Nicholas Biddle

Posted by Tim Oakley on Wednesday 5th of March 2014 21:57

Born: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 10, 1750. He started on a merchantman at the age of 13. In 1772, he received a midshipman's appointment with the Royal Navy serving with Horatio Nelson on Captain Constantine Phipps expedition to the Arctic, leaving that service and joining the rebel cause when war broke out, he was given command of the armed galley Franklin by the State of Pennsylvania as a gunboat on the Delaware. One of the five Captaincys allotted when the American Navy was organized on August 1, 1775. Given command of the brig Andrea Doria, 14 guns, under command of Captain Esek Hopkins in the expedition to the Bahamas and at the taking of New Providence. There Biddle captured several merchant vessels.
In 1777 he took command of the Randolph, 32 guns, being the first frigate launched for the American Navy. In September 1777 he sailed taking several prizes in a cruise off the Southern coasts including the H.M.S. True Britton. He then made a courier cruise to France.
On February 12, 1778 Biddle made his final voyage, leaving Charleston in company of three North Carolina Navy ships of lesser size on a cruise to the West Indies. On March 7, 1778 Biddle sighted and engaged the Yarmouth, a British Ship-of-the-Line of 64 guns in an Action off Barbados. Resulting in the loss of his ship and life