James Baquet

There’s war and peace, and then there’s the Quasi-War.

“Quasi-” is an unusual combining form that could mean “sort of” or “as if.” The clearest definition I found is this one: “having some, but not all of the features of” something. Information that’s “quasi-official” may have come from an official source, but not through official channels (like a leak to the news); a “quasi-scientific” study might not meet all the standards for proper peer review.

So a “quasi-war” would be very much like a war, but not meet all the standards of a full-fledged war. That description suits the Quasi-War (1798-1800) to a tee.

The chronology goes like this: During the American Revolution, the French Crown loaned the United States money to carry out its actions against Britain. As we know, the U.S. won. Then, in 1792, the French threw off their own monarchs, and became a republic. The U.S. refused to pay the debt, claiming it was owed to a regime which no longer existed.

The French, naturally, were outraged. They decided to recoup the money owed by seizing American merchant ships in the West Indies. The French engaged privateers to do the actual dirty work, never properly declaring war on the U.S.

A second reason for the French pugnacity was that the U.S. had made a treaty to trade with Great Britain, with whom France was at war at the time. This was adding insult to injury!

Of course, the Americans didn’t just sit back and let the French take whatever they wanted from their merchantmen. In fact, the French were quite surprised at the effectiveness of the nascent U.S. Navy in battling with the French privateers. After all, the Navy’s first warships had only been launched in 1797. A prior “Continental Navy” had been dismantled after the revolution.

In 1800, after some internal wrangling on the part of the Americans, an agreement was finally made to end the hostilities. As far as America’s debt was concerned, the French agreed that the U.S. government’s compensation to its own citizens for the loss of goods on the merchant ships would suffice. The U.S. government did not settle that debt until 1915.

Vocabulary:

Which words above mean:

1. completely developed

2. recover, get back

3. ships carrying goods for eventual sale

4. arguing

5. pirates working for a government

6. perfectly, exactly

7. a process wherein colleagues check one’s work

8. willingness to fight

9. took apart

10. government in power, administration