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The American Revolution
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New York City, urgently requesting help from General Henry Clinton.
By early October, the British situation had grown desperate. The troops
were surviving on half rations. Their horses began dying of starvation.
Burgoyne decided he needed to break out of his defensive positions.
The WAR AT SEA
In the early years of the Revolutionary War, Great Britain
enjoyed naval superiority. The Royal Navy was a key instrument for
supporting British land campaigns. It evacuated trapped regiments
from Boston. It brought a 32,000-man invasion force to New York.
It put troops in position to take Philadelphia. And the Americans
were powerless to stop these movements.
The Americans used their limited naval forces mostly to disrupt
British commercial shipping. The Continental Congress granted spe-
cial licenses known as letters of
marque to private ship captains
called privateers. The letters of
marque authorized privateers
to attack British ships. The pri-
vateers could sell any cargo or
ships they captured.
In October 1775, Congress
also authorized the creation
of the Continental navy. Most
of its ships were purchased.
They included many converted
merchant vessels. Thirteen
warships called frigates were
ordered by Congress and built
in American shipyards. But the
largest of them mounted just
32 guns—no match for 70-gun British ships of the line. Of about
60 vessels that saw service in the Continental navy, fewer than a
dozen survived the Revolutionary War.
The naval balance of power shifted when France—and, later, Spain
and the Netherlands—joined the war against Great Britain. Their
combined navies posed a serious threat to the British on the high seas.
John Paul Jones was the first Ameri-
can naval captain to defeat a British
warship in battle.
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