Note 2 — Chapter I · AMERICAN SHIPPING TO THE CLOSE OF THE WAR OF 1812

When peace was declared in 1783, the Government of the United States sold or otherwise disposed of all its vessels, a fact that was quickly taken advantage of by the Barbary corsairs. They at once began to prey upon American merchant shipping in the Mediterranean and even in the Atlantic, and made slaves of the captured crews. The French and English, too, in their wars with each other, by no means respected the neutrality of American commerce, the former being the worse offenders. It was not, however, until 1794 that Congress again authorized the formation of a navy, under the Secretary of War, and in 1798 the office of Secretary of the Navy was created. Among the vessels built in 1794-98 was the frigate Constitution, the famous “Old Ironsides” which still survives. The separate States had meanwhile maintained vessels for the protection of their own coasts, and, of course, there had been no cessation in the building of merchant ships during the period preceding the War of 1812.