Auction # 58 - Winter 2014 Auction

(Naval) 1782 (Oct. 23) U.S.S. Alliance, L'Orient, France to Nantes, France. Autographed folded letter written by Capt. John Barry to Samuel White while commanding the Frigate Alliance, entered mails with "L'Orient" straightline and manuscript "6" rating, letter reads "I had the pleasure yesterday of receiving your agreeable letter. I thank you very kindly for your offer be assured if I come your way shall accept of it. I am much obliged to you for the satisfaction you express at my success… I sail in a few days on a cruise & perhaps not go to America till spring as I have no hay to make - shall stay out a little longer than you did last cruise", Very Fine.
Estimate; $3,000 - 4,000.

ONE OF THE EARLIEST NAVAL LETTERS RECORDED, WRITTEN BY CAPTAIN BARRY WHILE COMMANDING THE FRIGATE ALLIANCE.

The Frigate "Alliance" had left New London Conn. on Aug. 4th 1782 and would leave L'Orient on Dec. 8th 1782. On March 10th 1783, the "Alliance" successfully fought the British Frigate "Sybil", which was the last naval action of the Revolutionary War.

John Barry (1745-1803) was an officer in the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War and later in the United States Navy. He is widely credited as "The Father of the American Navy" (and shares that moniker with John Paul Jones) and was appointed a Captain in the Continental Navy on December 7, 1775. He was the first Captain placed in command of a US warship commissioned for service under the Continental flag. After the war, he became America's first commissioned naval officer, at the rank of Commodore, receiving his commission from President George Washington in 1797.