Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy

by Ian W. Toll

Maclay detested the thought that Americans might “forego our republican innocence, and, like all other nations, set apart a portion of our citizens for the purpose of inflicting misery on our fellow mortals. This practice is felony to posterity.”

Good officers and bad ships would make a better navy than good ships and bad officers.

Yusuf, infuriated, ordered the ship’s admiral beaten and forced to ride backward on a donkey through the streets of the city while wearing a necklace of sheep entrails.

This allowed the declaration of war to come to a vote on June 18. It passed by a margin of 17–13. In the congressional tally, nearly 40 percent of the members, including every Federalist in each house, had voted in the negative. No other declaration of war has ever passed the U.S. Congress by such a narrow margin.