In 1779 occurred one of the great naval disasters of the war. Some 800 British troops convoyed by ships-of-war had in June taken possession of Penobscot Bay to establish there some of the many loyalists who had gone to Halifax, their chief refuge during the war. Maine was then a part of Massachusetts, and it was this state which took on the burden of dislodging the enemy. The Navy Board at Boston lent the _Warren_, 32; the _Providence_ (sloop), 14; and the _Diligent_, 12. These and three state brigantines, of 14 or 16 guns each, and thirteen privateers (insured by the state) made up the naval part. In all they mounted 324 guns and were manned by over 2,000 men. Captain Dudley Saltonstall was in chief command. There were about 1,000 militia commanded by General Solomon Lovell. This carefully prepared effort was a complete failure through the incompetency and want of push of Saltonstall. Arriving in the bay on July 25, 1779, the attack on three British vessels present and on the fort which was now ready was so dilatory and ineffective that at length, on August 13th, a British fleet which had had time to come from New York appeared and drove the American vessels up the river, where all except two, which were captured, were burned. The American loss was 474 men. The remainder had to find their way back with great hardship through the Maine woods. This humiliating affair cost Massachusetts a debt estimated at $7,000,000. The year 1779, however, had been the most brilliant of the war for the small American navy. The exploits of John Paul Jones, of Gustavus Conyngham and Lambert Wickes in European waters made an undying page of history; nor should those of our small frigates, the _Queen of France_, _Deane_ (later the _Hague_), _Warren_, _Boston_, and _Ranger_ on our own coasts as well as of the swarms of privateers in this year (289 of which were commissioned by Congress alone) and whose sweeping captures of the enemy’s commerce went so far to supply the needs of our ever-dwindling army, be forgotten. * * * * * American affairs were now (at the beginning of 1780) at their lowest ebb. The struggle had lasted nearly five years. It was with difficulty that an army, nominally of 6,000 men, could be kept together. The men were “half-starved, imperfectly clothed, riotous, and robbing the country people ... from sheer necessity. Desertion was continual, from one to two hundred men a month going over to the enemy.... Only a miracle, thought Washington, could keep America from the humiliation of seeing her cause upheld solely by foreign arms. Throughout the land there was a weariness of war, a desire for peace at any price.”[9]