Marc Liebman's Blog, page 34

The Treaties of Paris That Ended the American Revolution

 

Yes, treaties because there were four and collectively, they are known as the Peace of Paris. The popular perception is that the fighting in North America ended when Cornwallis surrendered after being trapped at Yorktown, VA. But it did not. In fact, it continued until well into 1783.

At the time of Cornwallis’ defeat in October 1781, the British occupied Charleston, New York and Savannah. But the twin losses – Yorktown and in a naval battle off the Virginia Capes in which a French fleet defeated an English one – convinced the British Government that continuing to fight the American Colonists was a losing proposition. Already, the war was unpopular in England and opposition was growing.

In April 1782, roughly seven months after Cornwallis’ army laid down its arms, negotiations between the major players – the Americans, the British, the Spanish, the Dutch and the French – began. Only the Spanish wanted to continue fighting because King Charles III saw an opportunity to recapture Gibraltar which had been in British hands since 1704.

The desires of the French and American delegations quickly diverged. John Jay discovered he could get a better deal if he negotiated directly with Lord Shelbourne who was representing Great Britain. This move cut out the Spanish, French and Dutch from the deal with the United States.

However, Jay and the rest of his team – Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Henry Laurens – knew that the other treaties had to be coordinated. Hence the four treaties.

In the treaty with Spain, the British ceded their rights to Florida from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River and the Minorca Islands in the Mediterranean. The French and British swapped bits of land around the world with the French gaining the Caribbean island of Tobago and Senegal in Africa along with, what they wanted most – continuation of fishing rights off Newfoundland. To this day, two islands – St. Pierre and Miquelon – less than 10 miles from the southern tip of Newfoundland are French possessions.

The Dutch had already lost most of their overseas territories so what they wanted was their colonies at Trincomalee on Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Negapatnam in India returned.

The U.S. was granted the land from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River south of the Great Lakes, except for Florida along with fishing rights in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and the entrance to the St. Lawrence River. Lord Shelbourne saw the United States as a valuable trading partner and source of raw materials.

However, the actual geography of North America didn’t match the lines drawn on a map or the vague language of the treaty. The northern boundary as outlined gave the U.S. what would be today large chunks of Ontario and Manitoba. The northern boundary of Florida was not settled until the U.S. and Spain signed the Treaty of Friendship, Limits, and Navigation Between Spain and the United States a.k.a. Treaty of Madrid in 1795.

The British agreed to give up all their claims and withdraw their army from what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota, but they did not. They continued to incite the Indians until 1794 when both countries signed the Jay Treaty in 1794.

The four treaties gave the Americans what they wanted, total independence from Britain. It also set in motion events in the U.S. that would enable it to grow as well as upheaval in Europe that would shake the continents very foundations.

America’s First Indian War

We all might think that the French and Indian War (1754 – 1763) was the first American war against what we now call Native Americans. It wasn’t because at the time, we – the descendants of our Founding Fathers – were British citizens. The colonists who fought in French and Indian War were soldiers in just one theater of a global war that was contested in the Caribbean, Continental Europe and India as well as North America.

Depending on where one lives, the Seven Years War has a different name. In the United States and English speaking Canada, we refer to it as the French and Indian War. In Quebec, it is known as La guerre de la Conquête or War of the Conquest. In Sweden, historians call it the Pomeranian War because it only fought the Prussians in and the Duchy of Pomerania which was located on the south side of the Baltic in now what is Germany and Poland.

The Germans call it the Third Silesian War. The First took place between 1740 – 1741 and Second Silesian War between 1743 – 1744. And, if one lives in India, the Seven Years War is known as the Third Carnatic War. The First Carnactic War took place between 1746 and 1748 and the second was fought 1749 – 1754.

In the Seven Years War, the French and the British were fighting over control of colonial possessions in the Caribbean, North America and India as well as who would be the dominant land power in Europe. The victor would be the superpower of the era.

On this side of the Atlantic, colonists joined the British Army and the local militia because, as English citizens they had a historical dislike of the French that started centuries before in 1066 when William the Conqueror, Frenchman defeated the English King Harold at the Battle of Hastings. Since that battle, the English and the French fought 13 different wars before the Seven Years War!

The Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years War resulted in a tectonic shift of what country owned what piece of land in North America. French Canada went to the British. Spain ceded what is now Florida to the British and France gave what we now call the Louisiana territory to Spain.

Fast forward to the end of the American Revolution. The United States is born and its citizens want to move westward into the territory given to them by the Treaty of Paris signed in 1783 that gave the new nation all of the British territory east of the Mississippi, north of the ill-defined boundary of Florida (more about this in a later blog) and south of what we know as Canada.

One problem with the treaty was that the British didn’t tell their Native American allies who resisted. To protect the American citizens Americans pushing west past the Appalachian Mountains, the Congress created the Legion of the United States.

From 1792 until was disbanded in 1796, its primary mission was to protect American citizens on the frontier. They was our first war against the Native Americans, or our first Indian War!

Alumni of the Legion of the United States

 

While rarely mentioned in history books, the legacy of the Legion of the United States lives on today. It was born in 1792 because President Washington and the Congress realized they needed a military force to protect settlers moving into what we now know as Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan.

In addition to its success on the battlefield, the Legion spawned several Americans who influenced U.S. history. Two of the most famous – Meriwether Lewis and William Clark – were officers in the Legion and went on to lead the expedition that explored Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase. They followed the Missouri River to its source and then, led by Indians, take the Columbia River to the Oregon Coast.

William Henry Harrison was General Mark Anthony Wayne’s aide de camp throughout his command of the Legion. Harrison eventually became a major general and led the force that defeated Tecumseh at the Battle of Tippecanoe. His running mate for office was John Tyler and they ran under the slogan of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.” When Harrison became the ninth president of the United States at age 68, he was the oldest man to be elected to president until Reagan who was 69 when he won the presidency for the first time.

Harrison died within a month of his inauguration and even though the Constitution clearly states that the VP takes over in the event of death or incapacitation of the president, it is ambiguous as to whether or not the VP should assume the title of president. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ruled that he should and the precedent set was followed seven times in U.S. history and made part of the Constitution via Section 1 of the 25th Amendment.

In 1787, after he left the Legion, Captain William Eaton was assigned as the Consul General to Tunis with the mission of building relationships with leaders along what was called the Barbary Coast. Later, in 1803 and appointed as a Naval officer, he led an overland expedition of two midshipmen, eight Marines and mercenaries 600 miles from Alexandria, Egypt and captured the Libyan city of Derna. It was the first victory on land by of American forces outside North America.

In 1805, Zebulon Pike, another officer in the Legion, led an expedition to find the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Then, in the summer of 1806, he was sent to find the headwaters of the Red and Arkansas Rivers. In the early winter, the group began to climb a mountain that was later named Pike’s Peak.

Pike’s expedition moved south out of the mountains where built a fort to wait out the winter. He didn’t know he had crossed into Spanish territory, was captured and taken to Santa Fe in what is now New Mexico. A year later, Pike and most of his men were escorted to the Spanish/U.S. border and released near where they were taken.

The Legion’s legacy lives on in the accomplishments of its members who were, like these men, more than just soldiers. They were pioneers who helped build this great and wonderful country.

 

The Legion of the United States

Most American history books skip over the fact that between the Continental Army and the formation of the U.S. Army, there was an interim organization, or force, if you will. It was called The Legion of the United States and it saw combat.

When Washington said good-bye to his officers on December 4th, 1783, the Continental Army was no more. Many of its men and its arms went to the local state militias. As a country, we no longer had an army.

Yet, we still had enemies, foreign and domestic. U.S. citizens were pushing west past the Appalachian Mountains following the promise of land and opportunities. Unfortunately, the local residents, native American Indian tribes, did not appreciate the settlers.

Under the Articles of Confederation which were in effect until New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify our new Constitution on June 21st, 1788, the government could not raise money to pay an Army. Even after the Constitution came into effed, the central government was strapped for cash because the Congress was reluctant to tax its citizens while it recovered from a major recession brought on by the Revolutionary War.

