History Can Be Kind to Him
On March 3, 1776, colonial forces launched a naval assault on the British port of Nassau. The raid seized two forts and a substantial cache of military supplies that the Revolution, which would be cemented into parchment in just a few months, desperately needed.
Colonial forces suffered chronic shortages of munitions throughout 1775, so Commodore Esek Hopkins, a Continental naval officer who was actually tasked by the Second Continental Congress to patrol the Virginia and Carolina coastlines, set his sights on Nassau, where he and his some 200 men could capture supplies from British forts.
The fleet departed Cape Henlopen, Delaware, on February 17, reaching the Bahamas two weeks later. Continental Marines landed on March 1, taking Fort Montagu—but the slow advance gave Governor Montfort Browne enough time to load most of Nassau’s gunpowder onto ships bound for St. Augustine. The town fell on March 4, and after two weeks, they carried away 88 cannon and 15 mortars. 103 pieces of artillery in total, surpassing even Ethan Allen’s seizure of Fort Ticonderoga in May 1775.
The return voyage was almost uneventful. But on April 4, off the waters near Long Island, the fleet captured HMS Hawk, a six-gun British schooner. The following day, they seized the British merchant brig Bolton.
It was almost all a win; however, on April 6, the fleet encountered HMS Glasgow near Block Island, roughly nine to 13 miles off the southern coast of Rhode Island. The colonial navy not only failed to capture Glasgow, but the British badly damaged two colonial ships, Cabot and Alfred; wounded the Cabot’s captain, Hopkins’s own son John Burroughs Hopkins; and killed or wounded eleven others. The fleet arrived at New London on April 8, battered from the engagement.
Initially, Hopkins was celebrated. John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, congratulated Hopkins on the “spirit and bravery” of his men. But the goodwill didn’t last. His poorly managed engagement with the British off Rhode Island did him no favors with a Southern delegation that was furious that he had ignored his orders to protect the Virginia and Carolina coastlines. Congress censured Hopkins in August 1776, suspended him in 1777, and dismissed him from the navy in early 1778.
The lesson of Hopkins’s story, some may say, is a simple one about the limits of boldness: breaking orders, however fruitful, invites punishment. But others may say that the lesson is that the men who deliver what is needed are not always celebrated in the moment. Without those captured munitions, the Revolution would have suffered. Hopkins delivered what was desperately needed and was cast aside for it.
In our day, bold initiatives, undertaken outside the bounds of what cautious men would sanction, are not celebrated either. They are picked apart even before the consequences of their undertakings are fully known. Hopkins was censured by August, but history can be kinder to him.
Whether the man who has taken bold initiatives in our own time will be judged kindly by history, only time will tell.
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https://amrev250.substack.com/p/history-can-be-kind-to-him
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