The Capture of the Schooner, Two Friends, and Its Captain

As noted in prior articles, privateering along the New Jersey shore blossomed in the summer of 1778. With the entry of France into the war, the British navy now faced a powerful enemy and ships were diverted to other parts of the sprawling empire. American privateers, with Little Egg Harbor (commonly called “Egg Harbor”) as their base, cruised the Jersey shore in search of solitary British and Loyalist ships going to and from New York. Large vessels such as the Venus and Love & Unity were vulnerable to capture, and privateer captains, such as Yelverton Taylor took several vessels and amassed small fortunes.

Though not as famous or prolific as Taylor, David Stevens was another one of Egg Harbor’s successful privateer captains in 1778. By August, he had taken at least two prizes into that port. He would take his largest prize on December 1. On December 3, the Pennsylvania Gazette, reported that two days earlier: "Captain Stevens in a privateer belonging to Egg Harbor took the schooner Two Friends, Capt. Sion, of 6 carriage and 12 swivel guns, with 22 men, belonging to New York." Stevens towed the prize back to Egg Harbor. The actual captain of the Two Friends, as indicated by later reports, was Captain Alexander Bonnett.

A brief report in the New Jersey Gazette on December 9 added that a "British armed vessel… came ashore near Barnegat. The crew, about sixty in number, surrendered to our militia… and are sent as prisoners to Bordentown." Indeed, antiquarian accounts note that Two Friends had grounded off Barnegat and that Stevens was assisted by local militia who secured the crew. The vessel and its cargo would eventually sell for £12,000. (The New Jersey Gazette account claims it sold for £5,000, but that figure likely did not include the cargo which presumably was auctioned off separately).

The loss of the Two Friends was important enough to be discussed in New York where William Smith, the former attorney general of the colony, now a Loyalist, recorded on December 3: "A store ship is on the shore at Barnegat, carelessness or perfidy. There is perpetual negligence in not employing American pilots or seamen."

The New Jersey Gazette reported again on the Two Friends on January 27, 1779:

The armed sloop Two Friends, commanded by Capt. Alexander Bonnet, was cut away on Long Beach, near Barnegat. A number of people from the shore went to their assistance and saved all of them, but one man drowned...she went to pieces in a few hours.

It is interesting that the report suggests that Two Friends broke apart, while prior reports say that the vessel was taken by Stevens, towed into Egg Harbor, and sold. It is presumed that the first reports were correct. The January 27 report goes on to note that the captain of the Two Friends, Alexander Bonnett, was permitted to stay in Toms River as a non-combatant, even as his crew was taken prisoner. This raises the possibility that Bonnett bribed local officials into paroling him.

The report in the Gazette discussed Bonnett’s fate. He boarded a vessel at Toms River, Endeavor, from the West Indies and presumably (illegally) bound for New York. Bonnett’s bad fortune soon turned tragic. The Gazette reported: “On the night he parted, her [the Endeavor’s] cable was cast away in the bay and Capt. Bonnet, with every soul on board, perished." An antiquarian source further noted that most of the cargo of rum and molasses was lost, but 160 barrels of rum were saved by locals. They likely toasted Bonnet’s bad fortune soon after.

The misfortune of the Two Friends and Alexander Bonnett is a good case study on the way that privateering, opportunism, and luck combined on the Jersey shore during the American Revolution. Certainly, Stevens and the local militia were necessary to the capture, but they were not the cause of it. If Smith is to be believed, the capture was attributable to a British captain sailing an overloaded ship in tricky waters without a local pilot. Locals on the Monmouth shore were both Patriots eager to seize an enemy vessel and opportunists happy to reach an accord with a vessel’s rich captain. This duality would remain evident on the shore for the remainder of the war.

Related Historic Site: New Jersey Maritime Museum

Sources: Edwin Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (Bayonne, NJ: E. Gardner and Sons, 1890) p 80-4; Alfred Heston, South Jersey: A History 1664-1923 (Lewis Historical Publishing, 1923) p 225; William Smith, Historical Memoirs of William Smith: From 26 August 1778 to 12 November 1783 (New York: Arno, 1971)  p 53; Pennsylvania Journal, February 3, 1779; Library of Congress, Early American Newspaper, New Jersey Gazette, reel 1930 Alfred Heston, South Jersey: A History 1664-1923 (Lewis Historical Publishing, 1923) p 225; Edwin Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (Bayonne, NJ: E. Gardner and Sons, 1890) p 119-20; Paul Burgess, A Colonial Scrapbook; the Southern New Jersey Coast, 1675-1783 (New York, Carlton Press, 1971) pp 150; William Horner, This Old Monmouth of Ours (Freehold: Moreau Brothers, 1932) p 58.