A witness to the British evacuation of Gwynn’s Island counted 96 ships that sailed away, carrying Lord Dunmore and removing English authority from Virginia for good. Witnesses said at least 100 vessels had arrived from Norfolk six weeks earlier with the royal governor, his family, his loyalists and supporting troops and sailors. Reports of the action of July 9-10, 1776, in the Battle of Gwynn’s Island, also known throughout history as the Battle of Cricket Hill, accounted for the loss of an English schooner in Barn Creek. Martha McCartney, author of “Mathews County, Virginia: Lost Landscapes, Untold Stories,” wrote that five of Dunmore’s tenders and one ship were burned after the battle; some were driven ashore by a storm before they could leave. More vessels arrived than departed, as also documented in “The Governor’s Island” by Peter Wrike. What happened to the remainder? An expedition in Milford Haven in April 2018 tried to find out. Archaeologists Brendan Burke of St. Augustine Lig...