The reader recollects that by the middle of 1775 the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill had been fought, a Continental army had been organized, and Washington had been made commander-in-chief. Outside of Congress the agitation in behalf of a Continental navy had begun. That the first suggestions and advances for a navy should come from New England, where the concrete problems of the defence of her ports and coasts were being faced, was to be expected. One of the first men to make such suggestions was Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts. On July 11, 1775, he wrote to John Adams in Philadelphia that the best method of securing the coastwise navigation of the colonies was by row-galleys. He then continued: “As the whole Continent is so firmly united, why not a Number of Vessels of War be fitted out and judiciously stationed, so as to intercept and prevent any supplies going to our Enemies; and consequently, unless they can make an Impression inland, they must leave the Country or starve.”[1] The first formal movement in behalf of a Continental navy came from Rhode Island, which state was during the summer of 1775 suffering serious annoyances from the British ships. On August 26 her legislature instructed the Rhode Island delegates to the Continental Congress to use their influence at the ensuing session of Congress to obtain a fleet for the protection of the colonies.[2] On September 2, 1775, Washington, in order to prevent reinforcements from reaching the enemy at Boston, instructed Nicholson Broughton to proceed in the schooner “Hannah” on a cruise against the British transports.[3] That the question of providing a Continental navy would come up during the fall session of Congress was certain. The arguments in its behalf, which were made almost unanimously later in the session, must have been on the lips of several of the members when they assembled in Philadelphia in September: an army had been organized, why not a navy? The situation of the combatants, separated by the great Atlantic highway; and their character, one a great naval and commercial power, and the other with maritime interests by no means inconsiderable, would necessarily make the impending struggle in no small part a naval one. America had seacoasts and seaports to be defended, a coastwise navigation to be secured, and above all commercial and diplomatic communications with foreign powers to be kept open. These communications were a jugular vein, whose severing would mean death to the United Colonies. The urgent and specific calls for armed vessels, which were being made, must be met at once. Had not America conveniently at hand materials for ships, and abundant men who had the “habit of the sea”?