It needs to be asked why Congress didn’t give as much attention to having a Navy as much as it did an Army.

It’s possible that it was really just a matter of proximity; there were active battles or troop movements going on all the time, plus we were fighting on several fronts (New York/Canada/the Cherokee tribes). Meanwhile the British Navy was too big to comprehend, plus there wasn’t as much engagement. And perhaps the sheer size of the ocean was daunting.

But the British Navy made it tougher for America to get supplies from other nations, not to mention transport of people from one place to another.

At any rate, as I noted during the episode, it took about six months for work on the America to get started, and when John Paul Jones arrived in Portsmouth, NH to take command in June 1779, he found that she was in no way ready to sail: there was almost no planking or decks, they were short on iron for fasteners, there was no provision for rigging and sails, and because Master Builder Hackett hadn’t worked on such a large ship before, Jones discovered problems with the design that would have made the ship much more difficult to handle. Fortunately, there was another shipwright available who, while also inexperienced with that size a boat, was able to grasp Jones’ concerns quickly and could oversee his changes.

Jones’ old gunner, a Mr. Gardner, then joined him and was able to take charge of mounting all of the guns on the ship, from building the carriages to setting up the fittings for the magazines.

As a result of all this work, the America was ready to launch in the fall of 1782. As it happened, the launch itself was also problematic because of her size in relation to the waterway between the island and the main shore opposite her stern, so the only safe way to launch the ship was to pay out a series of ropes, breaking each one in turn until she was completely waterborne.

It had been nearly six full years since the America was commissioned, and in November of 1782 she was handed over to the Chevalier de Martigne, who was a French naval officer. The ship thus became a gift to King Louis XVI to replace the recently-lost (and similar size/design) Le Magnifique, which ran aground in Boston Harbor and was wrecked.

Sadly, she was only used for about two years and then the record dries up until 1786, when it’s recorded that the ship is in the port of Brest and literally rotting away, and therefore recommended for breaking up.

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I should note here that most of my research for this episode and my show notes came from an article written by Robert W. Neeser for the US Naval Institute (soft paywall), along with materials from AmericanRevolution.org and the National Parks Service’s website.