Unfortunately for Connyngham, he was captured in a privateer early the following year after his cruise on the English coast. What treatment he then received cannot be given in detail here, but if the British authorities were willing to starve the prisoners from the _Lexington_, which was then conceded to be a lawful ship of war, one may rest assured that it would have been kinder to Connyngham to hang him out of hand. He would, indeed, have been hanged but for the fear of retributive justice being meted out to prisoners in the hands of the Americans. So, to put it bluntly, they tortured whom they dared not kill, until the Congress, on July 17, 1778, passed a resolution formally demanding the reason why he was “treated in a manner contrary to all the dictates of humanity and the practice of civilized nations.” And yet, in spite of the pitiful sufferings of Connyngham and the other American seamen in British prisons, it was not until July 15, 1779, that Congress resolved to “cause the crews of vessels captured from the enemy to be confined on board prison ships and supplied and treated, in all respects, in the same manner as the crews of vessels belonging to these United States, and captured by the enemy, are supplied and treated.” The story of the early doings of the American navy concludes with the loss of the first American flagship, the _Alfred_. It will be remembered that the Congress had, late in 1775, ordered quite a fleet of small frigates built at different points along the coast--thirteen in all. Of the whole number, six never got to sea, for they were captured in port by the victorious British. Among those that finally carried the flag was the _Raleigh_, a thirty-two-gun vessel, built at Portsmouth, and a very fair ship for that time she proved to be. Toward the end of August, 1777, the Marine Committee ordered the _Raleigh_, under the command of Capt. Thomas Thompson, and the original flagship _Alfred_, which was still under the command of Capt. Elisha Hinman, to sail for France to procure supplies for the American army. The two ships had been at sea only a few days, when, on September 2d, they fell in with a small English merchantman called the _Nancy_, that surrendered without a stroke. From her captain they learned that she had gone adrift the day before from a big fleet bound to the Windward Islands under convoy of one twenty-gun ship, two fourteen-gun brigs, and one sixteen-gun sloop. On learning this Captain Thompson carefully noted the positions of the different men-of-war in the squadron, and learned the code of signals in use in the fleet, the necessary flags for signalling having been taken from the _Nancy_. He then headed away in pursuit.