Combat· American Revolutionary War
Mass State Protector vs HMS Admiral Duff
On the morning of June 9, 1780, the Massachusetts state warship Protector fell in with the enemy ship Admiral Duff and fought her at close range.
A November 1779 journal entry names Captain John Foster Williams of the state ship Protector of 20 guns. Captain of Marines William Downe commanded the ship's Marines, with Lieutenant Samuel Wales as junior officer. The account comes from Ebenezer Fox, who enlisted as a Marine on board Protector and shortly after became cabin steward. Admiral Duff approached to within musket shot before Protector opened fire with five guns, pulled down the British colors and hoisted the American. Fox wrote that a shot from one of the Marines killed the man at the enemy's wheel, and the ship came alongside with her bowsprit across Protector's forecastle. Fox wrote that about seventy men did great execution with their muskets. Captain Luther Little's account says the action continued about an hour, when all the enemy's topmen were killed by the Marines, seventy in number.
Record no. 144