Volume one:

The Private Revolution of Geoffrey Frost

Historical Note:

On 5 January 1776 the Naval Committee of the Continental Congress ordered Commodore Esek Hopkins to sortie "with the utmost diligence" the eight ships of the fledgling Continental Navy and destroy the flotilla of Lord Dunmore, former royal governor of Virginia, then cruising in the Chesapeake. After destroying Dunmore, Hopkins was directed to cruise off the Carolinas and clear the fledging United States’ southern coasts of British warships.

Instead, after being icebound in Delaware Bay for six weeks (during which time the First Lieutenant of Hopkins’ flagship Alfred, a Scots named Jones stood constant anchor watch to prevent desertions), Hopkins read his orders exhorting him to "distress the Enemy by all means in your power" as sufficient authority to mount an amphibious assault on New Providence in the Bahamas to capture cannons and powder for the Continental Army. Hopkins’ dilatory tactics made the invasion an opéra bouffe. He captured a large number of cannons, but that lifeblood of revolution, gunpowder, was strangely lacking: the governor of New Providence having sufficient time to spirit away one hundred and fifty barrels. However sound his military reasoning for descending upon New Providence, for his dereliction of duty, and tepid ardor in failing to subdue off Block Island HMS Glasgow with the overwhelming firepower of five vessels, Hopkins was subsequently censured by the Congress, and dismissed from service.


From the Book:

Chapter 1

Her list to starboard and the fact that she was substantially down by the bows were easily discernible as she came up the river ponderously, though with consummate dignity. She was helped along immeasurably more, perhaps, by the strong inflowing tide than by the ragged, hastily rigged lateen sail bent a- gundalow fashion on a poorly fished and gammoned yard slung from her stump of a foremast. The wretched vessel was the Frost Trading Company’s square-rigged, four-hundred-ton armed merchantman, Salmon, possessing the second letter-of-marque issued by the House of Representatives of the Colony of New Hampshire. She was duly bonded by principals of the company and appointed and contracted by Continental Agent John Langdon to bring back cannons seized by Commodore Esek Hopkins in the Continental Navy’s first amphibious assault upon the British Fort Montagu at the old pirate rendezvous of New Providence Island in the Bahamas. The vessel, like her namesake, was focused solely on seeing her long journey completed and herself relieved of the burdens in her guts.