Building a new navy so that everyone has a slice

From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 83.

Factors impinging on government procurement haven't changed in two hundred years. Engineering and commercial efficiency and effectiveness are always losing to institutional interest and political calculation.

“In June 1798, during the Quasi War, Congress authorized the construction of several more warships, to be funded by public subscriptions in the leading maritime towns and repaid by government bonds yielding 6 percent interest. Five smaller frigates resulted from the effort: the thirty-six-gun Philadelphia, the thirty-two-gun New York and Essex (the latter the contribution of Salem), and the twenty-eight-gun Boston and John Adams (the latter from Charleston). None were especially innovative designs, hewing closely to contemporary Royal Navy models, but they were all well-built ships that helped spread the know-how of warship construction, not to mention support for the new American navy, along the American seaboard.