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Aug 163 min read

This Day in History: Esek Hopkins, First Commander of the Continental Navy

On this day in 1776, the first Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Navy is censured. That Navy was the predecessor to the United States Navy, and Esek Hopkins had been appointed to lead it.

 

You have to wonder if Esek later regretted the appointment. It took him from his life as a successful merchant and privateer,  and he ended with his reputation in tatters.

 

Both Esek and his brother, Stephen, joined the Patriot cause early. Esek remained in Rhode Island as a militia officer,  but Stephen went to Philadelphia to serve in the Continental Congress.  In fact, Stephen worked with delegates such as John Adams to get a Navy authorized.

 

It was trickier than you might think. Sectional interests were already rearing their heads, even at this early stage in American history: The southern delegates weren’t so sure about creating a Navy. It could make the North too powerful.

 

Despite these misgivings, a Navy was finally authorized in October 1775.  Stephen served on Congress’s Naval Committee and would have known of his brother’s successes as a privateer during the French and Indian War.  Perhaps it is unsurprising that Esek was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the new Navy?

 

Esek’s fleet was finally ready by mid-February 1776.  Esek had orders to proceed to Virginia because Americans along the coast were being harassed by British ships. After Virginia, Esek was to move on to the Carolinas.

 

Except he didn’t do any of that! Instead, Esek went on a mission to the Bahamas.

 

No one is quite sure what prompted Esek’s choice.  Perhaps he was worried about the size of the British fleet in Virginia? A single clause in his orders gave him discretion to “follow such Courses as your best Judgment shall suggest,” so Esek sailed right by the destination that Congress had intended.

 

“It was a bad decision,” historian James Bradford has written. “Hopkins was behaving more like a privateersman whose main concern was to minimize danger and maximize profits. By completely bypassing the southern coasts he displayed a callous disregard for southern interests and reinforced southern suspicions about a Yankee navy.” 

 

Regardless, Esek’s trip to the Bahamas went well. Americans completed a daring raid on Nassau, and they seized a huge stash of ammunition. On the trip home, they captured two small British ships. Unfortunately, the trip ended with embarrassment when HMS Glasgow singlehandedly got the best of Esek’s fleet. 

 

Esek never bounced back. He handled his job poorly, was short-tempered, and generally made things worse. His ships seemed to be always in port. Why was he not off chasing danger like John Paul Jones? Congress was fed up, and it launched an investigation into the “frequent Neglect or Disobedience of Orders” by naval leadership.  The inquiry soon focused on Esek.

 

A resolution of August 16, 1776 censured him, but left him as Commander-in-Chief.

 

Esek had lost the confidence of his men—and of Congress. “I shall not desert the Cause,” he wrote a congressional delegate on March 13, 1777, “but I wish with all my heart the Hon Marine Board could and would get a Man in my Room that would do the Country more good than it is in my power to do for I entered the Service for its good and have no desire to keep in it to the disadvantage of the Cause I am in.”

 

He got his wish. He was suspended from command in March 1777 and entirely cut loose ten months later when Congress stated that it had “no further occasion for the service of Esek Hopkins.”

 

Some men risked their lives for the American cause, but it seems that Esek mostly sacrificed his reputation.

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