Yet, something had to be done because American citizens were being killed on the western frontier. Washington acted and in 1789, he created the Department of War and appointed Henry Knox as the country’s first Secretary of War. The First American Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Josiah Harmar consisted of 300 “regulars” and was sent to “pacify the Indian tribes and secure the Northwest frontier.” It was defeated by Miami Indians in Kekionga which is now Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Washington ordered a follow-up force made up of the Second American Regiment, this time of 2,400 “regulars” and militia to the Northwest frontier under General Arthur St. Clair, another Revolutionary War veteran. It too was decimated when the Indians of the Western Confederacy made up of members of a who’s who of American Indian tribes of the North Central U.S. Huron, Chippewa, Shawnee, Illinois, Wabash joined the Miami to take on General St. Clair who lost half of his force near Fort Recovery, Ohio in one of the worst defeats in U.S. Army history on November 4th, 1792.

Congress finally realized that the United States needed a professional army and funded a brigade sized force of cavalry, infantry and artillery under the command of one officer. The man Washington (and Knox) picked was Mark “Mad Anthony” Wayne. The legislature still hadn’t learned their lesson and authorized funding only until “peace with the Indian tribes had been secured.”

The three regiments defeated the Western Confederacy and their British allies near what is now Maumee, Ohio at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Later, the Legion defended Fort Jefferson and Fort Recovery, also in Ohio. The war ended with the Treaty of Greenville in 1785 in which the Indians and the British ceded much of what is now Ohio, Indian, Illinois and Michigan to the young country.

In 1796, after the treaty was signed, Congress reduced the Legion from 5,000+ men to 3,000 and renamed it the U.S. Army. Today, the First, Second, and Third Infantry Regiments trace their lineage back to the Legion of the United States.

Back When America Was Defenseless for 9 Years

Right after the American Revolution ended and the Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3rd, 1783, the United States of America began to disarm. On December 3rd, 1783 Washington said good-bye to his officers and the Continental Army was no more.

One by one, the ships of the Continental Navy were sold off or scrapped. Ships that were turned into privateers went back to being merchant and fishing vessels. When the 32-gun frigate Alliance was sold in August 1785, the Continental Navy was no more.

There were two principle reasons for this unilateral disarmament. One was money. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress couldn’t raise taxes and the country was deeply in debt to the French and to its own citizens who loaned money to the government money to fund the revolution.

The second was the Founding Fathers deeply distrusted standing armies and navies and thought a strong navy was too imperialistic. They were afraid having a large army and navy would lead to binding alliances and entanglement in foreign wars.

However, not having an army or a navy created problems for the new republic which, according to many European leaders and pundits of the time, wouldn’t last 10 years. Between 1783 and 1792, the realities of governing and international commerce struck. The central couldn’t protect its citizens who were pushing west from attacks by unhappy Indians egged on by Brits in Canada.

Overseas, U.S. merchant ships were being seized by the Barbary Pirates based along the north coast of Africa. Ransoms were paid to free the ships and the Congress negotiated treaties with some of the pirate leaders to pay a fee for unmolested passage.

Our Founding Fathers decided there had to be a better way. The first step was hold a Constitutional Convention and create a more effective government. In Article I, Section 8 sentence 1, what would become the Federal government was given the power to “lay and collect taxes, impose duties and provide for the common defense.” Sentences 10 through 16 of Article I that establishes the legislative branch of government gave it the power to raise, regulate an army and a navy.

Even though the Constitution was ratified in 1788 and authorized an army and navy, we still didn’t have one. Finally, in 1792, the Congress authorized the creation of the Legion of the United States which became a three regimental sized force of approximately 5,000 men. It was disbanded in 1796 but its units became the foundation of what we now call the U.S. Army.

In the spring of 1794, the Congress became tired of authorizing payments to pirates in the Mediterranean. On March 27th, 1794, it passed the Navy Act that authorized the construction of six large frigates and the men to man them. By doing so, it created the modern U.S. Navy. It would take several years to build the ships and recruit and train the men, but by 1796, the U.S. Navy was in action as was the U.S. Army and the United States of America was defenseless no more.

A Toast for Every Day of the Week

After it was founded on October 13th, 1775, both officers and men on Continental Navy ships were served alcohol. A weak 2% beer was the primary beverage for everyone on board the ship. However, in the wardroom, in addition to beer furnished by the government, the officers were could drink whiskey, rum and wine that as a group, they purchased with their own money. We also followed the Royal Navy practice of serving the enlisted men a daily ration of rum or grog (rum diluted with water and lime or another citrus fruit juice) provided by the government.

