For one reason or another these three vessels accomplished very little. For a long time the “Washington,” Captain Edward Ingraham, could not obtain a crew. The “Pennsylvania Farmer,” Captain Joshua Hampstead, was idle during the summer of 1776, for lack of shot. James Davis, one of the Commissioners for fitting out this vessel, made serious accusations against his fellow Commissioners and the officers and crew of the vessel. As Davis had suffered real or supposed injuries at their hands, his words no doubt must be heavily discounted. In October, 1776, he wrote that the “Pennsylvania Farmer” lay in Newbern “with 110 men on board at the Expence of near Forty Pounds per day, upwards of six months; in the most inglorious, inactive, and dissolute state that perhaps was ever suffered in any Country.” The crew of the vessel consisted of “men of all nations and conditions, English, Irish, Scotch, Indians, Men of Wars Men, and the most abandoned sett of wretches ever collected together. Two of the officers broke open the Gun Room, and with a number of the men went off with the Boat, with Intent to join Lord Dunmore’s fleet, and actually reached Currituck County. They were apprehended, and are still at large on board. They have wasted near 100 pounds of powder in wantonly firing at and bringing to all Boats, Canoes, and Vessels of every sort, even Passengers in the Ferry Boat have been insulted. Capt. Thos. Shine of the Militia, with his Company on board coming up to the General Muster, was fired on and a ball passed within a few inches of his Arm.”[613] These are but few of the derelictions contained in Davis’s remarkable list. His overstatement of his case causes one to suspect that he was not entirely free from malice. By December, 1777, the “Washington” was ordered to be sold; and commissioners had been appointed to load the other two vessels and send them on voyages to foreign ports. In April, 1778, the legislature decided to sell the “Pennsylvania Farmer.” On May 30 this vessel at a public sale in Edenton “was cried out by John Blackburn on Mr. Joseph Hewes, after which Mr. Hewes denied having bid the sum which she was cried out at.”[614]