You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hello and thank you for joining the American Revolution.

Today episode 176 sinking the Randolph.

I've been neglecting the Continental Navy for some time now.

My last episode on the topic was episode 137,

when Lambert Wicks rated ships around the British Isles.

Of the North American coast, the British Navy continued to dominate the seas

without any serious challenge until the French Navy are. dominate the

French Navy arrived.

After its first raid on the Bahamas in early 1776,

the Continental Navy accomplished little more than raiding

unprotected merchant vessels carrying goods to the British Army, or maybe going

after the occasional smaller Navy ship when the opportunity presented itself.

Much of the continental fleet was bottled up in Rhode Island, trapped there by the British fleet.

You may recall from back in episode 84 that Commodore Isek Hopkins headed the Continental Navy.

It was his fleet that was trapped in Narragansit Bay for many months by the British fleet.

Hopkins had come under heavy criticism for his failure to leave the bay before the British arrived

and for his refusal to attempt an engagement with the British.

Congress had never really gotten to like Hopkins.

They had censored him in 1776 for his failure to obey the instructions that they had given him to

attack the British Navy at that time. Instead, Hopkins had sailed off with his fleet to the

Bahamas.

I'll never mind that the orders would have been suicide.

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