On October 27, 1787, the first of the Federalist essays was published in New York. On December 7, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution, followed in quick succession by Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. In the ensuing six months, Maryland, South Carolina, and New Hampshire ratified. That summer, the two largest states in the country, Virginia (June 25, 1788) and New York (July 26, 1788), voted to ratify by narrow margins: 89-79 in Virginia and 30-27 in New York. The new government took effect on March 4, 1789.

The British were happy to trade blows at point-blank range, to fight "ball for ball," because their gunnery was superior to that of their enemies. The potency of British gunnery owed nothing to the weapons themselves, for the French and Spanish ships were armed in much the same way. Nor was it the aim of the British gun crews, for even when their aim was superior it was rarely decisive. The single most important factor was the rate of fire. A British warship would fire three broadsides to every two fired by an enemy ship - if that enemy ship was particularly well manned, well led, and well practiced. More often, the British would get off two or three broadsides to the enemy's one, and the ratio would continuously improve in their favor as the battle wore on toward its inevitable conclusion.

These hopes were quickly dashed. American trade had always depended, above all, on access to England's West Indian colonies. The hungry Caribbean Islands, with their huge slave populations and their narrow economies devoted entirely to cultivation of sugar and coffee, had once consumed more than two thirds of American food exports. In 1783, however, a British Order in Council debarred any American ship from entering any British West Indian seaport. The measure was final, sweeping, and devastating. Cut off from their traditional markets, prices of flour, beef, port, salted fish, naval store, bar iron, and other mainstays of the American export economy fell 30, 40, or 50 percent. By 1788, ship arrivals from the British West Indies had fallen to half of what they had been before the Revolution. With Europe at peace, the vast opportunities offered by the wartime carrying trade would not be available until several years later.

You are earnestly desired, as speedily as possible, to give a universal alarm to all Citizens of the United States concerned in navigation, particularly to the southern parts of Europe, of the danger of being captured by the Algerians... A truce for twelve Months is concluded between Portugal and Algiers. In consequence of which a fleet of Algerine Cruizers passed through the Straits into the Atlantic on Saturday night last.

Carpenters prized its uniformity of substance, its straightness of fiber, its smooth consistency, its fine grains. Properly seasoned, it was said to have a life span five time that of white oak. But the shipyard workers also dreaded the extra work it took to cut, shape, and manipulate live oak, and they rolled their eyes whenever a new load of timber sections was brought into the yard. A nail driven into it was nearly impossible to extract. Axes bounced off it and saws moved back and forth across it again and again, making little or no discernible progress. Nothing took the sharpness out of a ship carpenter's tools as quickly as well-seasoned live oak.

As Constellation closed the gap with the fleeing L'Insurgente, the great weight of her 24-pounder guns caused her to heel excessively to leeward. To keep his ship upright, Truxtun was forced to run out his windward guns and keep the leeward guns housed behind closed ports. Here was a dramatic proof of the dangers of overarming. The Constellation held the weather gauge - could engage the enemy from windward - and tactical doctrine dictated that Truxtun must conserve this valuable advantage. Yet, doing so would require him to bring his leeward battery into action. With the Constellation a cable length astern of the French vessel, Truxton decided to surrender the weather gauge by crossing the Insurgente's wake and running under her lee.