The Capture of the William and Anne and Post-Capture Maneuvering

As discussed in prior articles, the large British Army in New York required continuous re-provisioning. This meant that an unprecedented number of ships were entering New York harbor via Sandy Hook. Many of those ships were captained by officers navigating the unmarked waters near Sandy Hook for the first time. Groundings and ship seizures were inevitable—the first one occurring in 1775. Over the course of the war, opportunistic American privateers and shore-neighborhood militia companies proved themselves adept at preying on vulnerable British shipping.

The Capture of the William & Anne

In spring 1777, a British brig from the Caribbean bound for New York beached near Long Branch. The crew came ashore looking for provisions. A local militiaman, William Applegate, recalled that the crew was “captured by Capt. Morgan who surprised the crew resorting on the shore procuring provisions & thereby became possessed of the vessel, they having negligently left no guard on board except one sick man.” The vessel “was armed & had sugar aboard.”

Probably informed by Loyalists who went to Sandy Hook, the next day “2 English armed vessels and attempted to regain” the brig and its valuable cargo. Local militia arrived in time to reinforce Morgan and defend the prize. John Howland, a militia sergeant, recalled:

They were ordered to defend her [the beached brig]. They had a piece of artillery mounted on a turret threw upon her, which they defended the brig until they got the sugar out, they were found only among the vessel for the best part of a day.

A similar and better-documented incident would occur two months later off of Deal. On July 28, 1777, the New York Gazette & Weekly Mercury, a Loyalist newspaper, printed a brief account about the capture of the merchant vessel, William & Anne: “A brig supposed to be from the West Indies, run ashore last evening at a place called Deal… and the rebels on shore have been seen unloading her." The brig was an ocean-going vessel that had previously made ports of call in Russia and Portugal before heading for the Caribbean. More detail on ship’s capture was provided the in the same newspaper the following week:

The brig mentioned in our last to be ashore at Deal, near Sandy Hook, was the prize to the Milford and Thomas frigates; she taken by a rebel privateer and ordered for Boston, and on the voyage was re-taken by the above mentioned frigates, and sent for this port, but the prize master thought proper to call on the coast of New Jersey, where the cargo, consisting of oil, lemons, wine, basil and sugar, was immediately taken ashore and carried up into the country.

The key phrase “the prize master thought proper to call on the coast of New Jersey” raises two possibilities. 1.) The prize master, a junior British officer named Jacobs, may have grounded the ship by accident off Deal, where it was taken by rebels; the report sought to downplay this grievous error. 2.) Alternatively, as the story suggests, the prize master may have steered for Deal intentionally because he expected a friendly reception, including picking up a local pilot, along the largely disaffected Shrewsbury Township shoreline.

This mystery is solved by a subsequent report in the Pennsylvania Evening Post. On August 15, the newspaper advertised an admiralty court to be held at Gilbert Barton's Tavern in Allentown. The court would hear "the bill of James Morgan, captain of a company of militia… against the brigantine or vessel called the William & Anne, lately commanded by Capt. Jacobs, and taken as a prize by the said Capt. Morgan near Long Branch."

The referenced “Capt. Morgan” was James Morgan, a militia captain from the Cheesequake neighborhood of Middlesex County. His militia company consisted largely of Raritan Bay boatmen. When the William & Anne beached, Morgan’s men likely rowed to it and demanded its surrender in the same way that Essex County men rowed to and demanded the surrender of the Blue Mountain Valley in 1776. The residents of Deal, disaffected or not, offered the British no aid. Instead, as they had with the British ship, Good Intent, earlier that year, they willingly unloaded the vessel’s valuable cargo once the ship was secured for a share of the prize.

Job Throckmorton of the Monmouth Militia recalled the capture. He recalled that Morgan “imprisoned the crew whilst on shore procuring provisions, and thereby became possessed of the vessel, they having left no crew on board except a sick man.” Throckmorton also recalled an attempt by the British to recover the vessel: “The day after, Captain Morgan became possessed of the brig, an English armed vessel endeavored to reclaim her, but making use of the guns still on board, they eventually drove her off.”

After the Capture

The William & Anne was certainly not the first vulnerable British ship taken off the Monmouth shore, but it was the first to be formally condemned through New Jersey’s newly-established Admiralty Court. Ownership and rights to prior captured ships, such as the Betsy, bogged down in months of confusing debate over rightful ownership of the ship and its cargo. The admiralty courts were established to hear claims on the vessel and its cargo, and then promptly settle questions of ownership. The court’s appointed agent would then advertise the sale of the vessel and its cargo, attend the sale, and collect fees for the state. Over the next five years, Gilbert Barton’s tavern—likely due to Allentown’s central location—hosted more admiralty courts than any other New Jersey location.

Interestingly, the August 15 Evening Post report contradicted a prior announcement in the same newspaper. This prior notice claimed that the William & Anne was already condemned at Freehold, and would be sold at auction at Long Branch on August 5 with “a cargo of sugar, oil, lemons, sumack, figs, wine vinegar, corks, almonds, and wine.” This errant notice suggests that Monmouth Countians had locally determined ownership of the vessel and condemned it to a body “Continental soldiers.”

The only Continental soldiers on the Monmouth shore at this time were David Forman’s Additional Regiment. Perhaps David Forman, who was holding extra-legal tribunals for other purposes, condemned the vessel to his troops. This would have placed him at odds with Captain Morgan of the Middlesex militia, but Forman was also the militia general for Monmouth, Middlesex and Burlington counties at the time and the commanding officer over Captain Morgan. 

Forman could have sent Morgan home. The state’s assertion of the admiralty court’s jurisdiction clarified that a state-appointed Admiralty Court judge would determine the vessel’s rightful owner and the person entitled to the windfall from the sale of the vessel and its cargo.

In a final twist on the post-capture maneuvering, the Admiralty Court hearing in August 1777 did not lead to the prompt sale of the William & Anne. The following April, the New Jersey Gazette advertised that the William & Anne would be sold at the house of James Wall in Freehold on May 15. The agent of the Admiralty Court who advertised the sale was David Forman.

Caption: The William & Anne resembled this British brigantine. In July 1777, it grounded on the Monmouth shore and was taken. It took months to determine who had rights to sell the vessel.

Related Historical Site: Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT)

Sources: National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans' Pension Application, John Howland of NJ, www.fold3.com/image/#27247928; National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans' Pension Application, William Applegate of NJ, www.fold3.com/image/#11273804; American War of Independence at Sea - American Privateers: http://www.awiatsea.com/pl/Br/British%20Prizes%20July%201777/William%20and%20Anne%20Brig%20(Edward%20Howe).html; Archives of the State of New Jersey, Extracts from American Newspapers Relating to New Jersey (Paterson, NJ: Call Printing, 1903) vol. 1, pp. 434, 443-4; William Morgan, Naval Documents of the American Revolution (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1970), vol. 9, p 704; Pennsylvania Evening Post, August 15, 1777; The Library Company, Pennsylvania Evening Post, August 23, 1777; Library of Congress, Early American Newspaper, New Jersey Gazette, reel 1930; National Archives, revolutionary War veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - Job Throckmorton.