By transferring his flag to another schooner, the Hancock, Samuel Tucker, senior captain of General Washington’s squadron had left the Franklin with only one officer, 26-year-old sailing master James Mugford, Jr.
While other captains muddled with enlistments, Mug- ford took the initiative and prepared the Franklin for a cruise. Retaining ten men from the original crew, he obtained six more from Colonel John Glover’s regiment of infantry composed almost entirely of Marblehead seafarers. Mugford exercised his master’s warrant and took command of the schooner. He exercised a skipper’s privilege and named two Marbleheaders—Thomas Russell and Jeremiah Hibber—as acting lieutenants and sailed from Beverly on 15 May 1776. He knew exactly where to look for prizes and set a course for Boston Bay.
“A Very Valuable Prize"
On 10 April 1776, the 280-ton ship Hope, Alexander Lumsdale, master, had sailed from Cork, Ireland in a convoy of ten vessels escorted by the 28-gun HMS Greyhound commanded by Captain Archibald Dickson. Three more convoys sailed shortly afterward, bringing the total number of vessels bound for Boston to 93. In the Greyhound’s convoy, the Hope was one of four large storeships laden with ordnance. Just before she sailed, the Admiralty discovered 1,500 barrels of gunpowder on board. They considered the ladening a mistake, since the Hope’s owners had not been licensed to carry powder. Because the convoy was scheduled to sail that day, the Admiralty simply noted the error.
During the crossing, Royal Navy frigates intercepted most of the transports and diverted them to Halifax, Nova Scotia where the Greyhound arrived on May 16 with all of her convoy but the Hope. Heavily laden, the Hope often fell behind, and in a fog on May 10 Captain Lumsdale lost contact with the convoy. In accordance with his orders, he stayed on course for Boston.
A week later Mugford observed the Hope wallowing through swells seven leagues east of Boston Light. A steady breeze from the northeast filled her sails, but to Mugford she seemed laboriously slow, acting like a decoy dragging an anchor to entice a privateer. He approached the vessel cautiously, counting gun- ports, three on each side, but he could not see the four- pound and six-pound guns behind them or the dozen swivels swinging on their pivots. Mugford followed her almost to the lighthouse, posting a lookout to keep a close eye on the spars of Royal Navy warships visible in Nantasket Road. With an easterly beating into the harbor, HMS Renown and her consorts could not come out, but breezes could change without warning.
Mugford brought the Franklin abeam of the Hope and, in a swift, unexpected move, grappled onto her stern quarter. After sailing side by side for two or three leagues, Lumsdale had relaxed. The schooner behaved like a friendly pilot boat. When Mugford’s pistol-brandishing marines clambered on deck, Lumsdale realized his error and ordered his men to quarters. Eighteen hands armed only with knives climbed topside, and Lumsdale, with one eye on the idle Renown and the other on Mugford, ordered his men to cut the rigging. Mugford warned them off, vowing to shoot the first man who put a knife to the ropes. Knives skittered to the deck. Lumsdale surrendered. Not a shot had been fired by either vessel, although the carriage guns on the Hope had been double-shotted with grape.
Mugford, grasping the importance of the Hope’s cargo, needed to speed the prize to a place of safety. The brig HMS Hope had already started to tack out of the Nantas- ket Road with all 14 guns loaded. Mugford chose Boston, but to avoid crossing paths with the Royal Navy he steered toward Deer Island, keeping well out of the Renown’s range. With the wind holding from the east, he led the Hope into Pulling Point Gut, a narrow, winding fisherman’s channel running between Shirley Point and Deer Island. Had Mugford consulted his tide tables, he may have chosen a different route. He had been through the winding gut many times before, but with the ebb running full the heavily laden Hope struck bottom as she entered.
News of the Hope’s grounding reached Marblehead about noon. Jonathan Glover—Colonel Glover’s brother and prizemaster in Marblehead—threw a saddle on his fastest horse and rode down the shore road to Pulling Point Gut. The Gut was well named. The Hope was not the first vessel to need a little pulling, but for a ship her size a little pulling wasn’t enough. She had to be lightened.
On this particular Friday, a day designated by Congress for observing the Continental fast, worshipers from Boston were filing out of Christ Church when someone spotted the Franklin leading her prize inshore. They stood on the hill and watched the Hope ease into Pulling Point Gut. Someone in the crowd cried out, “Look! She’s aground!” Dozens of churchgoers rushed to their boats to help.
