The Quasi-War was an undeclared naval war fought from 1798 to 1800 between the United States and the First French Republic amid the French Revolutionary Wars. The United States' suspension of loan repayments to France in the wake of King Louis XVI's overthrow and execution, America's refusal to help defend France from the British and their allies, repeated French attempts to violate American neutrality, and the XYZ Affair diplomatic crisis of 1797 provoked a series of naval actions between the nascent US Navy and the French Navy across the world, as French ships seized American vessels trading with Britain. By the end of the war, American cooperation with the Royal Navy significantly reduced shipping losses, and America and France made peace at the Treaty of Mortefontaine (the "Convention of 1800"), terminating the 1778 alliance and re-establishing Franco-American relations.
Background[]
Under the 1778 Treaty of Alliance, the United States had agreed to protect the French West Indies in exchange for the Kingdom of France's support in the American Revolutionary War; the United States also promised to repay France's loans once the war for independence was won. Even after King Louis XVI's overthrow and execution during the French Revolution, the new French Republic claimed that the United States was obliged to defend it against Great Britain and the Dutch Republic during thte War of the First Coalition. American public opinion was divided, with the pro-French Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party supporting the revolutionaries and the pro-British Federalists supporting neutrality due to New England shipowners profiting from evading the British blockade and Southern plantation owners fearing the example set by France's abolition of slavery.
In 1793, the US Congress suspended repayment of French loans incurred during the Revolutionary War, arguing that Louis' execution and the establishment of a new French regime rendered existing agreements void. That same year, the French ambassador to the United States, Edmond-Charles Genet, stirred up controversy in the United States when he recruited and armed American privateers to join French expeditions against the British, jeopardizing American neutrality and leading President George Washington to demand that France recall him in 1794. That same year, Washington issued an executive order forbidding American merchant ships from arming themselves, while Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1794. France still expected for its privateers to be able to access American ports and sell captured British ships in American prize courts, but not vice versa; America instead provided the same privileges to both.
In 1794, Franco-American relations deteriorated when the United States and Britain signed a new trade agreement, violating France's previous "most favored nation" status, and the Jay Treaty resulted in American exports to Britain tripling in value. In late 1796, French privateers began to seize American ships trading with the British. The Continental Navy's last warship had been sold in 1785, leaving only a small flotilla belonging to Alexander Hamilton's Revenue Cutter Service (the predecessor of the US Coast Guard) and a few neglected coastal forts. From October 1796 to June 1797, French privateers captured 316 ships, 6% of the entire American merchant fleet. On 2 March 1797, the French Directory issued a decree permitting the seizure of any neutral ship without a manifest listing the nationalities of each crewman, which American merchantmen did not carry, effectively initiating a commerce war on American shipping. The "XYZ Affair" of 1797 saw the French foreign minister Charles de Talleyrand refuse to meet with American diplomats unless they gave a large loan to France and a sizeable bribe to himself, ending American efforts to prevent a war. On 18 June 1797, President John Adams appointed Benjamin Stoddert the first Secretary of the Navy, and, on 7 July 1798, Congress approved the use of force against French warships in American waters, authorizing a limited, "Quasi-War" against France without a formal declaration of war.
Congress had ordered six large frigates in 1794, and, by 1798, the first three were nearly complete and additional funding was approved for five more ships. The British provided the US Navy with naval stores and equipment to allow for the American ships to be built relatively quickly. Private individuals also commissioned ships such as the USS Philadelphia and the USS Boston on behalf of their cities.
As most of the French fleet was confined to home ports by the Royal Navy, the US Navy was concentrated against the limited number of frigates and smaller vessels that evaded the blockade and reached the Caribbean. The British and Americans cooperated through sharing a signal system and allowing their merchantmen to join each other's convoys. The Americans were thus able to concentrate on attacking French privateers operating from French and Spanish bases in the Caribbean (particularly Guadeloupe). One of the first actions occurred on 7 July 1798, when the USS Delaware seized the La Croyable off New Jersey's Great Egg Harbor Bay on 7 July 1798. On 20 November, the French frigates Insurgente and Volontaire captured the USS Retaliation, but the ship was recaptured on 28 June 1799 four months after the USS Constellation captured the Insurgente. On 1 January 1800, a convoy of American merchant ships fought off an attack by French-allied Haitian privateers near Hispaniola, and, on 11 May 1800, 100 US Marines and sailors captured Puerto Plata on Santo Domingo from its French and Spanish garrison. In July 1800, the Americans helped the Dutch defend Curacao against a French attack. By late 1800, the US Navy and Royal Navy had reduced the activity of French privateers and warships, while Napoleon Bonaparte assumed a more conciliatory diplomatic stance towards the United States By then, 2,000 American merchant ships had been seized by the French. On 30 September 1800, France and America agreed to the Convention of 1800, which guaranteed both sides "most favored nation" trading status, postponed discussions on compensation, and suspended the 1778 Treaty of Alliance until the issue of compensation was resolved. The US government agreed to compensate its citizens for the claimed damages of $20 million, although it was not until 1915 that the heirs received $3.9 million in settlement.
The end of the Franco-American dispute enabled France to revive its plans for North America, as Napoleon sent 30,000 veteran troops to Saint-Domingue in December 1801; soon after, Spain was pressured to transfer Spanish Louisiana to France. However, by October 1802, 22,000 of the 30,000 French troops had died of yellow fever, and the loss of Saint-Domingue led Napoleon to conclude that Louisiana was irrelevant. With France and Britain once again on the verge of hostilities, Napoleon decided to sell the territory to the US for $15 million in April 1803, lest British troops from Canada seize the territory without compensation.