The Continental Risque Read online

  About the Book

  A powerful maritime adventure in the epic, true-to-life tradition of Patrick O’Brian.

  In the winter of 1776, a decade of simmering tensions finally comes to the boil. The rebel government of Philadelphia, determined to cast off the chains of British tyranny, has authorised the creation of the United States Navy – a brazen act of American aggression against the greatest maritime power in the world.

  Still battered from her fight in Bermudan waters, the brig-of-war Charlemagne under the command of Captain Isaac Biddlecomb sets sail on a daring mission to raid the British store of arms on New Providence Island in the Bahamas. But he finds that his greatest enemy is an undisciplined crew on the brink of mutiny, and, beset by betrayal and treachery, Biddlecomb must find a way of uniting his men against a cruel and common foe . . . as the British Navy prepares to sink the Charlemagne under the merciless blasts of its guns.

  An enthralling new instalment in the Revolution at Sea series begun with BY FORCE OF ARMS and THE MADDEST IDEA

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Maps

  Prologue: Second Continental Congress

  Chapter 1: The Sound

  Chapter 2: Hell Gate

  Chapter 3: The Naval Committee

  Chapter 4: The Sea Lawyer

  Chapter 5: Philadelphia

  Chapter 6: The Continental Fleet

  Chapter 7: Government House

  Chapter 8: Downriver

  Chapter 9: Icebound

  Chapter 10: French Leave

  Chapter 11: Capital Offense

  Chapter 12: Court-Martial

  Chapter 13: ‘On Pain of Such Punishment …’

  Chapter 14: Blue Water

  Chapter 15: Hornet and Fly

  Chapter 16: Bahamas

  Chapter 17: Trojan Horses

  Chapter 18: Hanover Sound

  Chapter 19: East Point

  Chapter 20: Fort Montegu

  Chapter 21: Lieutenants of the Charlemagne

  Chapter 22: Fort Nassau

  Chapter 23: Dead Reckoning

  Chapter 24: Failure and Success

  Chapter 25: The Better Part of Valor

  Chapter 26: A Court of Inquiry

  Chapter 27: The Spoils of War

  Chapter 28: False Colors

  Chapter 29: The Bolton, Armed Brig

  Chapter 30: Block Island

  Chapter 31: HMS Glasgow

  Chapter 32: The Stern Chase

  Chapter 33: New London

  Historical Note

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Also by James Nelson

  Copyright

  To Nat Sobel, without whom I would still be a poor, dumb sailer, rather than the poor, dumb, published sailor that I am today

  And to Lisa

  For the Encouragement of the Men employed in this service I am ordered to inform you that the Congress have resolved that the Masters, Officers and Seamen shall be entitled to one half of the value of the prizes by them taken, the wages they receive from the Colony notwithstanding.

  The ships and vessels of War are to be on the Continental risque & pay …

  —John Hancock

  October 5, 1775

  PROLOGUE

  Second Continental Congress

  At least there are no flies, he thought, but the price you paid for that one minor luxury was the cold, the damnable cold. Stephen Hopkins, delegate from Rhode Island to the Second Continental Congress, pulled his coat tighter against his chest and folded his arms. It was October 5, 1775, and Philadelphia was already cold and wet, a prelude to the coming winter. At sixty-eight years old Hopkins was not as tolerant of such weather as he had once been.

  He glanced around the big room in the Philadelphia State House. The delegates from the various colonies were filtering in for the morning’s session, though many still remained out of doors, conducting in huddled meetings the real business of Congress. The walls and high ceiling of the room were painted a brilliant white, mitigating the gloom to some degree. The round tables scattered around the floor were covered with rich green cloth, so many little islands, each with a silver inkstand in the middle and a sprout of white quills sticking out at odd angles.

  The president’s desk sat on a raised stage at the front of the room, flanked on the left and the right by identical fireplaces. Hopkins considered telling the boy to stoke up the fires a bit. He was on the verge of voicing that demand when he heard the familiar clop clop clop of John Adams’s walking stick, like someone tapping rapidly on the floor with a small hammer. The Massachusetts delegate moved with his usual frenetic pace across the hall and into the meeting room.