Jonathan Glover enlisted hundreds of small craft, and by dusk they had carried off 1,200 barrels of powder, weighing roughly 75 tons. He sent an express asking for at least 150 guards, as he expected to be attacked after dark. Another express returned with “the best pilot in Boston.” Glover wanted the prize moved that night with the flood tide, but the pilot refused to try the channel in the dark, arguing it was too crooked and “he could not see the marks.” Glover insisted. With a cargo containing 1,000 carbines and bayonets, cartridge boxes, five gun carriages, thousands of pieces of hardware, and the Hope’s six guns, he wanted the vessel moved to Boston before daylight.
Glover offered to light the channel by using small boats with lanterns and the pilot agreed to try. At midnight lanterns dotted the channel, marking off shoals. The tide was up, and a fair breeze blew off the bay. Glover made short sail, and, with many hands on board, the pilot snaked the vessel through the Gut, followed by Mugford in the Franklin. At daylight both vessels bumped against Hancock’s Wharf. “I ceased not till with vast labour and fatigue the whole cargo was secured,” Glover reported. “On account of this business, for four days and three nights I did not pull off my clothes, and scarcely slept at all.”
Major General Artemus Ward—commander of Continental forces in the Boston area after Washington’s 4 April departure for New York—who had missed the excitement, dutifully informed General Washington, “Captain Mugford this day took and brought into this harbour ... a very valuable prize.”
The Franklin Goes Aground
Before leaving Hancock’s Wharf, Mugford detached four men to guard the Hope, thereby reducing his complement to 17. He planned to make a quick trip to Beverly to obtain more hands, but on his way out the ebb tide carried him onto a bar. Before departing he had spoken with Joseph Cunningham, commander of the Lady Washington, a small privateer schooner, and encouraged him to tag along. Cunningham’s crew numbered seven, and Mugford promised the skipper he would find a dozen or so recruits at Salem or Beverly. Cunningham needed more than a crew. He also needed a set of carriage guns, as his schooner carried only a few swivels, and Mugford thought Glover might be able to furnish a pair.
When the Franklin ran aground, Cunningham anchored the Lady Washington nearby. Mugford, forced to wait for the tide, anticipated a night attack and ordered the men to ram musket balls into the carriage guns and load the swivels. Leaving little to chance, he brought every musket on deck, armed the crew with cutlasses, pikes, and pistols, and shouted to Cunningham to do the same.
The British Plan Revenge
Captain Francis Banks— the commander of the British flotilla left behind after the British evacuation of Boston in March 1776 to protect stray British ships—had a score to settle with the Franklin, and when Mugford shoved off Hancock’s Wharf, lookouts in the Renown’s tops reported her movements. Cunningham followed Mugford about an hour later, but no one on board the Renown gave particular notice to the diminutive Lady Washington. Banks came topside when an officer reported the Franklin aground off Pulling Point Gut. He saw his opportunity to eliminate a pestiferous privateer and sent an order to HMS Experiment to prepare her boats for a night attack.
At 2000 five boats—three from the Experiment and two from the Renown, all under the command of Lieutenant Josiah Harris— shoved off, and as the sun began to set on Boston Bay an odd assortment of barges, pinnaces, and cutters, mere shadows on the still water, slithered across the harbor. One hundred men bearing muskets, pistols, and cutlasses filled the boats, half of them marines and the other half seamen, an officer commanded each boat. From the deck of the Renown the mission looked fairly routine, but somehow the watch had not noticed or attached any importance to the presence of the Lady Washington.
Lieutenant Harris had timed his trip across the harbor about right. Darkness settled in around the boats as the men doubled the Gut and spotted the silhouette of the Franklin, her broadside bearing directly toward them. Lieutenant Harris’s barge led the attack, her outline distinct against the backdrop of a starlit sky. In an effort to stay clear of the schooner’s guns, Harris motioned for the boats to come up behind her.
“Don't Give Up the Vessel!”
Mugford watched from the steerage as the boats drew near, waiting for them to range up closer to his carriage guns. He ordered the gunners to concentrate their fire on the barge, as she obviously carried the officer in charge. Mugford had little fear of firing on a friend, but he hailed the barge, demanding she identify herself.
“From Boston,” came the reply, but Mugford could see boats behind the barge and knew they belonged to British warships. He warned them off, threatening to open fire.
“For God’s sake,” an English voice replied, “Don’t fire. We just want permission to come on board.”
Mugford believed not a word, leveled his musket on a tall figure in the barge, and pulled the trigger. Instantly, every hand on the Franklin and the Lady Washington opened fire.
