Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "How Did the US Navy Get So Powerful? - Evolution from the 13 Colonies to WWII" video.

  1. Pretty sure that "letter of marque" is pronounced "letter of mark." The 'e' is silent, I think. "Mar-kee" is for words like "marquis," with that "quis" at the end. The privations to which sailors were subjected in the 18th and 19th Centuries were horrific, by today's standards. Of course, everybody lived under similar or worse conditions ashore. Tough people. I toured the USS Constitution once when I was back East. Seeing the claustrophobic conditions belowdecks (and imagining the stench of all those unwashed bodies) was very humbling. Then I stood under the mainmast and tried to imagine scrambling to the top and working the sails. I decided that those guys were about 10 times as tough and 100 times as brave as I am.
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