During the first six months of the American rebellion, the colonies inched toward some means of dealing with Britain’s naval superiority.  Over the summer the Americans had already waged a sort of whaleboat war among the estuaries and islands around Boston, mainly to deprive the British army couped up there of forage and fodder.  Efforts escalated as the war continued.  A confrontation between small Royal Navy vessels and the Massachusetts town of Machias over the summer serendipitously resulted in a small Massachusetts Navy created by capture in June 1775.^[1]  In June, Rhode Island’s General Assembly voted to charter two ships and outfit them for naval operations to protect the colony’s trade, essentially by contesting the Royal Navy’s control of Narragansett Bay.^[2]  In September, Colonel John Glover in the Continental Army offered his fishing schooner, Hannah, as a charter to wage war on the sea.  George Washington naturally accepted, limiting its operations to capturing unarmed supply ships serving the British army.^[3]  The army had essentially created its own navy out of necessity.