ctory, and a large
loan made by America to France. "Millions for defence--not one penny for
tribute!" was the cry that went up from the American people when this
infamous proposition was made known.

Washington was summoned from his retirement to take command of the
American army, a Secretary of the Navy was added to the President's
Cabinet--Benjamin Stoddart, of Georgetown, D. C., being the first--and
the new American navy was authorized to retaliate upon France for
outrages committed upon American shipping. A vigorous naval warfare
followed, in which the new American frigates proved more than a match for
the French. The American Constellation, forty-eight guns, after a sharp
engagement, captured the French frigate Insurgent, forty guns. It is
really amusing to note the tone of injured innocence in which Captain
Barreaut, of the Insurgent, who had himself captured the American cruiser
Retaliation but a short time before, reports to his government his
"surprise on finding himself fought by an American frigate after all the
friendship and protection accorded to the United States!" "My
indignation," he adds, "was at its height." It soon cooled off, however,
under the pressure of broadsides from the Constellation, and Captain
Barreaut was glad to surrender. The second frigate action of the war was
between the Constellation and the Vengeance, the former fifty guns, the
latter fifty-two. The Frenchman, badly beaten, succeeded in making his
escape. The battle between the American frigate Boston and the French
corvette Berceau was one of the most gallant of the struggle, the Berceau
fighting until resistance was hopeless. American merchantmen also showed
the French that they could defend themselves, and one of Moses Brown's
ships, the Anne and Hope, sailed into Providence from a voyage to the
West Indies, bearing in her rigging the marks of conflict with a French
privateer, whom the merchantman had bravely repulsed. During the two
years and a half of naval war with France eighty-four armed French
vessels, nearly all of them privateers, were captured, and no vessel of
our navy was taken by the enemy, except the Retaliation. This was not the
kind of tribute the French government had expected, and a treaty of
peace, which entirely sustained the position of the United States, was
ratified in February, 1801.

* * *

The illustrious Washington, who fortunately had not been required to take