Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period / Illustrative Documents

by Unknown

On the outbreak of war in which Great Britain was involved, it was customary for the King to issue a commission to the Lord High Admiral (or to the Lords of the Admiralty appointed to execute that office) authorizing him (or them) to empower proper officials, such as colonial governors, to grant letters of marque, or privateering commissions, to suitable persons under adequate safeguards.[1] The Lords of the Admiralty then issued warrants to the colonial governors (see [doc. no. 127]), authorizing them to issue such commissions or letters of marque. A specimen American privateering commission may be seen in [doc. no. 144]; a Portuguese letter of marque, and a paper by which its recipient purported to assign it to another, in docs. [no. 14] and [no. 15]. Royal instructions were issued to all commanders of privateers ([doc. no. 126]), and each was required to furnish, or bondsmen were required to furnish on his behalf, caution or security[2] for the proper observance of these instructions and the payment of all dues to the crown or Admiralty. Relations between the commander and the crew, except as regulated by the superior authority of these instructions and of the prize acts or other statutes, were governed by the articles of agreement ([doc. no. 202]) signed when enlisting.

These were the essential documents of a privateering voyage. There would probably be also accounts for supplies, like John Tweedy's very curious bill for medicines ([doc. no. 158]), and accounts between crew and owners ([doc. no. 146]), and general accounts of the voyage ([doc. no. 159]). There might be an agreement of two privateers to cruise together and divide the spoil ([doc. no. 160]). There might even be a journal of the whole voyage, like the extraordinarily interesting journal kept on the privateer Revenge by the captain's quartermaster in 1741 ([doc. no. 145]), one of the very few such narratives preserved. Other documents of various kinds, illustrating miscellaneous incidents of privateering, will be found elsewhere in the volume.

Both privateers and naval vessels belonging to the government made prize of ships and goods belonging to the enemy, but many questions were certain to arise concerning the legality of captures and concerning the proper ownership and disposal of ships and goods. Hence the necessity for prize courts, acting under admiralty law and the law of nations. The instructions to privateers required them (see [doc. no. 126], section III.) to bring captured ships or goods into some port of Great Britain or her colonial dominions, for adjudication by such a court. In England, it was the High Court of Admiralty that tried such cases. At the beginning of a war, a commission under the Great Seal,[3] addressed to the Lords of the Admiralty, instructed them to issue a warrant to the judge of that court, authorizing him during the duration of the war to take cognizance of prize causes. After 1689, it was customary to provide for trial of admiralty causes in colonial ports by giving to each colonial governor, in addition to his commission as governor, a commission as vice-admiral. Before 1689, this was done in a few instances, chiefly of proprietary colonies, the earliest such instance being that exhibited in our [doc. no. 1]; but in the case of colonies having no royal governor (corporation colonies) we find various courts in that earlier period exercising admiralty jurisdiction (docs. [no. 8], [no. 25], [no. 48], and [no. 105], [note 1]). From Queen Anne's reign on ([doc. no. 102]), jurisdiction in prize causes was conferred, as in the case of the judge of the High Court of Admiralty in London, by warrant ([doc. no. 182]) from the Lord High Admiral or Lords of the Admiralty pursuant to the commission issued to them, as stated above, at the beginning of the war. In [doc. no. 116] we see the judge of the High Court of Admiralty expressing the belief that it would be better if all prizes were brought to his court in London for adjudication, but the inconvenience would have been too great.

The governor's commission as vice-admiral, issued (after 1689, at any rate) under the great seal of the High Court of Admiralty, gave him authority to hold an admiralty court in person. Often the governor was not well fitted for such work, though not often so frank as Sir Henry Morgan ([doc. no. 46], [note 1]) in admitting his deficiencies. As admiralty business increased, it became customary to appoint admiralty judges to hold vice-admiralty courts in individual colonies, or in groups of colonies. Sometimes, especially in the earlier period, they were commissioned by the governor of the colony acting under a warrant from the Lords of the Admiralty ([doc. no. 69]) empowering him so to do; more often they were commissioned directly by those lords, under the great seal of the Admiralty. [Doc. no. 180] is a commission of the former sort, [doc. no. 181] of the latter. When war broke out, authority to try prize cases was conveyed, as above, to the vice-admiral, the vice-admiralty judge, and their deputies.

