New Hampshire’s only naval undertaking was her participation, at the suggestion of Massachusetts, in the Penobscot expedition of July, 1779. She contributed to the ill-starred fleet the “Hampden,” 22, Captain Titus Salter, which vessel was captured by the British.[661] On July 3, 1776, New Hampshire passed an act “to encourage the fixing out of Armed Vessels to defend the seacoast of America, and to cruise on the enemies of the United Colonies, as also for erecting a court to try and condemn all Ships and other Vessels.” This act was modeled on similar acts of Massachusetts. It established state privateering. A “Court Maritime,” consisting of one judge, was erected at Portsmouth to try cases of capture. Salvage was prescribed in accordance with the proportions fixed by the Continental Congress. In cases of prizes captured by a Continental vessel, appeals lay from the Court Maritime to the Continental Congress.[662] In July, 1776, a Committee of Newark, New Jersey, requested the New Jersey Provincial Congress to build four “gondolas,” or row-galleys, to be mounted with cannon, and to ply between the mouths of the Passaic and Hackensack rivers and the town of Perth Amboy. The Provincial Congress referred the proposition to a committee of four. It finally ended the business by referring the report of this committee to the Continental Congress.[663] Until October 5, 1776, when New Jersey passed an act establishing an admiralty court, her Provincial Congress decided prize cases. So early as February 15, 1776, a committee of the Provincial Congress, which had been appointed to draft an ordinance for erecting a Court of Admiralty, reported that it had consulted William Livingston, one of the New Jersey delegates to the Continental Congress, on the subject, and had proposed to him, whether it would not be of manifest advantage to the Colonies if “Congress should, by one general ordinance, institute the powers and mode of erecting a Court of Admiralty to be adopted by all the Colonies.” Livingston agreed to take the first opportunity for proposing the matter to Congress.[664] Nothing came of the recommendation. FOOTNOTES: [634] Acts and Resolves of Rhode Island, June, 1775. [635] Staples, Annals of Providence, 265. [636] Force, American Archives, 4th, III, 69. [637] Ibid., 36-37, 461, 653; Collections of Rhode Island Historical Society, VI, 134-35; see Chapter I, page 55. [638] Acts and Resolves of Rhode Island, August, 1775. [639] Providence Gazette, April 20, April 27, 1776; Acts and Resolves of Rhode Island, November, December, 1776; Arnold, History of Rhode Island, II, 397. [640] Rhode Island Colonial Records, VII, 582. [641] Acts and Resolves of Rhode Island, December, 1776, May, 1778. [642] Acts and Resolves of Rhode Island, March, May, 1776. [643] W. P. Sheffield, Rhode Island Privateers and Privateersmen. [644] Acts and Resolves of Rhode Island, June, 1777.