4 OCTOBER 1797 XYZ AFFAIR AND THE QUASI-WAR WITH FRANCE England and France, the naval superpowers of the 18th century, were at each other’s throats again in the 1790s. Spain and the Netherlands were soon drawn in, creating a true “world Read More
28 FEBRUARY 1803 THE GUNBOAT NAVY “We are sacrificing everything to navigation and a Navy,” was candidate Thomas Jefferson’s slogan in the presidential election campaign of 1799-1800. Jefferson was an agrarian Southerner, distrustful of New England merchants and skeptical of our Read More