  ‘Well, damn the fire,’ Hopkins muttered to himself, and then to Samuel Ward, his fellow Rhode Island delegate, he added, ‘Here’s Adams. I’ll warrant things will warm up directly.’

  ‘Hopkins, there you are,’ said Adams from across the room, working his way through the tables to the Rhode Island delegation. ‘I looked for you at your rooms but you had left already.’

  ‘I’m willing to rise very early to avoid seeing you first thing in the morning, John,’ said Hopkins.

  ‘Indeed. Well, you can avoid me no longer. Have you seen the letters from Barry?’

  ‘I have.’ The letters in question, not yet officially read before Congress, had been carried from England by Capt. John Barry. They reported the sailing of two brigs, unarmed and unescorted, carrying great quantities of military stores and bound away for Quebec.

  ‘I think it likely that we’ll see some action now, in the naval line,’ Hopkins said. ‘Those members who do not have enough imagination to see the need for a navy in the abstract should at least be able to see the benefit of arming a few ships to capture those brigs.’

  He ran his eyes over the room. It was now all but full, the many delegates congregating in the hallway having taken their seats, and John Hancock, president of the Congress, was making his usual flamboyant entrance. ‘Once we turn this corner, we pave the way for the creation of a navy. If you will allow me to thus mix my metaphors.’

  ‘In point of fact I agree with you, Hopkins, your literary style notwithstanding,’ Adams said.

  In the front of the room President Hancock brought his gavel down on the desk and called for order, but Adams continued, ‘I’ve arranged for Lee to move for a committee of three to draft a proposal to fit out some armed vessels. Once that is passed, I’ll require you to nominate myself, Deane, and Langdon for that committee.’

  ‘And you reckon you can draft such a proposal?’

  ‘We have already. We need only for the Congress to ask for it.’

  Hancock once again pounded the desk with his gavel. ‘I trust you gentlemen will not be too disappointed if we give over our discussion of trade for the moment. We have recently received several letters from England, brought to us by Capt. John Barry, containing information upon which we should consider action. Mr Thompson, if you would?’ Hancock nodded to the secretary.

  ‘Sir,’ Thompson read out loud, ‘It has come to my attention, through sundry sources, that there has sailed from this place on the eleventh of August two north country built brigs of no force, last loaded with six thousand stand of arms and a large quantity of powder and other stores for Quebec without a convoy …’

  Hopkins watched the various expressions across the room as the implication of the letter became clear. He could see on some faces disgust; John Dickinson of Pennsylvania for one, while beside Dickinson, Benjamin Franklin sat expressionless, not even appearing to listen.

  I wonder what old Franklin is thinking, Hopkins t
hought. No doubt he’ll favor going after these brigs, thinks we’ve been too cautious as it is.

  Hopkins’s eyes moved toward Connecticut’s table. Silas Deane sat quite erect, listening intently, like a dog waiting for his master to say ‘Fetch.’ New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, all of the delegates listened closely as it dawned on each of them that they would once again have to make a decision the implications of which were far greater than the immediate effects.

  Then finally Thompson came to the end of the letter. At Virginia’s table Richard Henry Lee fidgeted and drummed his fingers on the table, anxious to make his motion before any other could be made, as Hancock went through the formalities of having the letter entered into the record.

  ‘Mr President!’ Lee leapt to his feet and called out even before Hancock was quite done speaking. ‘Mr President, I move that a committee of three be appointed to prepare a plan for intercepting these two vessels bound for Canada and that said committee proceed on this business immediately.’

  ‘So moved,’ said Hancock. ‘Does anyone—’

  ‘I second the motion,’ said Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina.

  John Adams leaned over, close to Hopkins. ‘Now we shall see some lively discussion, I’ll warrant.’

