It was then resolved to inform General Washington that the Congress had “received certain intelligence of the sailing of two north country built brigs, of no force, from England on the 11th of August last, loaded with arms, powder and other stores for Quebec without convoy, which it being of importance to intercept, ” Washington was requested to “apply to the Council of Massachusetts-Bay for the two armed vessels in their service, ” and send them “at the expense of the continent” after the brigs.
Moreover, he was informed that “the Rhode Island and Connecticut vessels of force will be sent directly to their assistance.” Further still, it was resolved that “the general be directed to employ the said vessels and others, if he judge necessary.” That was a very important set of resolutions in connection with the history of the navy.
...
On Tuesday, December 19th, the Congress still further showed their appreciation of the situation of affairs by resolving “that the Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania be requested to supply the armed vessels, which are nearly ready to sail, with four tons of gunpowder at the continental expense”; and, further, “that the said committee be requested to procure and lend the said vessels as many stands of small arms as they can spare, not exceeding 400.”
...
Then, on Friday, December 22, 1775.
The resolutions of the Congress shall be given in full, because it was upon this legal warrant that the American navy was founded. They were as follows:
“The committee appointed to fit out armed vessels, laid before congress a list of the officers by them appointed agreeable to the powers to them given by Congress, viz:
Esek Hopkins, esq. comander in chief of the fleet—
Dudley Saltonstall, Captain of the Alfred.
Abraham Whipple, Captain of the Columbus.
Resolved, That commissions be granted to the above officers agreeable to their rank in the above appointment.
Resolved, That the committee for fitting out armed vessels, issue warrants to all officers employed in the fleet under the rank of third lieutenants.
Resolved, That the said committee be directed (as a secret committee) to give such instructions to the commander of the fleet, touching the operations of the ships under his command, as shall appear to the said committee most conducive to the defence of the United Colonies, and to the distress of the enemy’s naval forces and vessels bringing supplys to their fleets and armies, and lay such instructions before the Congress when called for.”
...
With this accomplished, he turned toward the master of the ship, Capt. Dudley Saltonstall, and saluted.
And then, at a gesture from the captain, the executive officer of the ship, the immortal John Paul Jones, eagerly grasped the flag halliards, and while officers and seamen uncovered their heads, and the spectators cheered and cannon roared, he spread to the breeze the first American naval ensign.
It was not that they lacked good will or bravery; it was that they were landsmen and untrained in the work before them.
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At daybreak on the morning of Wednesday, October 11, 1776, Benedict Arnold’s little fleet lay at anchor in a line across the north end of the strait between Valcour Island and the mainland. It was a clear, cold morning. A strong northerly wind was sweeping through this narrow valley between the Green Mountains and the ever-beautiful Adirondacks.
It was just the kind of a day that Sir Guy Carleton wanted for his passage over the lake, and, soon after sunrise, his fleet came snoring along under full sail past Cumberland Head.
...
In the meantime Arnold had taken the gondola Congress as his flagship—no doubt because she was furnished with oars, and, as a double-ender, could be easily handled—and with two other gondolas and the schooner Royal Savage, went down wind to meet the enemy.
He reached them at eleven o’clock, and the battle opened with a broadside from the British schooner Carleton.
...
The fleet of the enemy, though manned by picked men—by men known not only for their bravery, but for their skill in handling the guns—was obliged to draw off to get beyond the range of the smaller guns on the American fleet.
\[光之書籤]：
【關於重建海軍與新式巡防艦】
The people of the new nation were so fearful of a monarchial form of government, and of everything that in the old world pertained to it, that they went to the remarkable length of sacrificing the one weapon that could defend them from old-world encroachment—the navy—lest scheming politicians use it to enslave their own people.
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On the Mediterranean coast of Africa were found a number of small Mohammedan states ruled by vassals of the Turk.
For time out of mind these petty rulers had levied a blackmail tribute from every seafaring nation that traded in the Mediterranean Sea, and even sailed in their cruisers out upon the Atlantic to capture ships that were not intending to enter the enclosed waters.
When one recalls how much superior the power of England was to that of all these pirates combined, it seems astounding that even she should have contributed to the blackmail, but the reason for her doing so may be found in the debates of Parliament of that day. Said Lord Sheffield in 1784:
“It is not probable that the American States will have a very free trade in the Mediterranean. It will not be to the interest of any of the great maritime powers to protect them from the Barbary States.
If they know their interests, they will not encourage the Americans to be carriers. That the Barbary States are advantageous to maritime powers is certain.”
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The only nation that had been protected by Portuguese men-of-war was the American. This truce, which was arranged by the British consul-general at Algiers, Mr. Charles Logie, was deliberately planned to turn the pirates against American ships.
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But out of the national humiliation sprang a new navy.
The people who had called every legislator that spoke for the honor of the flag a blatant demagogue; the people who had feared naval tyrants, who had feared taxation, and who had argued that a small navy was worse than none—the peace-at-any-price men had been in a great majority. Now the publication of these facts opened the eyes of enough to make a majority the other way.
Nevertheless, so little regard had the members of Congress for the honor of the nation that “the resolution of the House of Representatives, that a naval force adequate to the protection of the commerce of the United States ought to be provided, passed by a majority of two votes only.”
