Combat· American Revolutionary War
Action with HMS Falcon, Gloucester
On August 9, 1775, the British armed sloop of war Falcon captured one American schooner and chased another into Gloucester Bay, Massachusetts.
Linzee, the captain of the Falcon, followed with his prize, anchored, and sent his lieutenant and thirty six men in a whaleboat and two barges for the schooner that had escaped. As the bargemen boarded her, men from the shore fired on them, killing three and wounding the lieutenant. Linzee then sent his prize and a cutter to cannonade the town, but the broadside did little injury. The Gloucester men fought for several hours and, with the loss of two, took both schooners, the cutter, the barges, and every man in them. Linzee lost thirty five men, or half his crew, and warped off the next day. A note in McClellan's history of the Marine Corps calls the 1775 coastal actions it lists private ventures whose military-maritime nature suggests Marines. The Second Continental Congress authorized the raising of two battalions of Marines on November 10, 1775.
Record no. 125