There were many other successes in this year which included the capture of nearly fifty privateers, for the detail of which there is no space; but one of these actions, the cutting out of a French privateer, the _Sandwich_, in Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo, is notable as being brilliantly carried out by Isaac Hull, the first lieutenant of the _Constitution_, and who, as captain of the same ship twelve years later, was to capture the _Guerrière_. The only other capture of special note was that of the French cruiser _Le Berceau_, “a singularly fine vessel of her class,” by the _Boston_, on October 12, 1800, which was returned to France under the treaty of peace which had already been signed on September 30th. The year involved some sea losses. The _Insurgente_, which had been taken into the service, sailed in July and was never again heard of; the _Pickering_ sailed in August to a like fate. CHAPTER XI The ending of the war with France was but to find, shortly, another on our hands, for which the former, however, was an admirable preparation at a minimum cost; for it had caused provision of the absolute essentials to meet the new emergency: ships, officers, and men. The lesson to be learned was, however, largely to be disregarded by those now to come into political power. Fenimore Cooper began the seventeenth chapter of his classic history of the navy by some words of political wisdom which are applicable to this day, and apparently always will be: “Every form of government,” he says, “has evils peculiar to itself. In a democracy there exists a standing necessity for reducing everything to the average comprehension, the high intelligence of a nation usually conceding as much to its ignorance as it imparts. One of the worst consequences in a practical sense, of this compromise of knowledge, is to be found in the want of establishments that require foresight and liberality to be well managed, for the history of every democracy has shown that it has been deficient in the wisdom which is dependent on those expenditures that foster true economy, by anticipating evils and avoiding the waste of precipitation, want of system, and a want of knowledge.” In every epoch of difficulty--the French spoliations, the British impressments, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, our Civil War, and the Spanish War--this truth has been painfully apparent in the want of foresight and preparation of an adequate army and navy. It has cost us dear.