As for the State navies most of the individual States availed themselves of their sovereign power to establish local navies to defend their own commerce and seize British shipping along their respective shores. The States also issued letters of marque to privateers and dealt with prizes in their admiralty courts. The State navies were local in their activities, but they and the State privateers took many prizes which were counterbalanced by Ameri can losses to the British fleet and privateers.
The true forerunner of the United States navy was the Con tinental navy, authorized by the Continental Congress and oper ated by a Committee of the Congress and then by a Board of Admiralty including members of Congress. These executive or ganizations, holding only delegated authority, were frequently unwarrantably overridden by Congress. Congress adopted a dis ciplinary law, the articles of war, abridged and adapted from the British law, and as many of the principal officers and men of the new navy had served in the British fleet, the entire ship's organization and administration followed those of the British. The Committee of Congress carried on its executive work through two local supervisory boards which ordered courts-martial and procured and bought ships. Under these at different ports were Continental agents to man ships and purchase supplies, ship building agents for construction and prize agents to handle prize cases. The administrative system was very loose and unsatis factory.
The total naval force was at no time over 3,00o men and 20 ships with 55o guns. The British force on the American coasts was nearly four times as large. The general policy of the com mittee was to strike at British commerce, and many prizes were made. Such operations kept open communications with France and helped to bring about the French alliance. Discipline was not well established, esprit-de-corps was lacking and the ships were short-handed, for the most efficient men preferred privateering. On the other hand, the British navy was also short-handed, for the colonials, who had furnished 18,000 men to the navy, in the Seven Years' War, were now hostile.
The principal accomplishment of the navy was the victory of John Paul Jones in the sinking "Bon Homme Richard" over H.M.S. "Serapis." Although a minor incident of war, it showed the late colonials that they were not inferior in stamina to the men of the mother country, and was the foundation of American naval tradition and esprit-de-corps. By no formal Act of Con
gress, but by cessation of appropriations, the Continental navy went out of existence after the peace of 1783, leaving the victory of Jones as a priceless heritage to the future United States navy.
Upon the establishment of the Federal Constitution, no need was at first felt for a navy; but the depredations of the Barbary Powers upon United States shipping caused Congress to authorize a fleet under the War Department for the protection of com merce. The support of commerce is still the governing policy of the Navy Department, as the attack on hostile commerce was the objective of 1776. The six ships of 248 guns laid down under the Act of 1794 were designed and equipped by the best talent in the country and were unequalled in their class. A force of nearly 2,000 officers and men (including marines) was authorized for them.
As these ships approached completion in 1798, Congress created a Navy Department under a Secretary of the Navy as a cabinet officer, exercising delegated authority from the President as con stitutional Commander-in-Chief. The disciplinary law of the navy was modelled after that of the Continental navy. With the ap pointment of several senior officers from the old Continental serv ice, the new one, as was natural, again assumed for American ships the customs and organization of the British fleet. As for the department itself, the organization and control were very rudimentary, and ships and naval stations did much as their respective commanders pleased. During the administration of Jefferson, the organization, however slight, which had been wisely laid down under President Washington fell to pieces.
The successes in the quasi-war with France in 1798 and the squadron operations against Tripoli in 1803-5 completed the f or mation of the navy. Thereafter the United States service had standards of its own of squadron administration, of heroic serv ice, and of tradition and esprit-de-corps to live up to. Just pre vious to the War of 1812 the navy increased its tonnage to 14,260 and its officers and men to 5,50o, besides 1,30o marines, the usual complement of marines on board ship being about one for each gun (although not serving the guns).