  The first to offer that lively discussion was Edward Rutledge of South Carolina. He rose from his seat beside Gadsden, casting an ugly scowl at his fellow delegate as he did, and addressed Hancock.

  ‘Mr President,’ he began, glancing around the room with shifting eyes in his peculiar and annoying manner, ‘not all of us from the Southern colonies, nay, very few of us indeed, share Mr Gadsden’s enthusiasm for a naval force. A challenge to Great Britain of the high seas, the unprovoked capture of her merchant vessels, would be no less than a declaration of war, a declaration of our desire for independency—’

  ‘If the gentleman would care to put that in the form of a motion, sir,’ Adams called across the room, ‘I should gladly second it.’

  Rutledge stood silent, nodding his head and shrugging his shoulders until the laughter and pounding subsided, then began again. ‘Sir, I submit that it is the most wild, visionary, mad project that has ever been attempted. We cannot hope to take on the might of the British navy, and such an attempt would bring ruin down on our heads, would destroy any hopes that we might have for reconciliation. It is like an infant taking a mad bull by the horns.

  ‘What is more profound and remote,’ Rutledge continued, ‘such a plan would ruin the character and corrupt the morals of our seamen. It would make them selfish, piratical, mercenary, and bent wholly upon plunder.’

  ‘One thing’s for certain,’ Hopkins said to Adams, ‘Rutledge doesn’t know much about the morals of our seamen if he thinks sending them after these brigs will corrupt them any more than they are now.’

  At last Rutledge finished, and John Adams took the floor. ‘Mr President,’ he began, his voice soft, calm, and reasonable as he began, and building in intensity as he spoke. ‘As a considerable part of my time, in the course of my profession, I have spent upon the seacoasts of Massachusetts, I have conversed much with the gentlemen who conduct our cod and whale fisheries, as well as the other navigation of the country. I have heard much of the activity, enterprise, patience, perseverance, and daring intrepidity of our seamen. As a result of this personal knowledge I have formed a confident opinion that if they were once let loose upon the ocean, they would contribute greatly to the relief of our wants as well as to the distress of the enemy.’

  And so it went on through the morning and into the afternoon. Outside the rain let up and a watery sunlight made its way through the tall windows as inside the State House the issue of sending armed vessels after the unarmed ordnance brigs and the greater, the much greater, implications of such action were made to run the gauntlet of debate.

  At last the motion of forming a committee was put to a vote, and the motion was passed. Like an actor taking his cue Hopkins moved that the committee consist of Mr John Adams, Mr Silas Dean of Connecticut, and Mr John Langdon of New Hampshire, and that motion too was passed by the same vote as the first. The newly created committee took their leave of the Congress. In an hour they were back.

  ‘Mr Adams, has your committee prepared a plan regarding the ordnance brigs?’ Hancock asked.

  ‘We have, Mr President, and by your leave I shall read it.’

  ‘Pray, Mr Adams, proceed.’

  ‘Resolved, that a letter be sent by express to General Washington, to inform him that Congress having received certain intelligence of the sailing of two north country brigs …’ Adams read the report, the words couched in his lawyerly language. Hopkins was once again surprised at how such wording could render even the most dramatic documents dull and nearly intolerable to the ear.

  ‘… he apply to the council of Massachusetts Bay for the two armed vessels in their service, and dispatch the same, with a sufficient number of people, stores, etc., particularly a number of oars, in order, if possible, to intercept said brigs and their cargo, and secure the same for the use of the continent; also, any other transports laden with ammunition, clothing, or other stores—’

  ‘Hold a moment, sir!’ John Dickinson was on his feet. Adams stopped and peered with ill-disguised irritation over the top of the paper at the delegate from Pennsylvania. ‘What is this business about “any other transports”? The plan was to call for the intercepting of two brigs, two specific brigs. It was not a general invitation to piracy.’

  ‘Well, Good Lord, man,’ Adams replied, ‘should our vessels ignore any ship just because it is not one of these brigs? Should they let pass a wealth of materials that will strengthen our enemy simply because they are carried on ships that we were not aware of?’

