HMS Blonde was a 32-gun
fifth-rate warship of the British
Royal Navy captured from the French in 1760. The ship wrecked on Blonde Rock with American prisoners on board. An American privateer captain, Daniel Adams, rescued the American prisoners and let the British go free. The captain's decision created an international stir. Upon returning to Boston, the American privateer was banished for letting go the British crew and he and his family became Loyalist refugees in
Nova Scotia.[1][2]
On 25 January 1781, Blonde,
Otter, and
Delight, as well as some smaller vessels, carried 300 troops from Charleston to the
Cape Fear River. The troops, together with 80 marines, temporarily occupied
Wilmington, North Carolina, on 28 January.[10] The object of the expedition was to establish sea communications with Lord Cornwallis and provide a base for the army, which was moving north.[11]
^RADDALL, Thomas H. "Adventures of H.M.S. Blonde in Nova Scotia, 1778–1782". Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. 35. 1966. pp. 29–52.
^Clowes, William Laird; Markham, Clements Robert; Mahan, Alfred Thayer; Wilson, Herbert Wrigley; Roosevelt, Theodore; Laughton, Leonard George Carr (1899).
The Royal Navy: A history from the earliest times to the present. Vol. 4. London: Sampson, Marston & Co. p. 61.
^RADDALL, Thomas H. "Adventures of H.M.S. Blonde in Nova Scotia, 1778–1782". Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. 35. 1966. Pp. 29–52.