Gálveztown (brig sloop)

Gálveztown, originally HMS West Florida, was a two–masted brigantine which the Continental Navy schooner USS Morris captured at the Battle of Lake Pontchartrain, which was then in the British province of West Florida. West Florida became Gálveztown, supposedly under the command of Bernardo de Gálvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana (New Spain).

There are claims that she participated in the siege and capture of Pensacola in March 1781. However, documentary evidence suggests that she arrived in Philadelphia with cargo on 1 June 1780, and therefore could not have participated in this action in March 1781.

Historic significance

The vessel, described as a two-masted brigantine, square-rigged on the foremast, with fore-and-aft sails on the mainmast, was originally commissioned as a 14-gun cutter named West Florida after being built by the British in New England, and later was an armed brig-sloop and the only armed British vessel patrolling the lakes and Mississippi Sound. She had taken several American rebel smugglers as prizes under Lieutenant John Payne, RN.

As such she posed a threat to the expected shipment of arms and military supplies that Benjamin Franklin had contracted from the Spanish firm of José Gardoqui & Sons to ship: "215 bronze cannon, 4,000 field tents, 12,826 grenades, 30,00 [3,000 or 30,000?] bayonets, 30,000 uniforms, 51,314 musket balls, and 300,000 pounds of gunpowder from a French port by way of Bermuda to Boston". Spain also provided almost eight million reales (currency) with which all types of supplies were purchased and sent by way of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to General Washington and George Rogers Clark.

After intercepting a secret communication to the British General, Gálvez formulated a plan to attack the British forces once Spain declared war on Britain. After HMS West Florida took three boats that the Spanish claimed to be theirs, the Spanish Governor used this as a pretext and reacted by seizing eleven British vessels on the river at the time, claiming them to be smugglers. One of the vessels was a British-registered Norton, captained by a colonial William Pickles.