Recommended Reading

Six Frigates, by Ian Toll, is one of the finest books I've read. Toll has done masterful research on the founding of the US Navy. He writes in an interesting and engaging style that keeps the reader's attention. I served on a submarine, so anything related to life in the surface navy, much less an 18th century sailing ship, is something to which I can't relate. Toll's descriptive writing helped me relate.

Life in the old Navy was awful for an enlisted sailor. A major reason for the War of 1812 was "Impressment." The Royal Navy treated their sailors like animals. Cruel captains had sailors flogged nearly to death for the slightest infractions. They were lucky to get paid on time, if at all. Desertions were such a problem that the RN resorted to "impressement" - illegally boarding merchantmen and warships of other nations and kidnapping any sailor they thought, rightly or wrongly, was an RN deserter. (The worst thing that ever happened to me was six hours of bilge cleaning , but the less said about that the better).

I don't think you will find a better one volume layman's treatment of the US Navy's early history. Toll discusses the Quasi War with France - The Barbary Wars, The War of 1812, life at sea, and, interestingly enough; dueling. This was the leading cause of death for young officers in those days.

What makes this book very relevant is the extensive treatment of the Barbary Wars. The Islamic states in North Africa practiced piracy - an early form of terrorism. They took hostages, demanded tribute, practiced the Islamic doctrine of Dhimitude, the placing of non-muslims into subservience to their masters, legally and socially inferior. Little more than slaves.

Because the United States did not have a navy, Presidents Washington, Adams, and for a time, Jefferson were forced to pay tribute to the Barbary Pirate States. In today's lingo, the pirates were running a protection racket. They extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars per year from the USA in exchange for their promise not to attack our merchant fleets plying the Mediterrannean Sea. Toll tells of one humulating experience where Captain William Bainbridge was delivering the year's tribute to Algiers. When he arrived, the Dey of Algiers demanded he provide passage to him, his court, and dozens of animals to Ottoman Turkey. The Dey explained: "You pay me tribute. This makes you my slaves." Bainbridge had no alternative except to comply.

Even George Washington, the hero of the revolution, was powerless in the face of the pirates. It was far cheaper to pay tribute than raise tens of millions of unavailable dollars to build a Navy. Washington knew this, and so did the pirates.

The pro-Navy Federalists managed to get funding to build six frigates, which included the USS Constitution, still in commission today. The Anti-Navy Republicans, lead by Thomas Jefferson were finally left with no recourse in the face of increasing Barbary demands, except to build up the Navy and send it "to the shores of Tripoli". The rallying cry became: "Millions for defense, but not a penny for tribute!"

With our ongoing war against modern terrorists, it serves us well to read of our first war against them.

I can not recommend this book highly enough. If I were still teaching high school history, this would be in every student's bookbag.

Read this book.