This tradition continued in the U.S. Navy until General Order Number 99 became the order of the day on July 1st, 1914. With the stroke of the pen, U.S. Navy ships became, at least theoretically dry. Many us who have made long cruises on U.S. Navy ships have had an adult beverage or two while at sea, but that is another story for another blog – see http://marcliebman.com/author/liquid-guest-speakers-2/ .

The Continental Navy (and the U.S. Navy) adopted many traditions and customs from the Royal Navy, many of which we still follow today. The Continental Navy was formed on October 13, 1775 and dissolved in 1785 because under the Articles of Confederation the Continental Congress could not levy taxes. It was not until the Naval Act of 1794 (passed on March 27th, 1794) that the Federal government under the new constitution could tax its citizens to pay for an army and navy.

During the American Revolution, the officers ate dinner, or supper as it was known in the Royal Navy, together. It was a “formal” event in that all those not on watch were required to attend. And, in the Royal Navy, as part of the dinner, there were mandatory toasts, i.e. to the King, the Royal Navy and to the First Lord of the Admiralty. Continental Navy wardrooms toasted “our cause,” or “freedom.”

Depending on the day of the week, in the Royal Navy, there was a special toast some of which the Continental Navy also adopted. Several were sobering, others reflect the dark, gallows humor common on warships and others the realities of life as a sailor.

On Monday’s, the officers would drink to “our ships at sea.”

Tuesdays, they toasted “our men.”

Wednesdays, the officers drank to “ourselves, because nobody else is likely to bother.”

Because in the 18th Century, England fought nine different wars and the Royal Navy was at war more than it was at peace, the members of wardroom raised their glasses “to this bloody war, may it bring us all faster promotions.”

Friday’s toast was to something that part of their life as well as a necessity when “a willing foe and always having sea room.” Because the Royal Navy was the pre-eminent navy of the 18th Century, many of its opponents were not very well equipped or capable. And, most Royal Navy captains believed if they had sea room, they could win any engagement.

On Saturdays glasses were raised to “Wives and sweethearts, may they never meet.” This one is as true today as it was in the 18th Century.

Sundays was the day to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for king and country in the toast “Absent friends who we lost.” Anyone who has served in the military for any length of time has experienced the death of a friend either due to disease, an operational accident or in combat. A variation of this toast is still made today at every U.S. and Royal Navy function.

Beer and Freedom

Most people would never associate the two words, but they are closely related. Ben Franklin wrote “in wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom and in water, only bacteria.”

In the 1700s, water came from wells, lakes, streams and rivers as it does today. However, it wasn’t purified so whatever organisms were in the water went into your body. At the time, drinking water was considered unhealthy.

If you were on a merchant or naval ship, water was put in wooden casks and very quickly it went, to use the word of the day, foul. Still, it was used to make oatmeal for breakfast and cook dried vegetables in which the process – boiling – killed most if not all of the bacteria. At the time, science and medicine hadn’t discovered that boiling water purified it or how to make water fit and safe to drink.

Beer, its cousin ale and ciders made from mashed and fermented fruits were the beverages of choice in the 1700s. At the time, some farmers distilled their own whiskeys from leftover crops but for the most part, they were not widely distributed. Rum was also available in taverns.

By, the American Revolution, the brewing industry was well established. As early as 1637, the Massachusetts Colony legislature met to fix the price of beer. It established that no one could charge more than a penny a quart. Right after George Washington took command of the Continental Army, he ordered a quart of beer be included in every soldier’s daily ration.

Many Founding Fathers – Patrick Henry, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Washington to name a few- were brewmasters. Throughout the Thirteen Colonies, beer was distilled in homes because there were no liquor or grocery stores down the street where one could go buy a six pack.

The beer situation for Washington’s army became critical in 1778 and Colonists met at Fraunces Tavern In New York to plot a second Tea Party to capture the British beer supply. The raid was never carried out because the large stash of beer was kept on heavily guarded ships anchored in the Hudson River.

