User talk:Tuelj

Hi Tuelj- the first gun salute to an American vessel was indeed to the Andrew Doria on St. Eustatius. That's why I specified "in a European port". St. Eusuatius was an interesting case, a Dutch colonial possession arguably out of control of the Dutch government- except of course that, like the French before 1778, the Dutch were unofficially doing everything they could to cause problems for the Brits. In the end, in 1780, despite already being at war with France and Spain, Britain had to declare war on the Dutch so that retaliation would be legally possible. David Trochos (talk) 19:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tuelj wrote: Excellent article. Very informative about the nature of prizes taken. That is something a lot of historians ignore even though it would seem to be the central point when talking about privateers. I believe there may be one inaccuracy however. According to noted historian Barabara Tuchman (The Guns of August, A Distant Mirror, etc.)in her book The First Salute the first salute to an American vesel was to an American ship by the governor of the tiny Dutch island of St. Eustasia in the Carribean. It was in 1776 I beleive. I don't have the book with me right now but I will look it up.Tuelj (talk) 18:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)