Early in the conflict, Captains Lambert Wickes and Gustavus Conyngham operated out of various French ports for the purpose of commerce raiding.
Brady's first major book, For Love of Country, whilst telling the story of a fictitious John Seymour, was actually based in part on the true heroics of Nicholas Biddle, one of the first five captains of the fledgling Continental Navy.
Gustavus Conyngham (about 1744 – 27 November 1819) was born in County Donegal, Ireland, and was a merchant sea captain, officer in the Continental Navy and a privateer.
Royal Navy | United States Navy | Navy | U.S. Navy | Royal Australian Navy | French Navy | Royal Canadian Navy | Indian Navy | United States Navy Reserve | Imperial Japanese Navy | Soviet Navy | Continental Army | Spanish Navy | Continental Congress | People's Liberation Army Navy | Continental Airlines | navy | Old Navy | United States Secretary of the Navy | Navy Cross | Imperial Russian Navy | Polish Navy | German Navy | Turkish Navy | Italian Navy | United States Navy SEALs | Royal Netherlands Navy | Chilean Navy | Russian Navy | Royal Malaysian Navy |
From February 17 to April 8, 1776, he commanded the ship during the first Continental Navy-Marine Corps amphibious expedition—the cruise to New Providence, in the Bahamas, to seize essential military supplies from the British garrison at Nassau.
In 1782 during the American Revolutionary War, the young Continental Navy Lieutenant Joshua Barney fought with a British squadron at Cape May and Delaware Bay.
The marriage produced 9 children, including John Burroughs Hopkins (1742-1796), a participant in the Gaspee Affair, who later became a captain in the Continental Navy and Susannah Hopkins (1756-1850), who married Jonathan Maxcy, a Baptist minister and second president of the formerly Baptist affiliated Brown University which was then known as the College of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
On 23 September 1779, Capt. Richard Pearson, RN, of HMS Serapis, nailed the British ensign to the ensign staff with his own hands before going into battle against Continental Navy ship Bonhomme Richard.
The structure, ranks, and enlisted ratings of the early Continental Navy were direct carryovers from the Royal Navy hierarchy of uniforms, ranks, and insignia.
James Mugford (1749–1776), captain in the U.S. Continental Navy