Also, the National Archives needs volunteers to transcribe their digital uploads. When I heard this, my first thought was "that's unpaid intern work" but then they revealed that they really really really need people who can read cursive. So my guess is that the interns can't read the documents.
I'm chipping in as I can. I figured I'd start at the start and searched for the Revolutionary War, and picked an Admiralty Court prize hearing from 1777. It's a court transcript, and it starts off intensely boring and chock full of bloviation. Then the defendants told their story and it got fun.
Three ship owners from Philadelphia hired a captain in 1776. They got permission from the Continental Congress to export flax seed. Now, I don't know if Congress knew where they planned on taking it. But their plan, was Ireland. IRELAND. During the Revolutionary War, with the leave of Congress and not any occupying force. So they get into Londonderry and sell their stuff, before the customs officer realizes what side they're on and he seizes their ship. Because, no shit. After a few days they talk him into releasing it, at which point they go to Liverpool. Where they are told to f*** off on account of being American enemies. So then they go to London, where there was enough sympathy for the American colonies that they were able to stay for months while they tried to find cargo to haul. One of the owners had gone by land from Liverpool to London and scoured everywhere for anything to ship. Nothing. Nobody was going to give American enemies business, what with the war. So one of them goes to Holland and secures a shipment. It seeming a constant miracle that they're just allowed to bum around London occupying a berth.
So they pick up their stuff in Holland, and on their way back decide "Man, the British sure have been hassling us to death. What if we sail under a British flag and fake British papers so they leave us alone?" They did this, and the result was that an American privateer seized them instead. And thus in February of 1777, a year after they started this half-considered enterprise, they were in prize court arguing to get their ship back before it was sold off.
I love the audacity of deciding to take a business trip to Great Britain while fighting a war with Great Britain.
www.newsweek.com