Shouts mixed with groans came from the advancing boats. Mugford cut the cable, and the Franklin swung about. With her broadside facing the boats, the carriage guns opened with grape. Before Mugford’s men could reload, two or three boats bumped alongside, each carrying more men than the entire crew of the schooner. Balls whipped across the Franklin’s deck, answered by every swivel, musket, and pistol on board the schooner. When the initial firing slackened, no one had time to reload. Mugford and his men grabbed cutlasses, pikes, and musket stocks and spread out along the bulwarks.
For half an hour, the men of the Franklin stood their ground, slashing in the darkness at any head that popped up over the rail. In the turmoil, the Renown’s barge capsized, dumping Harris’s body (he was killed in the first volley) and 20 others into the cold water of the bay. Those who could swim clung to the sides of the boats still engaged, but their weapons had gone over the side. Those overboard stayed in the water. It was safer there.
Mugford’s men fought valiantly. Not one enemy set foot on the deck of the schooner. The British made a final assault. Mugford rallied the men, cutlass in hand. A few feet away a British marine climbed the rail. Mugford swung at his head and felt the blade bite deep, but just before the blow struck home the marine drove a pike into Mugford’s body. The marine slumped into the water, his head sliced open, but blood flowed from Mugford’s chest. He called for Russell. “I’m a dead man,” Mugford groaned, blood running between his lips. “Don’t give up the vessel! You will be able to beat them off!” As he spoke his last words, the four remaining boats drew away. The fight was over, but James Mugford, the Franklin’s lone casualty, lay dead on the deck.
One hundred feet away, two boats attacked the Lady Washington. In the darkness they mistook her for a brig four times her actual size. With seven men, Cunningham blasted away with swivels and blunderbusses, holding the boats at bay. The boarders had not been warned of a second vessel. Her presence rattled them, and they made no attempt to board her. She also alarmed the boats attacking the Franklin. The Lady Washington, an unexpected adversary with unknown firepower, played an important role in repulsing the attack.
After news of the fight reached shore, General Ward blustered a few words of praise to General Washington. Writing lavishly, he reported that Cunningham had been attacked by five boats containing 100 men, who, after repeated efforts to board, were “beaten off by the intrepidity and exertions of the little company who gloriously defended the Lady against the brutal ravishers of liberty.” This epistle, as usual, came from a man who seldom had his facts straight. Ward had earlier informed the general that Mugford had been attacked and killed by “twelve or thirteen boats full of men.” He credited Mugford with sinking several boats and killing 60 or 70 of the enemy before he died. Ward’s version of the fight became public knowledge. A week after the fight Abigail Adams sent her husband the same garbled account. By then, Ward’s report had become a matter of public record, ultimately finding its way into Mugford’s funeral eulogy.
The British account, taken from the journals of the Renoivn and the Experiment, had the flavor of conventional naval brevity. After Harris had been killed, no one took charge of the attack. In less than half an hour the boats drew back to regroup. Some men were missing, others wounded, but in the darkness no one could count casualties. They feared the worst. When the barge swamped, an officer claimed all her men had been lost and advised against resuming the attack.
The night attack had been unexpectedly bloody for Banks’s boarding party. With their shot-up sails and splintered oars, the sailors headed back for the squadron, arriving on board the flagship at 11:30 p.m. Banks counted heads and found but five missing. He left no record of the number wounded. Captain Alexander Scott of the Experiment reported two missing and several wounded and blamed the hurried retreat of his sailors on the unexpected arrival of “an armed brig.”
Burying “Their James"
The late-night tide carried the Franklin to sea. In light morning breezes, Thomas Russell rounded Nahant for Marblehead, Mugford’s home. People gathered on Marblehead Neck to watch the vessel come in, and as she tacked up the harbor, they followed quietly, some on foot and others in carriages, their heads bent in mourning. The entire town converged at the wharf. Women held their children, men their hats. Cunningham had carried the dreadful news of Mugford’s death back to Boston, and early that morning Jonathan Glover had sent an express to Marblehead.
On May 22, a long procession gathered outside the church to escort Mugford’s body to its final resting place in Marblehead’s Old Burying Ground. John Glover, with a detachment from his regiment, led the group from the church to the grave site as bells tolled a solemn dirge. A soft breeze blew off the ocean. Gulls circled overhead. Women dabbed their eyes and silently prayed as they watched the coffin of “their James” lowered into the freshly dug grave. The colonel raised his sword, the soldiers their muskets, and a volley roared across the harbor. The gulls flew away, and the people returned to their homes, more determined than ever to win their war for independence.