At the time of the American Revolution, the term “small beer” referred to the brew that people made in their homes for their own consumption. The ingredients were the same as we know today except that many added molasses and sassafras to the mix. The alcohol content was about two percent. “Strong beer” was commercially made and much stronger with an alcohol content of about six percent.

Wines were imported from France and Spain and the cost was often out of reach of the average citizen. Rum came from the sugar plantations in the Caribbean.

Beer, ale and rum were readily available and served to young and old alike at home and in taverns. Like it is today, beer, wine, rum and spirits were taxed by state and ultimately the Federal government and the only difference was there was no minimum drinking age.

The Royal Navy’s Wood Crisis

Few know about the resource crisis the Admiralty faced when the Seven Years War broke out in 1755. For the record, the North American theater of this global conflict is known as the French and Indian War. England already had the most powerful Navy in the world, but the Admiralty was very concerned that it did not have the material to support the Royal Navy and its merchant ship fleet.

England had the people, money, shipyards, foundries for build cannon and metal fittings, but it naval stores – rope, pitch, tar, turpentine, varnish and wood had to be imported if it were to meet its needs.

During the Age of Sail, oak was the steel of the day. Ship builders needed long, tall trees from which to make planking and knees (where a large branch bent away from the trunk), from which to make the supports for decks. The Royal shipyards also needed trees with large diameter trunks from which to make masts which were divided into three categories by diameter of the log in inches – 6 – 12, 13 – 24 and 24 – 36.

As early as 1696 during the Nine Years War (1690 – 1699), the English government assigned its Board of Trade the task of finding a steady and reliable supply of naval stores and it turned to Britain’s Thirteen North American colonies. For the most of the first half of the 18th Century, England was at war. It fought the War of Spanish Succession (1701 – 1713); and the British Spanish War (1727 – 1729) and Seven Years War (1755 – 1763) before the American Revolution.

When The Seven Years War began, New England had replaced England’s traditional suppliers in Riga, (now the capital of Latvia) and Norway for 24 – 36 inch masts. These became known as “New England Masts” and their quality was superior to what the British bought from European suppliers.

Admiralty records from 1756 show the Thirteen Colonies were also becoming the principal suppliers of pitch, tar and turpentine along with wood for planking and supports even though it was more expensive than what they could buy in Europe. In the eyes of the Admiralty, a British colony was a more reliable source and worth the extra material and shipping cost. During the Seven Years War, escorting merchant ships carrying naval stores from the colonies became a priority mission for the Royal Navy.

Then 1775 happened. British merchants supplying the Royal Navy quickly learned that colonial merchants raised the prices significantly and/or weren’t interested in selling to the hated English. It tossed the Royal Navy into a crisis because it lost one of its primary sources of supply and many of the ships carrying what they could purchase in the Colonies were captured by rebel privateers or Continental Navy ships.

In the end, the Royal Navy managed to muddle through but as soon as the war ended, naval stores became a primary export of the nascent United States of America and helped rebuild its shattered economy.

Weatherguessing in the Late 18th Century

In most parts of the world, the spring and fall are the stormiest times of the year. Today, local weather forecasters use computer models that take weather data from all over the world, load it into a proprietary predictive model and voilà, out pops a forecast!

But if you were the captain of a merchant ship, privateer, or Royal or Continental Navy ship during the American Revolution, weather forecasting as we know it today didn’t exist. All the captain had was a thermometer, his eyes and the weather knowledge gained during his career.

The weather recording tools developed slowly over the centuries. Although Torricelli, Descartes, Pascal and Galileo all came to understand that the air has weight that changes with temperature and moisture content, it wasn’t until 1844 that the first practical aneroid barometer was invented by the French scientist Lucien Vidi. In 1480, Leonardo da Vinci invented the first hygrometer, the device to measure humidity in the air but it wasn’t until 1783 when Swiss physicist Horace Saussure invented the first practical hygrometer hair based on his observation that human and animal hair expands and contracts based on the amount of moisture in the air.

Measuring wind speed and direction through an anemometer began in the 1400s with Alberti’s first practical model, but anemometers were not widely deployed until the four rotating cup version invented by Thomas Robinson in 1846.

