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viii Letter of Transmittal.
and coroners. Reference can be made here to only a few of the more important
matters with which we find the Council dealing.
There were constant appeals to Robert Morris, the superintendent of finance,
and to Congress, to furnish promised supplies of clothing, food, and equipment
to the Maryland troops in the Continental Army, most of which seem to have
gone unheeded. The care of the British and German prisoners, confined for
the most part at Frederick, although it was the business of the Continental
authorities, seems to have devolved largely upon the local militia, as the plan
to entrust this guard duty to partly invalided Continental troops would appear
not to have been effectively carried out. There were numerous escapes of
prisoners and it is even intimated that some of the British officers were not
unwelcome guests at the houses of certain prominent Marylanders. That the
needs of the Frederick prisoners were not met to their satisfaction by their
captors, is indicated by the arrival at Baltimore in April, 1782, of two British
sloops from New York under a flag of truce with supplies for them.
The hardships endured by these British prisoners at Frederick, who seem to
have had greater liberty of movement than met the approval of the Council,
must have been mild in comparison with the sufferings of the unfortunate
American soldiers confined in the unspeakably overcrowded and unhygienic
British prison ships at New York, where neglect and disease claimed an enor
mous portion of victims. We find duly recorded the repeated efforts of the
Council to ship, under flags of truce to New York, tobacco, and later corn and
flour, there to be sold by the British commanders, Sir Guy Carleton and Ad
miral Robert Digby, and the proceeds used for the payment of debts of the
Maryland officers in confinement there, and the relief of the pressing needs of
the other Maryland prisoners.
The surrender of Cornwallis and the control of the bay by de Grasse did
not end the depredations of small enemy ships in the Chesapeake. The planta
tions of the lower counties, especially on the Eastern Shore, were constantly
and ruthlessly plundered and burned by the crews of the enemy's barges which
had their headquarters in the islands of Tangier Sound. Somerset County was
a centre of Toryism and it would appear that Tories and refugees rather than
British sailors, were largely responsible for these attacks upon inoffensive non
combatants. In at least one instance a large British privateer penetrated the
bay as far up as Annapolis before it was chased off by a French brig of sixteen
guns.
These small enemy vessels, or barges, as they were called, harassed not only
the bay-side plantations of the lower Eastern and Western shores, but on oc
casion sailed far up the Patuxent and other tidal rivers, and even ascended the
bay as far as the Patapsco. The Council made constant but ineffective efforts
to equip and man sufficient vessels to put an end to the depredations of these
“pirates “, which continued through the year 1782, and into the following year
until the peace. On November 3oth Captain Zedekiah Walley, in command of
the small State fleet, in an engagement with several enemy barges near Tangier
Island known as the Battle of the Barges had his vessel blown up and was killed
together with a large number of his crew. Although the French naval vessels
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Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Maryland, 1781-1784
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