While ships-of-the-line were traditionally used in fleet actions with set lines of battle (hence their name), they were also deployed to break blockades and to “show the flag”—that is, remind other nations of the United States’ military reach. Postwar nationalism, a popular navy still basking in the nation’s praise, and the country’s demonstrated vulnerability to blockade prompted appropriations in 1816 for additional 74s. Between 1813 and 1822 fourteen 74s were laid down, including _Independence_ (1813), _Vermont_ (1818), and _Virginia_ (1822) at Charlestown. But in the decade after the war strategists cast a skeptical eye on such large ships. The expensive, provocative, and easily outmaneuvered behemoths, they said, were only a drag on the Navy—inappropriate for a young nation that wanted to stay out of European conflicts. By 1825 only five 74s had gone into service. In 1835 _Independence_ took a turn in its career that was emblematic of naval policy. The 74 had lain idle at Charlestown for 13 years. It was a sluggish sailer, and its great weight and design flaws brought the lower lee guns too close to the water to be useful during combat. So _Independence_ was “razeed,” cut down from three decks to two, and transformed from an unsuccessful ship-of-the-line into a very good 54-gun frigate—the largest and one of the fastest in the Navy. Only a few present at its 1837 recommissioning realized that _Independence_ was also among the last of its kind. Fast approaching was a technology that would displace naval sail; steam would drive the Navy of the future. In 1839 the Navy’s first commissioned steamer—the two-year-old harbor battery _Fulton II_—arrived at Charlestown for repairs. A local paper called it “the oddest looking fish we have ever set our eyes on.” Four towering stacks spouting black smoke rose from the deck, on which were mounted engine cylinders four feet in diameter. The sidewheel covers, likened to “immense fungi,” barely cleared the sides of the dry dock. With the dock and other improvements, the Charlestown yard had by the 1840s taken shape as an important repair and shipbuilding facility. The dry dock (_see pages 40-41_), five years abuilding, had opened in 1833 amid much ceremony. Vice President Martin Van Buren and other dignitaries watched as the already-venerable _Constitution_, stripped and demasted, inaugurated the dock. Much of the tidal flats had been reclaimed behind a granite quay (the yard would triple its original size by 1869), and the rest of the yard’s uneven grounds had been leveled. A high stone wall, built to help stop pilfering and protect the ships, stretched between the Charles and Mystic rivers.