1. Largely responding to Barbary depredations against U.S. shipping, Congress on 6 Feb. narrowly passed a resolution recommending the establishment of the U.S. Navy. Debate centered on the availability of natural resources to build the fleet, the potential cost of such an endeavor, and how a naval buildup might be interpreted abroad in light of U.S. neutrality. Questions arose about debt and government overreach, but news of several more Barbary captures prompted Congress to pass the Naval Act on 27 March, and the president signed it into law the same day. Over the next few years, six frigates launched the U.S. Navy: United States, Constellation, Constitution, Congress, Chesapeake, and President (Michael J. Crawford and Christine F. Hughes, The Reestablishment of the Navy, 1787–1801: Historical Overview and Select Bibliography, Washington, D.C., 1995, p. 4–6; U.S. Statutes at Large description begins The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, 1789– , Boston and Washington, D.C., 1845– . description ends , 1:350–351).

2. This was likely Capt. Benjamin Weeks (Wickes), originally from Baltimore, whom JA dined with in Bilbao, Spain, in 1780. John Ross was a former American commercial agent in Nantes. Van der Kemp sailed for the United States via Weeks’ frigate, L’Henriette, in 1788 (vols. 5:311, 18:501; JA, D&A description begins Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. description ends , 2:432; Franklin, Papers description begins The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, William B. Willcox, Claude A. Lopez, Barbara B. Oberg, Ellen R. Cohn, and others, New Haven, 1959– . description ends , 40:244; Van der Kemp, Autobiography description begins Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 1752–1829: An Autobiography; Together with Extracts from His Correspondence, ed. Helen Lincklaen Fairchild, New York and London, 1903. description ends , p. 111).