Existing comment:
The American Challenge:
Following the War of Independence, Britain withdrew the protections that the Royal Navy once provided American shippers. Merchant vessels from the United States were increasingly harassed by North African corsairs and, when England and France again went to war, by the navies and privateers of the two European powers. Calls for the construction of a fleet were rejected as impractical and far too costly. Yet something had to be done to protect American merchantmen abroad.
The solution was simple, but brilliant. After heated debate, Congress and President George Washington ordered the construction of just half a dozen frigates, but frigates unlike any the world had ever seen. These were to be super ships, far larger, stronger, and more heavily armed than any other frigates on the high seas.
The wisdom embodied in the Navy Act of 1794 was later confirmed by the success of the first six frigates of the United States Navy (three of them "44s") in the Quasi-War with France (1798-1800), the Barbary Wars against Tunis and Tripoli (1801-05), and especially the War of 1812, when Constitution and United States won a series of stirring ship-to-ship duels against their British counterparts. |