From Trade Routes to Supply Lines

Christopher P. Magra

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511576621.012

8 - From Trade Routes to Supply Lines

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 July 2009

Christopher P. Magra

Show author details

Christopher P. Magra: Affiliation:
California State University, Northridge

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Sundry Vessels belonging to North America go to the French, Dutch & Danish Islands in these Seas, & offer unlimited prices for Gunpowder&other Warlike Stores. … the vast price offered may tempt the [West Indian] Proprietors to run risks & dispose of it, which must prove of the utmost disservice to His Majesty by thus assisting the North Americans, who are now declared to be in open Rebellion.

Vice Admiral James Young, commander of the British naval squadron in the West Indies, was very aware that there were vessels bound from the North American mainland colonies entering his jurisdiction to trade illegally for military stores necessary to supply a revolution. Young had been stationed between a rock and a hard place in 1775. On the one hand, commercial vessels owned by law-abiding merchants loyal to Crown and Parliament entered and left his seas on a regular basis. As long as they had the proper papers, this trade was entirely legal, and Young had an obligation to protect and preserve such commerce. On the other hand, New England had been declared in a state of rebellion, and the British government expressly ordered Young to prevent the rebels from obtaining military stores in the West Indies. It was, therefore, left to the naval commander to discern one vessel from the next and to keep arms and ammunition out of New England.

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Fisherman's Cause
Atlantic Commerce and Maritime Dimensions of the American Revolution
, pp. 161 - 176

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511576621.012 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Burnett, Edmund Cody, The Continental Congress (New York: MacMillan Company, 1941)Google Scholar

Higginbotham, Don, The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763–1789, 2nd ed. (Northeastern University Press, 1983), 85, 98Google Scholar

Jensen, Merrill, The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763–1776 (Oxford University Press, 1968), 557–560Google Scholar

Lee, Thomas Amory, “The Lee Family of Marblehead,”Essex Institute Historical Collections, Vol. LII–LIII, (Salem, MA: Newcomb and Gauss, 1916, 1917), 33–48, 145–160, 225–240, 329–344; 65–80, 153–168, 257–287Google Scholar

“Sketches of the signers of the Declaration of Independence by Benjamin Rush, c. 1800,” in Commager, Henry Steele and Morris, Richard B., eds., The Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution As Told by Participants, 4th ed. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1995), 275

Billias, George Athan, Elbridge Gerry: Founding Father and Republican Statesman (New York: McGraw Hill Book Co., 1976)Google Scholar

Morrison, Samuel E., “Elbridge Gerry, Gentleman-Democrat,” The New England Quarterly., II (1929), 6–33CrossRef Google Scholar

Austin, James T., The Life of Elbridge Gerry, With Contemporary Letters, To The Close of the American Revolution (Boston: Wells and Lilly, 1828)Google Scholar

Shipton, Clifford K., Sibley's Harvard Graduates (Harvard University Press, 1970), 239–259Google Scholar

Buel, Jr. Richard, In Irons: Britain's Naval Supremacy and the American Revolutionary Economy (Yale University Press, 1998), 31–32Google Scholar

Elliott, John H., Empire of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830 (Yale University Press, 2006)Google Scholar

Dull, Jonathan R., A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 1985)Google Scholar

Cuadrado, Reyes Calderón, Empresarios españoles en el proceso de independencia norteamericana: La casa Gardoqui e hijos de Bilbao (Madrid: Unión Editorial, 2004)Google Scholar

Chávez, Thomas E., Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift (University of New Mexico Press, 2002), 15, 61, 68, 85, 220Google Scholar

Kennedy, Don H., Ship Names: Origins and Usages During 45 Centuries (University of Virginia Press, 1974)Google Scholar

Sparks, Jared, ed., The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. 7 (Boston: Nathan Hale and Gray & Bowen, 1830), 277

Pares, Richard, War and Trade in the West Indies, 1739–1763 (Oxford University Press, 1936)Google Scholar

Carp, E. Wayne, To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775–1783 (University of North Carolina Press, 1984)Google Scholar

Jameson, J. F., “St. Eustatius in the American Revolution,” American Historical Review, Vol. 8, No. 4 (July 1903), 688CrossRef Google Scholar

Albion, Robert Greenhalgh and Pope, Jennie Barnes, Sea Lanes in Wartime: The American Experience, 1775–1942 (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1942), 51–52Google Scholar

“Robert Morris to the Commissioners at Paris, Philadelphia, December 21, 1776,”Wharton, Francis, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, Vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1889), 237

Ver Steeg, Clarence L., Robert Morris, Revolutionary Financier (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954)CrossRef Google Scholar

Syrett, David, “Defeat at Sea: The Impact of American Naval Operations upon the British, 1775–1778,” in Maritime Dimensions of the American Revolution (Washington, DC: Naval History Division, Department of the Navy, 1977), 13–22Google Scholar

Miller, Nathan, Sea of Glory: A Naval History of the American Revolution (Charleston, SC: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1974), 22–38Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.