Naval Logistics In Colonial America

In February 1740, Vice Admiral Edward Vernon, who stayed in Port Royal in Jamaica after the victory in Port Bello, ordered Captain Perceval of the Astrea to transport American masts and naval stores from Boston. This order did not contribute to any glorious victory, but the dispatch of the Astrea to New England during the War of Jenkins’ Ear was the first case that the Royal Navy attempted to provide the overseas naval base with naval stores from North America directly. Therefore, her voyage and the views concerned with the Astrea explicate that the navy’s view about the naval logistics in the 1730s and 1740s and how the navy exploited naval stores production in Colonial America resulting from the naval stores policy in the eighteenth century. The construction and the repair of much number of ships required large quantities of naval stores, such as masts, pitch, tar, and hemp, and the demand for naval stores in wartime escalated rapidly, but Britain could not sufficiently produce these commodities in its main land. Therefore, before the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession, England depended on the import from Sweden, Norway, and Russia for almost of all naval stores, and after the Treaties of Utrecht, besides these countries, Colonial America supplied enormous amount of pitch and tar for the British market. Moreover,
the navy purchased some quantities of masts from New England from the late seventeenth century. The increase in the import of American naval stores to the mother country in the early eighteenth century crucially resulted from the naval stores policy which the government had undertaken to promote naval stores production in Colonial America since the 1690s. Particularly, as the Naval Stores Act established in 1704 stipulated that the navy provided merchants importing American naval stores with the bounty, many merchants dealt with these commodities by considering the American naval stores trade as profitable. The intense struggle with France and Spain for the supremacy in the oceans and the rise of the economic importance of the West Indies in the first half of the eighteenth century made Port Royal in Jamaica more significant naval base as the stronghold of the squadron operating in the western part of the Atlantic, but the supply of naval stores and provisions for overseas naval bases was an important but arduous task for the navy. Although, in the eighteenth century, British overseas naval bases mostly depended on the supply from the mother country, it was quite hard to supply stably naval stores and provisions required by the management of the dockyard at Port Royal, especially, in wartime. There are two dominant views about the relationships between the navy’s procurement of goods and the American colonies including the West Indies in the first half of the eighteenth century.
The first is that the Royal Navy attached slight weight to American naval stores. Many studies dealing with the naval stores trade and the naval stores policy assert that the navy undervalued American naval stores except for great masts, a large quantity of which was imported from New England until the independence of America, and that the navy preferred Swedish pitch and tar to American commodities on the ground of the good quality of Swedish
goods. The second is that the navy could not effectively exploit the American colonies as the source of naval stores, provisions, and sailors and the supply from Britain was not reliable in the War of Jenkins’ Ear and the War of the Austrian Succession. The inadequate naval logistics in the Western Hemisphere caused the failure to the expeditions to French and Spanish bases in America in the first half of the eighteenth century. Christian Buchet represents that the navy did not construct appropriate logistics to operate in the western part of the Atlantic and it was not until the Seven Years War that the navy could amply procure goods and sailors from North America. However, these views have some questions to examine. Regarding the first, previous studies did not consider sufficiently how the navy used American naval stores in the eighteenth century despite their emphasis of the navy’s negative opinion about American naval stores, because the navy frequently stated their own interests about the naval stores policy and purchased a certain quantity of American naval stores for the royal dockyards. As for the second, the view that the naval logistics in the Atlantic was unsatisfactory for the overseas base at Port Royal during the War of Jenkins’ Ear leaves no room for dispute, but previous studies do not examine sufficiently to what extent the navy weighed the direct procurement of naval stores from North America to the West Indies by coping with the problem about the shortage of goods. Therefore, this essay analyses the dispatch of the Astrea in 1740 and the opinions about it by using The Vernon Papers and original manuscripts in the National Archives. Duncan Crewe refers to the voyage of the Astrea in his work, but he emphasises only its positive effect that the navy started to transport American naval stores from New England to Jamaica. Although this storeship could carry naval stores from Boston, her voyage did not succeed completely and it revealed the defect in the naval logistics. In addition, he does not explain why New England could supply naval stores for the naval base in Jamaica. Therefore, this essay deals with how the navy attempted to exploit North America as the source of naval stores in the War of Jenkins’ Ear, and illustrates the part of the connection between the navy’s procurement of naval stores and the naval stores policy in the first half of the eighteenth century.