The Committee defended American commerce by ordering its cruisers to “attack, take, burn, or destroy” the enemy’s privateers. One illustration of such orders will suffice. In November, 1778, the Committee wrote to the Navy Board at Boston that “at present we consider it an Object of importance to destroy the infamous Goodrich who has much infested our Coast, cruising with a squadron of 4, 5, or 6 armed Vessels, from 16 guns downwards, from Egg Harbour to Cape Fear in North Carolina.”[206] In its orders the Committee as a rule included the small naval ships of the enemy with the privateers. Of the three naval captains who lost their lives in the Continental service, two of them were killed in engagements with privateers. On March 4, 1778, the brigantine “Resistance,” Captain Samuel Chew, while cruising in the West India seas had a desperate and indecisive encounter with a letter of marque of 20 guns. Chew and his lieutenant, George Champlin, both of New London, were killed; Chew was a native of Virginia.[207] Late in the summer of 1778 the “General Gates,” 18, Captain John Skimmer, captured the brigantine “Montague” in an engagement in which Captain Skimmer lost his life.[208] In addition to defending the American commerce by cruising against the privateers and small naval ships of the enemy, the Continental vessels often threw their protecting arm directly around the trade of the states. Vessels were often detailed to convoy to sea American merchantmen and packets. At times when the trade was bound for France, the Continental vessels accompanied it even as far as the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, but as a rule their services did not extend beyond a few leagues from the American coast. Sometimes the Continental vessels were ordered to cruise off the Delaware Bay, or similar channel, to guide and protect incoming shipping. The Marine Committee coöperated with the army in the defence and in the attack of certain ports. In the campaigns around Philadelphia in 1777 and 1778 the Continental navy lost some ten vessels, including three of the thirteen original frigates; and at the siege of Charleston in 1780 it lost four vessels. The British occupation of New York caused the destruction of the two frigates built at Poughkeepsie. In 1779 a Continental vessel aided a Spanish expedition in capturing Mobile. Several times the Committee placed part of its fleet under the control of Washington and the Admiral of the French naval forces, when they were planning an attack upon some seaport held by the enemy.