The second bowl of wrath is poured out on the sea, so that death in the sea occurs on a grand scale. It just so happens that the premier naval military powers of the world, at the opening of the era of the French Revolution, were papal: Spain and France. … The second bowl of wrath particularly dealt a death blow to Roman power exercised on the sea. (p.203)

– Fred Miller, Revelation: Panorama of the Gospel Age, Appendix C: Naval Losses of Nations Allied with the Papacy, 1798-1806.

“In all, some ninety French vessels, carrying altogether more than 700 guns, were captured during the war, and a great number of American ships were retaken. By the close of 1800 the purposes of the war [the Americans had waged against the French, for unlawfully seizing American ships and sailors] had been accomplished. Bonaparte, who had just come into power, willingly granted redress to the United States.”

– Edwin Emerson, A History of the Nineteenth Century Year by Year, Vol. 1. pp. 49-50. The full account of the naval battles are told in the first third of the book detailing the Napoleonic era.

The naval power of the papal nations of Spain and France never recovered. (p. 204)

“The tricolor had been chased from the seas by the combined efforts of British and American sailors.”

– Edwin Emerson, A History of the Nineteenth Century Year by Year, Vol. 1. pg. 73.

France, during the 1700s, grew in naval might until it eclipsed Spain, and is the main reason the fledgling American Revolution sent Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson as ambassadors to France, to secure its aid against the British.

Insightful Links:

• This Day in History: A Revolutionary War Battle in France? -Tara Ross