1778 – Captain John Paul Jones of Ranger led landing party raid on Whitehaven, England. Whitehaven was an English seaport on the Irish Sea. The decision to raid it was not made because of its strategic value, for the ships in its harbor were mostly coastal fishing vessels, containing little of value to the English war cause. John Paul Jones’ original idea was to capture an important person in the course of the raid and hold the unfortunate prisoner hostage until the British ministry released American sailors from prison. By this time, the Revolutionary War had been going on for three years. Soldiers taken prisoner during land engagements were frequently exchanged as prisoners of war. But the English still treated anyone found on an American armed vessel as a pirate. This was a sore point with sailors in the Continental Navy, and especially with Jones. He hoped his raid might free some of the American seamen languishing in English prisons. In addition, he may also have known that the British ministry intended to make the burning of American seaports part of its military policy. He chose Whitehall because it was the English seaport he knew best, having departed from there at age thirteen when he first went to sea. His first voyage had carried him to Virginia, and he later wrote that he fell in love with America at first sight. Going ashore near daybreak, Jones and his men spiked the guns in the two batteries in Whitehaven Harbor, then proceeded to light a collier (coal ship) on fire. One of Jones’ crew, however-an Irishman who had enlisted only to get home-began shouting warnings and banging on the doors of citizens. Soon a crowd of townsfolk swarmed down to the water’s edge. Jones coolly posted sentinels until the collier was beyond rescue, but decided to abandon the 150 remaining vessels and return to, the Ranger, waiting offshore. The destruction caused by the Whitehaven raid was paltry, but its effectiveness as propaganda was electrifying. No raid had been made on an English seaport since 1667, thanks to Britain’s dominance of the seas. Englishmen wondered uneasily where the mighty Royal Navy had been in Whitehaven’s time of need, and Jones appeared, not for the last time, in English newspapers as a swashbuckling pirate. The effects of the Continental Navy’s daring exploits upon English commerce helped arouse distaste among the British people for continuing the Revolutionary War.
1790 – Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, submitted a bill to Congress to create a “system of cutters” to enforce tariff and customs laws along the nation’s coastline. Congress passed his bill on 4 August of the same year. This would be the nascent Coast Guard.
1792 – President Washington proclaimed American neutrality in the war in Europe.
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/april-22/