In the trial of a prize case, the first essential document was the libel (docs. [no. 99], [no. 128], [no. 165], [no. 184], and [no. 188]), by which claim was laid to ship or goods. Witnesses were examined, chiefly by means of the systematic series of questions called standing interrogatories ([doc. no. 183]). Their testimony, taken down in written depositions, constitutes much the largest class of documents in this volume. Most narratives of privateering or of piracy are found in the form of depositions. Reports of trials, embracing proceedings and documents and testimony, are found in docs. [no. 128], [no. 143], and [no. 165]; sentences or decrees of the judge in docs. [no. 143], [no. 150], and [no. 155]; inventories of prizes in docs. [no. 33] and [no. 161]; an account of sales in [doc. no. 186].

If a party to a prize appealed from the sentence of the vice-admiralty court (docs. [no. 151] and [no. 196]), he was required to give bond ([doc. no. 152]) for due prosecution of the appeal in England. From 1628 to 1708 such appeals were heard by the High Court of Admiralty; after 1708 they went to a body of privy councillors specially commissioned for the purpose, called the Lords Commissioners of Appeal in Prize Causes (see [doc. no. 151], [note 1]). A specimen of a decree of that tribunal reversing the sentence of a colonial vice-admiralty court is in [doc. no. 195].[4]

Piracy being from its very nature a less formal proceeding than privateering, there are fewer formal documents to present as essential to its history. In the seventeenth century, there are instances of trials for piracy by various courts: e.g., the Court of Assistants in Massachusetts in 1675 ([doc. no. 41], [note 1]) and the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1694 ([doc. no. 56], [note 2]). But the regular method, which came to prevail, was trial by special commissions appointed for the purpose, similar to those which were appointed for the trial of pirates in England by virtue of the statute 28 Henry VIII. c. 15 (1536). We have such a colonial commission, appointed by the governor, in [doc. no. 51] (1683). In 1700 the statute 11 and 12 William III. c. 7 extended to the plantations the crown's authority to appoint such commissions (see docs. [no. 104], [note 1], [no. 106], [note 1], and [no. 201]). A curious signed agreement to commit piracy will be found in [doc. no. 50]; indictments for that crime in docs. [no. 56], [no. 119], and [no. 120]; partial records of trials in docs. [no. 112], [no. 113], and nos. [119]-[122]. A full account of an execution, explicit enough to satisfy the most morbid curiosity, is presented in [doc. no. 104]. Nos. [123] and [124] are formal bills for the execution, the digging of the graves, and the cheering drams which the executioners found needful after their grisly work.

But if American colonial piracy presents a smaller array of legal documents than American colonial privateering, it makes up for it by its rich abundance of picturesque narrative and detail. The pieces here brought together show us piracy off Lisbon and in the East Indies and at Madagascar, at Portobello and Panama and in the South Sea, in the West Indies, and all along the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to the coast of Guiana. They exhibit to us every relation from that of the most innocent victim to that of the most hardened pirate chief. They make it clear how narrow was sometimes the line that divided piracy and privateering, and how difficult it must have been to learn the truth from witnesses so conflicting and of such dubious characters, testifying concerning actions of lawless men in remote seas or on lonely shores.

Most of the pirates famed in story, who had anything to do with colonial America, appear in one way or another in these papers. On the history of Henry Every, for instance, and even on the oft-told tale of William Kidd, not a little new light is cast. Kidd's letters from prison, the letter and petitions of his wife, the depositions of companions, the additional letters of Bellomont, make the story live again, even though no new evidence appears that is perfectly conclusive as to the still-debated question of his degree of guilt. The wonderful buccaneering adventures of Bartholomew Sharp and his companions, 1680-1682, at the Isthmus of Panama and all along the west coast of South America, are newly illustrated by long anonymous narratives, artless but effective. And indeed, to speak more generally, it is hoped that there are few aspects of the pirate's trade that are not somehow represented in these pages.

At least it will not be denied that the documents, whether for piracy or for privateering, show a considerable variety of origins. Their authors range from a Signer of the Declaration of Independence to an Irishwoman keeping a boarding-house in Havana, from a minister of Louis XIV. or a judge of the High Court of Admiralty to the most illiterate sailor, from Governor John Endicott, most rigid of Puritans, to the keeper of a rendezvous for pirates and receiver of their ill-gotten goods. Witnesses or writers of many nationalities appear: American, Englishmen, Scots, Irishmen, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards, a Portuguese, a Dane or Sleswicker, a Bohemian, a Greek, a Jew. The languages of the documents are English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin. Though none of them are in German or by Germans, not the least interesting pieces in the volume are those (docs. [no. 43], [no. 48], and [no. 49]) which show a curious connection of American colonial history with the very first (and characteristically illegal and unscrupulous) exploits of the Brandenburg-Prussian navy.