The rest of the story of the (in)action of the Continental Congress
on Daniel's 1778 "Appeal to Congress."

When Daniel Bucklin in 1778 made his "Appeal to Congress" a federal government and the United States of American, with our present written Constitution, did not exist.  The federal government of the "United States of America" would not come until some years in the future.  All that existed in 1778, to run the war, was a collection of delegates from the various states, who had assembled as the "Second Continental Congress".

When Richard Henry Lee made a motion for independence (1776) to the group of delegates called a "Continental Congress" (because it was a "congress, to wit: a meeting, of delegates from all the governments in the English speaking colonies on the North American Continent), Lee also proposed a formal plan of union among the colonies, to "confederate" the colonies.. After a discussion lasting more than a year, Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continental Congress.  But the colonies (the governments that would become "states" did not ratify the Articles until 1781. 

Therefore, neither the Court of Appeals nor the Continental Congress referred to in 1778 report found in the Congressional Journals had any power to compel the states or their courts to do anything.  Hence, Daniel Bucklin's Appeal to Congress mentioned in the following report may well have been considered by the Congress as a matter best "filed and forgotten."

Both the contesting ships mentioned in Daniel's Appeal (both the Montgomery and also the Revenge) were the result of private ventures.  They were privateers: privately owned ships and private citizens who went to see under the authority of written "letters" from a colony, to capture ships and receive the major portion of the booty, with a minor portion going to the colony.  It was a risk-free and cheap way for a colony, without spending any of its own money, to seize enemy ships. Read more about privateers.  Read more about Rhode Island as a base for pirates.

The private owners, captain, and crew of the ship were in effect mercenaries, selling their military services for the right to legally sell the seized ship and cargo.  To receive money for this booty, it was necessary to take the captured ship and its cargo to a port with an admiralty court.  There a legal court paper called a "libel" started the proceedings for a legal adjudication of whether the captain and crew of the privateer, the owner of the privateer vessel, a government,  some other person (or some combination of them in judicially declared proportions) would be declared the owners and entitled to sell the ship and cargo and receive the funds. In this court proceedings, the owners of the seized ship were entitled to appear and contest the seizure of their ship as illegal and obtain the return of the ship and cargo. Normally, the privateer took the seized ship, crew, and cargo to the admiralty court of the colony which had chartered the expedition, where a friendly home-town judge would make a decision in favor of the colony and its privateers.

Obviously, if you were part of the colony of Massachusetts, you would not want a "Congress" organization to take a ship and crew captured by a Massachusetts's privateer, and give all or part of it to Rhode Island, or to a national organization.

Congress, on the other hand, had passed a law that any capture of an enemy ship, whether by privateer or navy ship, would be adjudicated by the courts of the Congress, and that the United States (not the colonies) would get a share of the prize moneys in most of the cases of a captured vessel. (Privateers, which were most active, only went after unarmed or lightly armed English ships.)

As part of the attempt to move judicial business regarding captured ships out of the hands of the individual colonies, and into the Congress, Congress by the Articles of Confederation established a Court of Appeals, which was supposed to have full power to control and correct the proceedings of all courts of admiralty in the various colonies.  Unfortunately, the colonies chose not to recognize any such Court of Appeals.

[Click on the thumbnails to view enlarged photocopies of the Congressional establishment of a national Court of Appeals in admiralty cases, to take power from state admiralty courts; and of one of several Congressional schedules of how state privateers (and national navy crews) would share in the value of captured English ships.]

With these facts in mind --- you may want to go to the actual "Appeal to Congress" and now consider the political situation and problems involved the "Appeal to Congress" by Captain Daniel Bucklin (a Rhode Islander) and his claim to a captured ship, which a rival (Massachusetts) privateer had taken to the Massachusetts admiralty court.

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