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At that time the ablest shipbuilder in the United States was Joshua Humphreys, a Quaker, who for thirty years had been laying down keels at Philadelphia.
Going to General Knox, the Secretary of War, he made a notable statement. The number of ships which the United States could support, he said, would always be less than the number in any of the large European navies. It was therefore necessary that such ships as we did have should be fast-sailing enough to either fight or run at will, and when they chose to fight they must be equal, ship for ship, to anything afloat.
He was so pleased over it that on a festival day that followed the accident, he brought the officers before him where his court was assembled in gala attire and, after a proper greeting, the Americans were liberally sprinkled with ottar of roses and other perfumes and were served with coffee and sherbet. Later, however, they were confined in filthy dungeons and otherwise ill treated. But, in spite of dungeons, through the aid of Mr. N. C.
Nissen, the Danish consul at Tripoli, who was unremitting in kind attentions to the Americans, Bainbridge was able to communicate with the American fleet, and on December 5, 1803, he sent a letter, written with lime juice (which becomes legible when heated), in which he proposed that the Philadelphia be destroyed as she lay at anchor by the Americans, who might come into the harbor at night in a schooner, and, after firing her, get away again.
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Charles Stewart, who commanded the brig Siren, asked for the place, but Preble had decided meantime that Decatur should do it and that the captured ketch Mastico should be employed because she was of a rig that could more easily enter the harbor of Tripoli without attracting attention.
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When night drew on, the men were divided into five crews, of which three were to fire as many different parts of the ship, one was to hold her upper deck, and one to remain in and guard the ketch.
Meantime seven more volunteers had been taken from the Siren. When night had fully come the little ketch parted from the brig, and at 9 o’clock was sailing into the harbor by the channel in which the Philadelphia had been lost.
...
The moment for action had come. Springing to their feet, the Americans ran away with the line.
A Tripolitan climbed over the Philadelphia’s bows and cut the line loose, but the momentum already gained was great enough to land the ketch fair in place, where grapnels were thrown out, and with that Decatur cried, “Boarders away!” and sprang for the rail of the Philadelphia.
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So swift and thorough was the work of the American boarders that in ten minutes the last show of resistance was ended.
And then a single rocket drew its line of flame high in air to tell the anxious friends without the bar that the Philadelphia was captured.
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Decatur himself being the last to leave the burning ship. Indeed, the ketch was then drifting clear, and he had to jump to reach her. He had been on board but twenty-five minutes, all told.
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That was the decisive moment of the battle.
While the British had been disabling all but three or four of the guns on the upper deck of the Bonhomme Richard, the men in the tops of the Yankee ship and the murderous fire of the nine-pounders, which Jones himself had worked, had gradually driven all the men off the upper deck of the Serapis.
...
\[光之書籤]：
【關於強制徵兵與1812年戰爭的原因】
To fully appreciate this, the chief cause of the War of 1812 between the United States and England, one must first know well how the crews of the British naval ships of that day were recruited and what manner of life these crews led when in actual service. As to the manner of recruiting, the facts are, no doubt, well known to almost every reader.
Failing to find a resource in the sailors’ boarding-houses, they knocked down any able-bodied man encountered in the street, and he was then carried instantly to the ship. Failing in getting enough men in this fashion—as, for instance, when the ship was in a foreign port or on the high seas—it was the custom, the every-day custom, to send the press-gang, on board any ship where it was supposed that English-speaking sailors might be found, and there take and carry off all such sailors.
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It was in the matter of preserving what the officers called discipline—in keeping these unfortunate slaves in subjugation—that the real brutality of the British naval officers appeared. For the officers, who depended on clubs and manacles to recruit their crews, made no appeal to them save through their fears—used nothing to enforce an order but the cat-o’-ninetails.
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The British ships even lay to off New York, Boston, and other American ports to intercept American merchantmen, from which seamen were taken until they were so short-handed that they were lost.
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The crowning outrage, however, came in the year 1807. Early in that year a squadron of British warships had congregated in the mouth of Chesapeake Bay to blockade some Frenchmen lying at Annapolis.
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At 3 o’clock in the afternoon the Leopard brought to near the Chesapeake and hailed her, saying that the officers and crew wished to send letters by her to friends in Europe. It was a common practice for warships as well as merchantmen to carry letters in that fashion, and the Chesapeake backed her mainyards and waited for the boat from the Leopard.
And all that the American government did in the matter was to dismiss the unfortunate Phillips from the service—dismiss him as a scapegoat for the scurvy sins of those really responsible for the disgrace that had fallen upon the navy.
\[書婭]：
先生，您在書中描繪了許多英雄人物，像是約翰·保羅·瓊斯船長，特別是他在邦霍姆·理查號（Bonhomme Richard）與塞拉皮斯號（Serapis）的戰鬥，被您形容為「純粹憑藉勇氣和毅力贏得的勝利」。您認為約翰·保羅·瓊斯身上，有哪些特質最能代表美國早期海軍的精神？您又是如何評價他在海軍史上的地位？
\[史比爾斯先生]：
啊，約翰·保羅·瓊斯！他是美國早期海軍英雄中的璀璨之星，他的故事簡直就是傳奇。
