The work of the Navy Board consisted of a great variety of details relating to provisioning, arming, equipping, officering, and manning the numerous craft of the navy. Soon after entering into office it reported to the Council that it found the armed boats needing repairs and alterations, and that owing to the better wages paid to the seamen on board privateers there was a shameful deficiency in the armed boats’ complement of men. The Board recommended the laying of an embargo to prevent the sailing of private ships until the navy should be recruited. It found that additional officers were needed.[485] The Council immediately ordered the Board to appoint the requisite number of warrant officers and to recommend proper commissioned officers. During 1777 the naval business of Pennsylvania was large and complicated. A list of stores issued to the navy for one month during the year contains the names of fifty-one vessels. Many of these are minor and unimportant craft, such as half-galleys, fire-ships, and accommodation sloops. A return of the Naval Department on February 1, 1777, shows 71 commissioned officers, 2 staff officers, 123 non-commissioned officers, and 513 privates; total officers and men in the navy, 709. Many men who enlisted in the navy had little or no experience at sea. The amount of the pay rolls for May, 1777, was £6,325.[486] The salient event in the history of the Pennsylvania navy was the campaign on the Delaware river which followed the occupation of Philadelphia by the British in September, 1777. Before this time the navy had rendered miscellaneous services on the Delaware river and bay, which had been useful though not at all brilliant. Now and then some of the vessels were ordered down the river to protect incoming and outgoing merchantmen, or to drive back the venturesome craft of the enemy. On May 8, 1776, the galleys had a spirited engagement with the “Roebuck,” 44, and the “Liverpool,” 28, in the Delaware river near the mouth of Christiana Creek. Little injury was done on either side. The British vessels returned to the Delaware Capes, and the Americans returned to their station at Mud Island, which was generally the headquarters for the state fleet.