The American Navy in 1823 had just sixteen vessels of war, five of which were deployed in the West Indies. This force could not deter any serious naval armada, therefore the British Royal Navy, which enjoyed trading relations with several Latin American nations, became the enforcer of the..…

Before the Revolutionary War, that threat was most tangibly present in Louisiana (ceded to Spain by France in 1763), where British West Florida was just across the Mississippi. The government in Madrid sought to create a bulwark against British-American expansion by building a..…