In these first appointments of the Committee it takes no eagle eye to discern the workings of nepotism and sectional influences. Of the five largest naval plums, New England plucked four. This may have been, however, right enough, as the South was credited with the commander-in-chief of the army, and New England greatly exceeded the Middle and Southern states in the number of men who were experienced in maritime affairs. In December, 1775, the Naval Committee was preparing a fleet for sea, which was to make the first naval essay of the new government. The Pennsylvania Committee of Safety was contributing arms, ammunition, and sailors. Commodore Hopkins enlisted for the service of his fleet more than one hundred seamen in Rhode Island, whom Whipple brought to Philadelphia in the “Katy.” On December 3, 1775, John Paul Jones hoisted the Continental flag on board the “Alfred,” Hopkins’s flagship, the first Continental vessel to fly the colors of the new nation.[40] By the end of January, 1776, the Committee had added four other small vessels to the navy, the sloops “Providence,” and “Hornet,” and the schooners, “Wasp,” and “Fly.”[41] The “Providence” had been the “Katy” of the Rhode Island navy. The “Hornet” and the “Wasp” were obtained in Baltimore. On January 5, 1776, the Naval Committee issued sailing orders to the commander-in-chief. He was ordered, “if Winds and Weather possibly admit of it, to proceed directly for Chesapeake Bay in Virginia.” Here he was to strike the enemy’s fleet under Lord Dunmore, unless it was found to be greatly superior to his own. If he was so fortunate as to execute this business successfully, he was to continue southward and master the British forces off the coast of the Carolinas, and from thence he was to sail northward directly to Rhode Island and “attack, take, and destroy all the enemy’s naval force that you may find there.”[42] This program seems rather ambitious, when one considers the motley assemblage of officers, seamen, and cruisers, that composed this fleet of made-over merchantmen. The ice in the Delaware greatly delayed the expedition. Early in February, 1776, the fleet was assembling at Cape Henlopen. It then consisted of the flagship “Alfred,” 24, Captain Dudley Saltonstall; the ship “Columbus,” 20, Captain Abraham Whipple; the brigs “Andrew Doria,” 14, Captain Nicholas Biddle, and “Cabot,” 14, Captain J. B. Hopkins; the sloop “Providence,” 12; and the schooner “Fly,” 8. On February 15 the sloop “Hornet,” 10, and the schooner “Wasp,” 8, joined the fleet from Baltimore.[43] On the 17th the fleet sailed outside the Capes into the broad Atlantic. A new nation in whose veins flowed the blood of a long line of seafaring and sea-fighting ancestors was about to put to the initial test its skill in naval warfare, and under conditions far from auspicious. If the doughty Admiral should get all his queer craft once more into a safe harbor he would be doing well.