In accordance with the latter plan of the Committee, sometime during the summer a fleet was sent to sea from Boston, consisting of the “Providence”, 28, Captain Abraham Whipple, commodore of the fleet, the “Queen of France,” 28, Captain John P. Rathburn, and the “Ranger,” 18, Captain Thomas Simpson. In August the American vessels fell in with the Jamaica fleet, bound for London, and convoyed by a 32-gun frigate and three other armed vessels. The Americans succeeded in cutting out from the fleet ten large merchantmen, heavily laden with rum and sugar. Of the ten vessels, seven arrived at Boston and one at Cape Ann. The names of these eight ships, whose average burden was 285 tons, were as follows: “Holderness,” “Dawes,” “George,” “Friendship,” “Blenheim,” “Thetis,” “Fort William,” and “Neptune.” This was one of the richest captures which the Continental fleet made during the Revolution. The ships with their cargoes sold for more than one million dollars.[211] Early in the year the ship “General Gates” and the sloop “Providence” sent prizes into Boston which sold for £240,000.[212] The Marine Committee threatened and attacked the enemy’s coasts and towns in the British Isles, Canada, and the West Indies. Two Continental vessels visited the mouth of the Senegal river on the west coast of Africa. An attack on the shipping of the Bermudas was ordered to be made, if it was found practicable. Nassau, New Providence, was twice captured by Continental vessels, and a third time by a Spanish fleet and a ship of war of the South Carolina navy. Robert Morris, when vice-president of the Marine Committee, planned to send a fleet of five vessels against the British possessions in the West Indies and the Floridas. The movements of Captains Wickes, Conyngham, and Jones in attacking and alarming the British Isles are well known.[213] Those expeditions against British coasts, towns, and dependencies had several objects in view. One, of course, was the capture of booty. To the extent that the expeditions were directed against the shipping and commerce of the attacked ports, their object was similar to that of fleets which cruised against shipping and commerce at sea. Another object is discovered in the thought of Morris when he planned to attack England in the West Indies. Such a move Morris believed would force the enemy to withdraw part of his fleet from the coasts of the United States for the defence of his attacked colonies; and to the extent that he did so, the states would be relieved. The cruises made in the waters around the British Isles had in view the lessening of the prestige of Great Britain, the shaking of her credit, the alarming of her inhabitants, and the raising of her marine insurance; and also the impressing of Europe with the power and courage of the new American nation, and perchance, creating a diversion in its favor. Both a psychological and a political element entered into the purpose of the cruises in British waters.