page_title: Nicholas Cooke
section_title: Newport captured and occupied
hierarchical_section_title: Nicholas Cooke / Governorship / Newport captured and occupied
caption_attribution_description: English: Sir Henry Clinton, British Commander in Chief during the American Revolution
context_page_description: Nicholas Cooke was a governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations during the American Revolutionary War, and after Rhode Island became a state, he continued in this position to become the first Governor of the State of Rhode Island. Born in the maritime town of Providence, he early in life followed the sea, eventually becoming a Captain of ships. This occupation led him to become a slave merchant, becoming highly successful in this endeavor, and he ran a distillery and rope-making business as well. He is depicted as one of the affluent merchants in John Greenwood's satirical painting from the 1750s entitled Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam.
  Cooke first became politically active in 1752 when elected as an assistant from Providence, which position he held for a total of four years. He devoted most of his energy to mercantile pursuits and local government in the 1760s, and in 1766 represented his Congregational Church in becoming a trustee of the new college in Rhode Island, later named Brown University. In 1768 he was elected as Deputy Governor of the Rhode Island colony under Josias Lyndon as governor.
context_section_description: The August session of the Assembly was the last to be held in Newport for the next four years, with the pending occupation of Aquidneck Island (Rhode Island) by British Forces. In December 1776 seven ships and four frigates under the command of Sir Peter Parker appeared off Block Island and went up the sound to join a fleet of 70 transports with about 6000 troops, destined for Newport. Summons went out from the colony to as far as New Hampshire for aid. Women and children in seaboard towns had already been advised to move, with their furniture, to the interior, and livestock was driven off from the larger islands. Rhode Island had about 700 troops on the island when the enemy landed at Middletown. After a night of pillaging, the British troops marched into Newport on December 8 under the command of General Clinton. The Rhode Island troops left the island, moving to Tiverton and Bristol. Assistance poured in from neighboring states, and the Americans assumed defensible positions on each side of the bay.
  Providence had been given up to military occupation as well, and the college exercises were suspended, with the building being occupied as a barracks, and then later as a military hospital. General Benedict Arnold was sent by Washington to Providence in January 1777 to assist with the defense of Rhode Island, and the Marquis de Lafayette entered service at the same time, greatly facilitating the American cause.
  Cooke, desperate for additional troops, ordered a new brigade be raised in Rhode Island. Washington disapproved of the move, fearing it would interfere with the enlistment of the two battalions already assigned to the state. The general wrote two earnest letters on the subject, but when Cooke presented the situation to him, Washington ultimately approved of the plan, and thanked the State for its exertions.
caption: General Henry Clinton led the British forces in capturing Newport
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