Battle of Block Island
Shortly after midnight on 6 April 1776, a lookout on Andrew Doria sighted two vessels to the southeast. Biddle passed word of the discovery to Hopkins who ordered the fleet to head for the strangers. The larger of the unidentified ships headed toward the Americans and before long she was within hailing distance and identified herself as "... his majesty's ship of war Glasgow...." A broadside from Cabot into the British frigate opened a fierce fight in which the American ships were unable to fight as a squadron. In attempting to avoid a salvo from Glasgow, Cabot crossed Andrew Doria's bow, forcing Biddle's brig onto a port tack which avoided collision but took her away from the action. Meanwhile, Alfred and Columbus, Hopkins' largest warships, took on Glasgow but received worse punishment than they inflicted.
As the crew of Andrew Doria worked the ship into position to reenter the engagement and opened fire, Glasgow's captain realized he was overmatched and decided to stand off to the northward. Andrew Doria, followed at a distance by her consorts, gave chase and kept up a running fight with her bow chasers until recalled by Hopkins, lest Glasgow lead his fleet to a Royal Navy squadron then operating in Rhode Island waters. When the American fleet had reformed, it retired to New London, Connecticut, where it arrived on the morning of 8 April.
Read more about this topic: Andrew Doria (1775 brig)
Famous quotes containing the words battle of, battle, block and/or island:
“The battle of the North Atlantic is a grim business, and it isn’t going to be won by charm and personality.”
—Edmund H. North, British screenwriter, and Lewis Gilbert. First Sea Lord (Laurence Naismith)
“In a time of war the nation is always of one mind, eager to hear something good of themselves and ill of the enemy. At this time the task of news-writers is easy, they have nothing to do but to tell that a battle is expected, and afterwards that a battle has been fought, in which we and our friends, whether conquering or conquered, did all, and our enemies did nothing.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“No contact with savage Indian tribes has ever daunted me more than the morning I spent with an old lady swathed in woolies who compared herself to a rotten herring encased in a block of ice.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908)
““Our island home
Is far beyond the wave;we will no longer roam.””
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)