e operations of the Navy Department soon showed that American sailors
were quite able and willing to defend the nation if they were allowed the
opportunity. In December, 1798, the Navy Department worked out a plan of
operations in the enemy's waters. To repress the depredations of the
French privateers in the West Indies, a squadron commanded by Captain John
Barry was sent to cruise to the windward of St. Kitts as far south as
Barbados, and it made numerous captures. A squadron under Captain Thomas
Truxtun cruised in the vicinity of Porto Rico. The flagship was the
frigate _Constellation_, which on February 9, 1799, encountered the French
frigate, _L'Insurgente_, and made it strike its flag after an action
lasting only an hour and seventeen minutes. The French captain fought
well, but he was put at a disadvantage by losing his topmast at the
opening of the engagement, so that Captain Truxtun was able to take a
raking position. The American loss was only one killed and three wounded,
while _L'Insurgente_ had twenty-nine killed and forty-one wounded. On
February 1, 1800, the _Constellation_ fought the heavy French frigate
_Vengeance_ from about eight o'clock in the evening until after midnight,
when the _Vengeance_ lay completely silenced and apparently helpless. But
the rigging and spars of the _Constellation_ had been so badly cut up that
the mainmast fell, and before the wreck could be cleared away the
_Vengeance_ was able to make her escape. During the two years and a half
in which hostilities continued, the little navy of the United States
captured eighty-five armed French vessels, nearly all privateers. Only one
American war vessel was taken by the enemy, and that one had been
originally a captured French vessel. The value of the protection thus
extended to American trade is attested by the increase of exports from
$57,000,000 in 1797 to $78,665,528 in 1799. Revenue from imports increased
from $6,000,000 in 1797 to $9,080,932 in 1800.

The creation of an army, however, was attended by personal disagreements
that eventually wrecked the Administration. Without waiting to hear from
Washington as to his views, Adams nominated him for the command and then
tried to overrule his arrangements. The notion that Washington could be
hustled into a false position was a strange blunder to be made by anyone
who knew him. He set forth his views and made his stipulations with his
customary precision, in letters to Secretary McHenry, w