THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601190309
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines
Most of us have used or crossed Portsmouth's Effingham Street one time or another as it runs between Green and Chesnut streets. I grew familiar with it on daily commutes to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard as assistant public affairs officer. During those early morning drives, I often wondered about the origin of the name.
My interest in Effingham was stimulated once again last week during a drive from London to the seaport of Portsmouth, England. On the way along the motorway I passed through the rolling countryside of Surrey and saw several road signs for Effingham. After some research back at Greenwich, location of the National Maritime Museum, I found that Surrey was the 17th century home of home of Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham.
Following a hunch that this same gentleman might be connected with Portsmouth in Virginia, my research paid off. I found that Effingham was not only a former royal governor of the colony but was the first to attempt to rid Colonial Virginia waters of pirates and smugglers.
As early as 1683, Lord Howard of Effingham wrote a royal petition explaining why it was crucial that a ``guardship'' be stationed off Virginia.
``All the reasons that apply to the dispatch of men-of-war to other colonies prevail with double force here. The (tobacco) revenue of Virginia exceeds that of all the other plantations put together.'' Effingham wrote. He further argued that events like Bacon's rebellion could be prevented with the stationing of a ``guardship.'' He added that a ship cruising between the Virginia Capes could ``check illegal traders and advance the King's revenue.''
But what really got the attention of the King was Effingham's statement that, finally a guardship could be used to ``put down pirates and be an awe to all plantations north of the tropic, especially New England.''
Since the main purpose for creating and backing the colony of Virginia and developing tobacco trading ports like Portsmouth, Norfolk, Hampton and Yorktown was to make money, the very mention of pirates sent the Royal court and their financial backers spinning. And Effingham had solid evidence that indeed piracy was a growing threat in and around Hampton Roads.
With impunity pirates had raided British shipping since 1660 and would continue well into the 1720s. Smuggling was also on the rise during that period as thousands of hogsheads of tobacco and other Colonial crops and goods sailed from the Elizabeth, James and York Rivers without paying a single duty or tariff demanded by Royal customs officers. In this period, more tobacco was illegally shipped or traded than legally sailed to England. Both foreign merchants and corrupt ship captains made fortunes on illicit traffic.
Growing frustrated over the loss in revenues, Effingham became one of the earliest and certainly one of the most vocal proponents of using the Royal navy as a ``guardian of the capes.''
However, Effingham's chief critics were highly placed within the British Admiralty itself. Most professional navy officers of the day felt it was a ``dead end'' to their careers to be placed on guard duty in what they called the ``Colonial backwaters'' of the Chesapeake Bay. An assignment on the Elizabeth or at the mouth of the Nansemond was indeed a far cry from exotic duty on the Mediterranean or Indian Ocean where medals and promotions could be earned fighting the French, Dutch or Spanish. But an assignment to Virginia where the Navy was forced to impress sailors from local farms to replace deserters, where many colonials despised the ship as a symbol of London's greed rather than enforcement of law, was considered almost punitive rather than career-enhancing.
No doubt Effingham was embarrassed to learn that one of his first guardships, the HMS Deptford, earned a bad reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. Once the Deptford reached Virginia in the 1680's, her captain, John Crofts, became a chronic drunk whose hot-tempered wife once tried to burn the ship. Learning about the situation, Effingham ordered Crofts to appear before the colonial council at Jamestown through a warrant. Defying the summons, the Depftford sailed off to ``shake down'' any vessel the captain thought might be a smuggler. As was often the case with the first guardships, Deptford later ran aground and sank in the Potomac River. Making matters worse, some guardships simply ran down their colors at the first sign of a fight with a pirate, leaving Effingham to remark, ``My footmen would make as good captains as they.'' Yet Effingham's cause persisted and was further fostered by his successor, Royal Governor Francis Nicholson.
A series of Navigation Acts were enacted beginning in 1696. Their purpose was to ``police trade'' as well as control the guardships.
By 1720, colonial leaders found the guardships were simply too small and ``under-gunned'' to deal with the pirates or their supporters, the Dutch, who conducted several unchallenged raids into local waters from 1667 through 1699.
What was needed, according to Alexander Spotswood, the next Royal Governor, to take up Effingham's idea, were ``two vessel, a 40 or 50 Gun Ship to convey our Merchant Ships out to Sea and a smaller Vessel, such as a Sloop or Brigantine, to pursue little puckaroons in Shoal Water where a great ship cannot come at them.''
Finally Effingham's initial effort began to pay off with dramatic victories over the pirates like that of Capt. William Passenger of the HMS Shorham over French marauder Louis Guittar in 1700 and Lt. Robert Maynard's defeat of the notorious Blackbeard in 1718. Recognizing the courage of Maynard and his men who engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Blackbeard and his crew, author Daniel Defoe took up Effingham's cause as well offering criticism that it took too long to get Effingham's guardships to Virginia.
By the 1760s, the British Admiralty finally recognized the importance of having locally stationed guardships near the principal trading centers, but by then a new problem had arisen - the Colonial cause for independence. In order to keep the ships manned, more and more incidents of impressment occurred on both the Norfolk and Portsmouth waterfronts. Fights between Royal sailors and townspeople became more frequent. Just before 1776, British guardships became a symbol of repression rather than protection. ILLUSTRATION: Drawing
Sketch depicts Blackbeard being attacked by Royal Navy Lt. Robert
Maynard in 1718.
by CNB