  ‘You go too far, sir, too far by half.’

  ‘Point of order, Mr President,’ Hopkins called out. ‘Is this the time for debate?’

  ‘It is not. Mr Dickinson, please be seated. Mr Adams, pray continue. We shall have debate after the motion is read.’

  Adams continued. He read on through instructions for securing the prizes in the most convenient places for the purpose above mentioned, for requesting the governors of Rhode Island and Connecticut to provide the general with ships, for the vessels of war to be on the continental risk and pay.

  It was half past eight when the issue came to a vote. One by one the colonies were called, and on the big board that recorded their votes the markers were slid to yea or nay. It seemed to Hopkins that for all the shouting the debate had swayed few opinions. The colonies voted just as they had for the original motion to form a committee.

  But that was enough for passage.

  ‘Virginia,’ the secretary called out.

  ‘Virginia,’ said Lee in his smooth, confident, aristocratic tone, ‘says yea.’

  Hopkins caught Adams’s eye and the two men smiled and nodded. Hopkins knew full well what Adams was thinking; it was the same thing that he himself was thinking. They did not yet have a navy, per se, but they had the next best thing. The United Colonies were, as a nation, sending armed vessels out to hunt for British ships. They were taking the war to sea.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Sound

  Capt. Isaac Biddlecomb turned and stared over the taffrail of the Charlemagne, brig-of-war. Four miles astern and dead in line with their wake was a British frigate, a powerful enemy in all-out pursuit. Again.

  The only odd thing about being thus pursued was how familiar it felt, as if being chased by the Royal Navy were a daily routine. To be sure, they had been chased so often in the past year that Biddlecomb had reason to feel that way. And while the familiarity failed to eliminate his fear, it did much to mitigate it.

  They were being overtaken, of that there was no doubt. But in their favor, they were halfway down Long Island Sound, heading for Hell Gate and the East River and the many islands and inlets around New York, with no more than four hours of sunlight left. And that, he felt, with a confide
nce born of experience, made their escape a near certainty.

  He considered the sensation brewing in his gut, the vague terror that was as familiar as the sight of the frigate astern. He was reminded of the time, fifteen years earlier, when as an ordinary seaman he had discovered that laying out on a yard to reef sail in a howling storm was no longer a new and terrifying experience. It had become, rather, an old, familiar terrifying experience.

  And so it was here, in late October of 1775, after nearly a year of fighting in a conflict that was not quite a war, for an end on which few agreed, Isaac Biddlecomb found himself once more in the all too familiar position of being chased by a frigate of the Royal Navy.

  He had, in the past year, been chased by the frigate Rose all over Narrangansett Bay. He had been chased by the Cerberus through the Caribbean and through these northern waters after leading a mutiny aboard the brig Icarus, a vessel of the Royal Navy aboard which he had been impressed. He had been chased by the frigate Glasgow in Bermuda, in his ill-fated attempt to liberate British gunpowder from that island, and chased by the two-decker Somerset clear across Boston Harbor to the American lines.

  So Biddlecomb was not overly surprised when, that morning, with the Charlemagne just south of Block Island, the lookout aloft reported the sails of what might well be a man-of-war hull down on the eastern horizon.

  And when the strange ship hauled her wind and set studdingsails aloft and alow in what was without question pursuit, Biddlecomb had ordered the brig’s canvas stretched, had turned her bow northwest to pass Montauk Point and run into Long Island Sound, and had settled into the monotony of eluding a stern chase. He was tired of being chased and wondered if his grudgingly chosen career as a naval officer would ever entail attacking, as opposed to running away.

  ‘I must say, Captain, your calm demeanor does much to bolster the confidence of your passengers,’ a feminine voice broke the quiet on the quarterdeck. Biddlecomb pulled his gaze from the frigate’s sails and looked over at the leeward side where Virginia Stanton leaned against the rail.