Review: Six Frigates

Six Frigates tells the story of the United States' first six frigates constructed with federal funds. These ships formed the core of the early U.S. Navy, and would play an important role part in U.S. history through the War of 1812.

After the Revolutionary War, the United States struggled under a mountain of debt. The last thing they needed was an expensive navy. After all, why have pay for a navy when the plan was to stay neutral in any European war?

Anti-federalists felt it was better to focus on paying down the national debt. Federalists, on the other hand, looked at the cost of not investing in a proper navy. Regardless, predations on merchant shipping by the Barbary pirates soon showed that, as Alexander Hamilton put it, "A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral." Algerian attacks in 1794 prompted the construction of the six frigates, but they would take time to build.

By the end of Washington's administration, the first three (United States, Constellation, and Constitution) were still under construction and scheduled for completion, but the second three (President, Congress, and Chesapeake) were put off because of cost overruns. It was easier to simply pay for peace, so in 1796, 13% of the federal budget was allocated for Algerian tribute.

The Quasi-War with Revolutionary France and the XYZ Affair stoked demands for a navy that could defend the nation's honor. The Department of the Navy began in 1798, and had a $1.4 million budget – one-third of the federal budget – but it saved the nation more than $9 million in shipping losses. Construction began on the second set of three frigates.

Napoleon's coup ended the Quasi-War in 1800, which enabled the U.S. to benefit from trading with Europe as a neutral country. Jeffersonian Republicans hated both federal debt and internal taxes, so they had previously opposed naval spending, but growth in trade during the Napoleonic Wars allowed the government to both lower taxes and pay off debt by levying imposts.

At that point, dealing with the Barbary pirates took priority. Paying off the Algerians was bad enough, but when Tripoli tried to get into the piracy business as well, Jefferson sent a squadron to the Mediterranean to protect U.S. shipping. Although the costs of maintaining a squadron on a permanent deployment exceeded even the highest estimates of what it would have taken to bribe the Tripolitans, Jefferson maintained it through several rotations.

Things came to a head when the USS Philadelphia struck an uncharted reef near Tripoli and the crew were captured. Stephen Decatur led the mission that destroyed the captured frigate, and brought the conflict to national attention.

Although the Mediterranean squadron consisted of formidable ships, they were not suitable for stopping small, quick-sailing pirate ships. Commodore Edward Preble acquired smaller gunboats from Syracuse, but these did not advance the conflict, and the U.S. explored possibilities of a negotiated settlement. However, Preble's unsuccessful attacks had weakened the U.S. position, so the U.S. simultaneously pursued a strategy of regime change.

This seemed feasible, but in June 1805 the U.S. agreed to pay $60,000 for each of the Philadelphia captives. Though this may sound less than honorable, Jefferson viewed it as a perfectly acceptable conclusion to the military adventure.

With the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Britain won unrivaled naval supremacy, and used its position to "impress" U.S. merchant marine sailors into the Royal Navy. Between 1803 and 1812 roughly 6,000 sailors were taken from American ships, though the number of British deserters who were accepted onto U.S. ships is unknown.

In an effort to eliminate the issue entirely, Jefferson pushed for the Non-Importation Act in 1806, which outlawed trade with both Great Britain and France. He also favored a "gunboat militia" rather than a blue-ocean navy, but this was a debacle. The $1.5 million spent on 176 boats was essentially wasted, though, and James Madison would abandon the program in 1809.

In 1807, Jefferson went further with the Embargo Act, which forbade all trade with every foreign country. Considering Jefferson's long "pro-liberty" record, this was a surprising contradiction. In 1801, he promised "a wise and frugal Government which, while restraining men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."

With the Embargo Act, he put the federal government in the position of telling citizens what they could and could not do to make a living. Jefferson felt empowered to take actions for which he would have condemned as tyrannical in others.

When Madison took office, he replaced the Embargo Act with the Non-Intercourse Act, but tensions with Great Britain continued to escalate rise April 1812, when Madison issued a 90-day embargo as a prelude to formal war, which began on June 1.

At first, the U.S. thought it would do well on land and badly at sea, but it turned out to be the opposite. While the land war was a debacle, the frigates did we in single-ship actions, and privateers drove up the cost of shipping and threatened Wellington's supply lines in Spain.

Just as in the Revolutionary War, victory for Britain would have required a ruthlessness it was not willing to exert for what was, essentially, a sideshow. Despite the Napoleonic Wars' end in 1814, the rising cost of shipping insurance, along with some reverses on Lake Champlain and Lake Erie, led Britain to pursue peace. The U.S., too, was nearly bankrupt, given that the federal government had no trade to tax. The treaty of Ghent returned to a status quo ante bellum.

The War of 1812 – and the six frigates at the core of the Navy -- didn't accomplish much materially, but had a huge effect on the nation consciousness. Jeffersonian Republicans had turned from their previous, anti-navalist position to become huge supporters. And the national pride the U.S. felt at having secured their independence (a second time) fed a literary tradition of naval exploits that would last though the 19th Century.

For me, the most interesting aspects of the book were the issues that successive administrations faced, and which are still relevant today.

• How does a democracy accomplish what is needed (building a navy) when it is unpopular?
• How can we change our gun culture so our young men aren't killing each other over matters of honor? (Dueling was a problem at that time.)
• Is it right for a democracy to replace unfriendly oppressive regimes with governments that are just as oppressive, but friendly?
• Is it better to have a persistent, ready military or one that is raised only for specific purposes? And how deeply should the national government go in enforcing compliance with unpopular laws?

Such matters, and the relevant quotes, show that the big questions of the time in which the six frigates served are still very much with us even today.