[Illustration: An Early American Floating Battery.] THE HISTORY OF OUR NAVY CHAPTER I ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN NAVY THE CURIOUS CHAIN OF EVENTS THAT LED TO THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL SEA POWER--THE _GASPÉ_ CAPTURED BY MEN ARMED WITH PAVING-STONES--TEA DESTROYED IN BOSTON--THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON AND THE ATTACK OF THE MACHIAS HAYMAKERS ON THE _MARGARETTA_--BRITISH VENGEANCE ON DEFENCELESS PORTLAND AND ITS EFFECT ON THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS--THE “COLONIAL NAVY” DISTINGUISHED FROM THE TEMPORARY CRUISERS--THE FIRST OFFICERS AND THE FIRST SHIPS OF THE AMERICAN NAVY--JOHN PAUL JONES AND THE FIRST NAVAL ENSIGN--THE SIGNIFICANT “DON’T TREAD ON ME”--PUTTING THE FIRST AMERICAN NAVAL SHIPS IN COMMISSION. Of all the dates in American history not yet so commemorated, there is none so well worthy of recognition as a national holiday as the 22d of December; for it was on December 22, 1775, that the American navy came into existence. And there is no part of the story of the American nation of more thrilling interest than that including the events which compelled the establishment of this branch of the public service, nor is there any part of the nation’s story as a whole that so stirs the patriotic pride of the American people as that which tells of the deeds of the heroes whose names have been inscribed upon the American naval registers. It is a grateful task to recount once more how it was that an American navy was demanded for the preservation of American liberties, and what has been accomplished by that navy since the day when Commodore Esek Hopkins received his commission, and then stood by on the deck of his flagship while John Paul Jones flung to the breeze the broad folds of the flag that bore as a symbol the picture of a rattlesnake coiled to strike, with the significant and appropriate motto, “DON’T TREAD ON ME.” [Illustration: Commodore Esek Hopkins. _From a French engraving of the portrait by Wilkinson._] The salt-water Lexington, that is to say, the first fight afloat of the Revolutionary war, occurred on the night of June 17, 1772, in the waters of Rhode Island, and the fact that it was in Rhode Island will be recalled later on. The war of Great Britain against France for dominion in America, “though crowned with success, had engendered a progeny of discontents in her colonies.” “Her policy toward them from the beginning had been purely commercial.” And that is to say that the English, even in their dealings with their own colonies, were animated solely by greed. The stamp act; the levying of taxes on intercolonial commerce; the imposition of duties on glass, pasteboard, painters’ colors, and tea, “to be collected on the arrival of the articles in the colonies”; worse yet, the “empowering of naval officers to enforce the acts of trade and navigation,” grew out of “the spirit of trade which always aims to get the best of the bargain,” regardless of right.