Diary of John Adams, volume 2
The Congress, and the Assembly of this Province were invited to make an Excursion upon Delaware River in the new Row Gallies built by the Committee of Safety of this Colony. About Ten in the Morning We all embarked. The Names of the Gallies are the Washington, the Effingham, the Franklin, the Dickenson, the Otter, the Bull Dog, and one more, whose Name I have forgot. We passed down the River by Glocester where the Vesseau de Frize are. These a
I went in the Bull Dog Captn. Alexander Commander. Mr. Hillegas, Mr. Owen Biddle, and Mr. Rittenhouse, and Capt. Faulkner
Rittenhouse is a Mechannic, a Mathematician, a Philsosopher and an Astronomer.
Biddle is said to be a great Mathematician. Both are Members of the American Philosophical Society. I mentioned Mr. Cranch to them for a Member.
Our Intention was to have gone down to the Fort2 but the Winds and Tide being unfavourable We returned by the City and went up the River to Point no Point, a pretty Place.3 On our Return Dr. Rush, Dr. Zubly and Counciller Ross, Brother of George Ross, joined us.4
Ross is a Lawyer, of great Eloquence, and heretofore of extensive Practice. A great Tory, they say, but now begins to be converted. He said the Americans were making the noblest and firmest Resistance to Tyranny that ever was made by any People. The Acts were founded in 188Wrong, Injustice and Oppression. The great Town of Boston had been remarkably punished without being heard.
Rittenhouse is a tall, slender Man, plain, soft, modest, no remarkable Depth, or thoughtfullness in his Face—yet cool, attentive, and clear.
JA had furnished a brief description of the “Row Gallies” or “gondolas” in a letter to Col. Josiah Quincy, 29 July (MHi; printed in JA, Works
, 9:362). Immediately after the evacuation of Boston by the British, JA wrote to Cotton Tufts advising that vaisseaux de frise be used to defend Boston Harbor: “They are large Frames of great Timber, loaded with stone and sunk—great Timbers barbed with Iron, pointed and feathered, are placed in such a Posture as to intangle a Vessell, and shatter her, and sink her” (29 March 1776, NhHi). See drawings in
PMHB
, 65 (1941):354; also The Bay and River Delaware, Cambridge, Md., 1955
Later named Fort Mifflin and located on Mud (sometimes called Fort) Island, just below the mouth of the Schuylkill.
Near the mouth of Frankford Creek in the region called Richmond. JA described it in detail in a letter to AA, 25 May 1777 (Adams Papers; printed in JA, Letters, ed. CFA, 1:230–231).
Rush gave his recollections of this jaunt on the Delaware in a letter to JA, 13 April 1790 (Adams Papers; printed in Benjamin Rush, Letters
, 1:545).