Congress commenced building, under the supervision of Commodore Jones, a very splendid seventy-four-gun ship, to be called the America. By unanimous vote of Congress, Captain Jones was intrusted with the command. For sixteen months he devoted his tireless energies to building this ship, with which he could bid defiance to any single ship in the British navy, and which would enable him to render really efficient service to his country. While abroad he had collected copies of all the important treatises upon naval tactics; upon the construction of ships, the police of fleets and dockyards, and every other branch of his noble profession. Every moment of leisure was devoted to these studies. He became an enthusiastic student, resolved to make himself as perfect as possible in all the accomplishments of his noble profession. And it is safe to say that there was not, in our navy, any officer more thoroughly instructed. On the birth of the Dauphin, the unfortunate son of Louis XVI. and Maria Antoinette, Commodore Jones mounted, on the deck of the unfinished ship America, a battery, at his own expense. The flag of France was unfurled from the mast-head, and salutes were fired at repeated hours during the day. At night the ship was illuminated, and there was a brilliant display of fireworks. Jones obtained great credit with both American and French officers for the skill he displayed in the construction of this ship. It was fifty and a-half feet in breadth, and one hundred and eighty-two and a-half feet in length. The best judges pronounced her to be a model of naval architecture. It was the largest seventy-four-gun ship then in the world. And yet she floated so gracefully that, at the distance of a mile, she appeared like a delicate frigate; and no one would have suspected that she had a second battery. The embarrassments which Jones experienced, and the delays to which he was exposed in building, arming, and rigging this admirable structure, were innumerable. Money, first of all, was wanted; suitable workmen were with difficulty found, and he never had more than twenty-four carpenters employed. Our machinery and manufactures were not in a sufficiently advanced state to furnish proper material for the rigging, and suitable armament for a first-class ship. Nearly all such stores were to be brought from Europe. The ships which brought them had to run the gauntlet through the powerful fleet of England. There probably was not another man, then in the United States, capable of doing what Commodore Jones did in building this ship. It is to be remembered that the whole population of the United States, widely scattered, amounted to but about three millions, about the same as the present population of the State of New York. For such a little band to bid defiance to the majestic power of England was one of the boldest deeds ever performed. We should inevitably have been crushed but for the aid of our generous ally.