock, U.S.S. Boston under Capt. Hector MacNeill, a captured British privateer named Fox, and a recently seized sloop carrying coal.

The last vessel didn’t last long. Manley ordered it set on fire and cut loose. Then he gave orders for “setting Top Gallant Royals and every Sail that could be useful.”

Collier wrote:

A little after Six we discovered another Sail standing towards the Rebel Ships; she crossed us on the contrary Tack at about Four Miles Distance, and put about when she could fetch their Wakes; from her not making the private Signal to me, I concluded that she was another of the Rebel Frigates, and therefore paid no Regard as to an English Red Ensign she hoisted, and two Guns she fire to Leeward.

Ships didn’t have to display their true colors until they actually went into battle. Until then, captains could run up any nation’s flag to bluff another ship into thinking they were friendly or neutral or whatever seemed advantageous. Collier therefore suspected there were four enemy vessels ahead of him, but he kept chasing.

About 10:45 A.M., Collier was surprised to see this new ship and one of the original three exchange fire. He ordered his crew to raise the Union Jack. The match had turned out to be three American ships against two British.

The other Royal Navy frigate was H.M.S. Flora, a 32-gun fifth-rate that had started as the French warship Vestale. Its captain was John Brisbane (1735-1807).

One of the American ships split off from the other two. Brisbane on the Flora “exchanged a Broadside with each.” The Rainbow also fired on one that had fallen behind, seemingly “uncertain which to steer,” but “had not the good Fortune to bring down either a Mast or Sail.”

Cdr. Collier watched “the headmost Rebel Frigate put about,…just out of Gunshot to Windward.” He judged it “a very fine Ship of 34 Guns, with Rebel Colours flying.”

An officer on the Rainbow’s quarterdeck recognized that ship from when he had been a prisoner in Boston. It was the Hancock, and its master was Manley, “the Sea Officer in whom the Congress place great Confidence, and who is the Second in Rank in their Navy.”

Cdr. Collier realized he stood at a decision point. Of the enemy ships, he thought, “one of the three must unavoidably escape, if they thus steered different Courses.” The Flora had apparently picked its target, which turned out to be the prize ship Fox.

Collier decided to “put about and follow the Hancock, which appeared the largest Ship,” as well as the most important—and most dangerous.

TOMORROW: Commanders clash.