ABSTRACT
Following the sale of the Alliancein 1785 there was only the Revenue Cutter Service, founded in 1790, to guard the coasts. American merchant ships were being subjected to attacks by pirates from the Barbary Coast of North Africa while French ships seized neutral American merchantmen for violation of wartime trade laws. On 27 March 1794 Congress passed an act providing for the building of four frigates of forty-four guns and two of thirty-six guns, thus founding the United States Navy.
