| The epithet Father of the Navy first appeared with the publication of a biographical sketch in Nicholas Biddle's literary journal, Port Folio, in 1813. An imposing man, Barry stood close to 6'4", according to Admiral Preble who examined his Federal Navy uniform from the 1790s. Barry was on the active roll of American Navy until the end of his life. But he received little in the way of compensation from the always hard-pressed Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War. In fact, Barry petitioned the Congress for back wages after the War in the amount of $6,000. Barry's Navy was always fraught with problems ranging from lack of supplies and money to mutinous sailors or no sailors at all. The frigate "Alliance" was Barry's favorite and the most popular ship in the Continental Navy. It was the one regularly commissioned ship afloat at the close of the Revolution In 1783. Barry captured numerous British prizes during the Revolution and holds the record for prize money returns in a single voyage. His Continental commands included successively: the Lexington, 16 guns, the Effingham, 32 guns, the Raleigh, 32 guns, and the Alliance, 36 guns. Prematurely aged from an arduous life at sea, as can be evidenced by looking at an 1801 Gilbert Stuart portrait, Barry lived but 58 years. He died on September 12, 1803, at his country home "Strawberry Hill," some three miles north of Philadelphia, of a long-standing asthmatic affliction. Colonial seamen in the Revolution often found it more lucrative to sign up with "pirates," private ship owners who raided British ships, rather than with the fledgling Continental Navy. The reason: money. When a pirateer captured a British ship, the booty belonged to that captain who divvied it with his crew. While Continental Navy men would also receive some share of the spoils if they caught a British ship, it was nothing compared to work in the private sector. Further, life in the U.S. Navy imposed much more discipline than the freewheeling freebooters. |