Privateers and Privateering

by Edward Phillips Statham

By the middle of the sixteenth century the fitting out of vessels by corporations and individuals, for their own protection and the "annoying of the king's enemies" with the further advantage of substantial gains by plunder, was clearly recognised, for we find King Henry VIII., in the year 1544, remonstrating with the Mayor and burgesses of Newcastle, Scarborough, and Hull for their remissness in this respect. He points out what has been done elsewhere, especially in the west parts, "where there are twelve or sixteen ships of war abroad, who have gotten among them not so little as £10,000"; and adds: "It were over-burdensome that the king should set ships to defend all parts of the realm, and keep the narrow seas withal."

In the American and French wars of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries there were literally thousands of privateers engaged. It would appear as though almost every skipper and shipowner incontinently applied, upon declaration of war, for a commission, or warrant, or letter of marque—no matter what it was called; the main thing was to get afloat, and have a share in what was going.

Valuable as have been the services of privateers, at various periods, as auxiliaries to the Navy, there is an obvious danger in letting loose upon the seas a vast number of men who have never had any disciplinary training, and whose principal motive is the acquisition of wealth—is, in fact, officially recognised as such; and although there existed pretty stringent regulations, amended at various times as occasion demanded, covering the mode of procedure to be adopted before the prize-money could be paid, these laws were constantly evaded in the most flagrant manner. Even the most honourable and well-disposed privateer captain was liable at any moment to find himself confronted by the alternatives of yielding to the demands of his rapacious crew for immediate and unlawful division of the spoil, or yet more lawless capture of an ineligible vessel, and personal violence, perhaps death, to himself; and the ease with which an unarmed vessel, overhauled within the silent circle of the horizon, unbroken by the sails of a solitary witness, could be compelled, whatever her nationality, upon some flimsy excuse to pay toll, frequently proved too strong a temptation to be resisted.

There is abundant evidence of the notoriety of such unlawful doings; Sir Leoline Jenkins, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty in the reign of Charles II., says, in a letter to Secretary Williamson: "I see that your embarrass hath been much greater about our Scotch privateers. The truth is, I am much scandalised at them in a time of war; they are, in my poor judgment, great instruments to irritate the king's friends, to undo his subjects, and none at all to profit upon the enemy; but it will not be remedied. The privateers in our wars are like the mathematici in old Rome: a sort of people that will always be found fault with, but still made use of."

Von Martens, a great authority upon maritime law, is equally plain-spoken: "Pirates have always been considered the enemies of mankind, and proscribed and punished accordingly. On the contrary, privateers are encouraged to this day (1801), notwithstanding all the complaints of neutral Powers, of which they are the scourge; and notwithstanding all their excesses, which it has been in vain attempted to suppress by ill-observed laws."

Admiral Vernon, in 1745, while acknowledging the services of privateers in distressing the enemy's trade and bringing an addition of wealth into the country, deprecates their employment on the ground of the general tendency to debauch the morals of our seamen, by substituting greed of gain for patriotism[2]; and Lord Nelson, in 1804, says: "The conduct of all privateers is, as far as I have seen, so near piracy that I only wonder any civilised nation can allow them."

This is a sorry story of the privateer, and tends to discount sadly the romantic element so commonly associated with him. This is not a romance, however, and, having thus cleared the ground, we must be content to take the privateer, like Kipling's "Absent-minded Beggar," as we find him; and, by way of consolation and reward for our ingenuousness, we shall come across privateersmen whose skill, gallantry, and absolute integrity of conduct would do credit to many a hero of the Royal Navy.

The almost universal practice which prevailed in former times, of arming merchant vessels, particularly in certain trades, as a protection against pirates and privateers, has led to a considerable amount of misunderstanding. There are many instances upon record of spirited and successful defence, even against a very superior force, on the part of these armed traders, which have frequently been cited as privateer actions. These vessels, however, carried no warlike commission, and must not therefore be included in this category. Captain Hugh Crow, of Liverpool, who was engaged for many years in the West African slave trade, is a case in point. He fought some severe actions, upon one occasion with two British sloops-of-war, which he mistook in the dark for French privateers; the error being reciprocal, they pounded away at each other in the darkness, and it was not until Crow, after a desperate and most creditable resistance, was compelled at length to surrender, that victors and vanquished discovered their error: a very remarkable incident. Captain Crow was a shining light, in those unhappy slaving times, by reason of his humanity and integrity, and was beloved by the negroes from Bonny to Jamaica, where he landed so many cargoes.

Some celebrities of the sea have also been erroneously styled privateers; among others, the notorious Paul Jones, and Captain Semmes, of Alabama fame. Jones was a renegade, being a Scotsman by birth, and his proper name John Paul; but he fought under a regular commission from the United States, and was subsequently accorded the rank of Rear-Admiral in the Russian service. It must be admitted, however, that his conduct afforded some grounds for the appellation of "Paul Jones the Pirate," by which he was sometimes known; but he was a consummate seaman, and a man of infinite courage and resource.

Semmes was also employed as a commissioned naval officer by the Confederate States, in the Civil War of 1860; and though he was classed at first as a "rebel" by the Northerners, and threatened with a pirate's fate if captured, the recognition of the Confederates as a belligerent State by foreign Powers had already rendered such views untenable.