Lot 376

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Description:

Commodore James Barron Call for Whale Boats 1776

Document Signed, 1 p., 8" x 5", ca. 1776-1777.  Minor acid free repairs on small splits on back, else in overall very good condition.

This is a wonderful, original signed document circa 1776/77, where Alexander Dick is requesting permission to sail with Commodore Barron, who is fitting out the (Schooner) Liberty and seeking whale boats.  A scarce Virginia Naval document dealing with the most famous of all war ships in Virginia.

Commodore James Barron commenced his career in the defense of his country in 1775, as the Captain of a Minute Company at Hampton, Virginia composed of the sea-faring young men of that town, (for Hampton was then a place of importance,) but was very soon after called on to take command of the armed pilot boat [schooner] Liberty, mounting ten two-pounders. Capt. James Barron was "recommended as Captain of the Boat Liberty," on the 29th of March 1777.This vessel was the only one that ran the whole war, and made more prizes than any ten vessels in the Virginia State Navy, and was never captured.

During the war, he loaned the State ten thousand pounds in money, and stores that would have commanded the cash, and could not be obtained without it. His services were various–at some periods of the war he was called upon to serve as a member of the board of war; at others, he was associated with the Commissaries, to aid them in procuring supplies of provisions for the army, and particularly so at the siege of York Town; he was there associated with Colonel [Timothy] Pickering Commissary General of the Continental Army, at Trebel’s Landing and collected all the force that could be procured for the transportation of provisions for Gen. Washington’s army, even canoes were resorted to, so drained was the State of all kinds of craft.

Commodore Barron became the senior officer of the Virginia Navy, some time in the latter part of the year 1779, and was commissioned Commodore over all the vessels of the Commonwealth, on the 3rd of July, 1780.

Alexander Dick (d. 1785) of Fredericksburg, Va., became captain of a company of Virginia marines in February 1776, and in December of that year the Virginia Navy Board ordered him and his company aboard the privateer brig Mosquetto. After the capture of the Mosquetto by H.M.S. Ariadne off Barbados in June 1777, Dick was committed to Forton prison in Portsmouth, England, in August 1777. Archibald Cary and George Wythe wrote for the Virginia general assembly to Henry Laurens on 12 Jan. 1778 concerning Dick and his fellow prisoners: “when their friends heard last from them [they] were confined close prisoners in Gosport or some other goal, not only destitute of friends, wanting necessaries, suffering grevious hardships, and otherwise cruelly treated, but threatened with a prosecution for treason under the execrable act of parliament made not long since”.  Dick returned from captivity early in 1779 and attempted to secure a commission as a major in the marines, but his resentment at the treatment accorded him by the naval officers under whom he was asked to serve led him to seek employment elsewhere. By January 1781, Dick was a major of Virginia state troops, and he served in the Virginia State Garrison Regiment and Col. Charles Dabney’s Virginia State Legion before retiring in January 1783.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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