摘要：In The First Salute, a book first published in 1988, Barbara Tuchman (whose maiden surname was Wertheim) analyzes the relations between the newborn United States and France, Britain, and the Netherlands in the eighteenth century. The title of her book refers to the very first time the United States, which had just declared their independence from Great Britain, received international recognition. The place was the tiny island of Saint-Eustatius, a Dutch colony in the Caribbean, and the day was 16 November 1776. An American ship named Andrea Doria, which was part of the recently founded U.S. Navy and whose commander was Josiah Robinson from Philadelphia, had arrived at the island’s harbor, to acquaint the Dutch with what had happened in the thirteen colonies—among other things. The Andrea Doria saluted the Dutch garrison in Fort Orange with eleven shots fired from the ship’s cannons. The Dutch replied in kind, which was regarded as the first token of the kind of recognition the United States were yearning for.