Modern weather forecasting was facilitated by an unlikely device called the telegraph that enabled weather data gathering stations to rapidly communicate with a central location. Two Royal Naval officers, Francis Beaufort (who created the Beaufort Scale for measuring wind) and Robert FitzRoy are credited with creating the modern science of weather forecasting. They even coined the word “forecast.” At the time, the British press ridiculed the idea!

Back to the quarterdeck of a ship setting sail from the Thirteen Colonies during the American Revolution. In the winter, to stay out of the cold, stormy North Atlantic, the captain heading to Europe, took his ship south past Bermuda where he tacked back and forth against the prevailing Trade Winds until the ship reached the Canary Islands. There, he set a course north to his ship’s destination. Travel time was two to three months.

In the late spring, summer and early fall, ships could follow what Ben Franklin first called the Gulph Stream and make it to Europe, if one’s ship averaged six knots over the bottom in about six weeks.

Sayings such as “red sky at night, sailors delight” or “red sky in the morning, sailor take warning” were part of the captain’s weather forecasting tools. Strangely enough, they are still accurate today but in the day when the ship’s daily weather forecast was governed by how far a lookout could see, it was all the captain had.

Ships in 1778 were tiny – generally about 150 – 175 feet long, 35 – 40 feet wide and displacing about 700 tons. Captains and their crews ventured forth into the oceans unable to forecast the weather and only able to determine their latitude and on charts we would call crude. They did it because that’s all they had.

Three Inventions that Changed Seafaring Forever

In the February issue of the U.S. Naval Institute’s magazine, Proceedings, the question was asked “What foreign invention or innovation do you think most affected the U.S. naval service?” It is a very interesting question and three inventions come to mind.

The first is the reciprocating steam engine invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712. It turned steam into up and down motion that could be connected to a shaft. His device was improved upon by another Brit, James Watt and his version enabled factories to be located away from rivers and helped facilitate  the Industrial Revolution.

Number two is the marine chronometer. Until John Harrison, another Brit, used bi-metallic strips to control a spiral spring and make the first, accurate marine chronometer in 1761, ship navigators couldn’t precisely determine longitude because there was no means to accurately measuring time over long periods. Harrison’s H4 chronometer was the first practical in terms of both size and utility. You can read more about Harrison and the marine chronometer in an earlier blog http://marcliebman.com/author/time-the-key-to-…mining-longitude/ .

The third is the screw propeller which has a mixed heritage, i.e. British, Czech, and Swedish and American. The concept dates back to Archimedes and what is known as the Archimedes screw. It was originally designed to move water uphill in a trough for irrigation. The first person to adapt the Archimedes screw in a vessel was David Bushnell. He used a crank to turn a small version in the first submarine called the Turtle during the American Revolution.

An American inventor by the name of John Stevens tried four bladed propellers and in 1802 but decided that paddlewheels were a safer alternative. It was not until 1827 that a Czech forester, Josef Ressel living in Austro-Hungarian Empire attached an Archimedes screw to a long shaft turned by a steam engine. It worked, but was banned by the Austro-Hungarian as dangerous.

Meanwhile, in England, Swedish inventor John Ericsson and a Brit, Francis Stevens were hard at work trying to perfect a practical screw propeller. Both patented their designs six weeks apart in 1835, with Stevens being first. The Royal Navy was not impressed with either Steven’s boat demonstrated on a canal or Ericsson’s demonstration on the River Thames.

However, U.S. Navy Captain Robert Stockton was impressed by Ericsson Francis B. Ogden. Stockton ordered a larger ship named the Robert Stockton. It sailed to the U.S. using both its steam engine/screw propeller and sails. After arriving in the U.S. and Stockton was demonstrated to the U.S. Navy, Ericsson was commissioned to design and build the U.S. Navy’s first screw propelled warship. Named the U.S.S. Princeton, and commissioned in 1843, it carried two 12-inch smooth bore cannons and 12 42-pounder carronades. Not surprising, its first commanding officer was Captain Robert Stockton.

Combined, these three inventions made trips across large lakes and oceans possible without having to depend on currents and wind. The steam engine provided power and the propeller turned it into thrust while the chronometer enabled precise navigation possible. Combined, they changed seafaring forever.