CHAPTER III

PRIVATEERING IN THE UNITED STATES

I

During the Revolution

FROM 1756 to 1763 the privateers fitted out in the North American colonies of Great Britain, and particularly in the ports of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, had inflicted enormous injuries upon the commerce of France. The New England sailors had taken to privateering naturally, and as naturally had laid it aside upon the conclusion of the Peace of Paris. It might have been expected, therefore, that upon the outbreak of hostilities with the motherland in 1775, the colonists would be prompt to effect a second transition, and resume the marauding rôle in which they had already become distinguished; but for various reasons this did not happen immediately.

The

The conflict which began in April, 1775, was a domestic dissension between Great Britain and her colonies. American nation, though struggling for birth as it had been struggling for the previous decade, was not yet born; and properly speaking, therefore, the hostilities at Lexington were not the beginning of a war. The situation of the colonies was peculiar. Congress vacillated. One day full of fire and threats, the next, conciliating and hopeful that the ministry were at last coming to their senses, it was impossible to force it into any definite course; and the resulting handicap upon the colonists was severe. It was on account of this

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state of things that no privateers were commissioned by the central government in 1775.

The first naval victory of the colonists, nevertheless, was the result of private enterprise. On May 5, 1775, some people of New Bedford and Dartmouth fitted out a vessel with which they entered a harbor of Martha's Vineyard and cut out another American vessel, of which the Falcon, a British cruiser, had made prize. On June 11 the king's cutter Margaretta convoyed two sloops to the harbor of Machias, there to be freighted with lumber for the use of the army in Boston. The sloops were promptly seized by the townspeople, and a certain Captain O'Brien, with forty companions, was despatched in one of them against the cutter, which, after some resistance, struck her colors. These trifling successes aroused the most intense enthusiasm, particularly in New England; and the desirability of extending hostilities to the sea in a systematic manner began to be felt immediately. On June 12, Rhode Island commissioned two vessels, and the other maritime colonies, as if they had merely been waiting for the signal, followed suit. In November, Massachusetts authorized private-armed vessels to cruise, and established a court for condemning their prizes.+ In the meantime the inertia of Congress was beginning to give way before the sturdy attacks of the delegates from Rhode Island, who, on Oct. 3, had laid before the body of their peers their instructions of the preceding August, to use their whole influence for equipping a continental fleet.5 Washington was in favor of the project; for it was a source of great annoyance to him to see British transports and store.

1 Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America (Cambridge, 1888), VI., p. 564.

2 Bancroft's Hist. of the U. S., IV., 184.

3 Winsor, VI., 565 n.

Gent. Mag., Jan., 1776; referred to by Winsor, VI., p. 591.

5 Bancroft, IV., 263.

ships passing him unarmed, and to be obliged to refuse his men "leave to put a few guns on board a vessel to cruise for them" until he had communicated with the Congress. The successes of the few impromptu cruisers which he did send out in this way, in intercepting stores, made him the more anxious that their number should be multiplied; indeed, Mr. Cooper considers that, if it had not been for the supplies thus brought in, "the Revolution must have been checked in the outset." John Adams also lent his support to the Rhode Island delegates; and, on the 13th of October, Congress passed a resolution directing the equipment of two national cruisers, the first of which was to carry "ten carriage guns, with a proportionable number of swivels."3 Thirteen frigates were ordered in December, and while they were being constructed merchant vessels were commissioned by Congress as vessels of war, and merchant captains as naval officers. The personnel of a navy was as difficult to find as the materiel; for nearly all the colonists whose sons had a taste for the sea had sent them into the British navy, from which scarcely any resigned.5 Under these circumstances Congress at length adopted the inevitable policy of authorizing private individuals to cruise. On March 23, 1776, a resolution was passed "that the inhabitants of these colonies be permitted to fit out armed vessels to cruise on the enemies of these United Colonies." The preamble simply recited that an "unjust war" was being urged against

1 Adams to Langdon, Jan. 24, 1813; John Adams' Works, X., p. 27.

2 History of the Navy of the U. S., ch. xiii.

Emmons, Statistical History of the Navy of the U. S., p. 204; Cooper, ch. iv.; Journals of Congress, I., 219. On Oct. 30 it was resolved that the second vessel carry 14 guns. Journals of Congress, I., 227.

* Journals of Congress, I., 292.

5 Cooper, History of the Navy of the U. S., ch. iv.

6 Journals of Congress, Vol. I., p. 296.

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the colonies; that their petitions were unheard; that an act of parliament had declared their trading vessels good prize; and that it was "justifiable to make reprisals" upon their "enemies." On April 3 it was resolved that "blank commissions for private ships of war, and Letters of Marque and Reprisal, signed by the President," be sent to the different States; the security to be given by applicants for such commissions or letters was fixed at $5,000 for vessels under 100 tons, and $10,000 for larger vessels, in either case payable to the President of Congress in trust for the use of the United Colonies; and all applications were to contain a description of the vessel and crew, etc., " and the quantity of provisions and war-like stores," and were to be forwarded to the Secretary of Congress and by him registered. Elaborate instructions for the guidance of the privateers thus commissioned were issued on the same day. Articles I and 2 of these instructions authorize them to "attack, subdue and take" British vessels (with certain exceptions in favor of immigrants), or vessels carrying contraband to the British, wherever found on the high seas, or between high and low water-mark. The succeeding articles provide for bringing the prizes in "to some convenient port or ports in the United Colonies;" for "severe punishment" of any one killing or maining a prisoner; and for written accounts of captures to be sent to Congress "by all convenient opportunities." Article 8 contains the singular provision that one-third at least of their whole company shall be "landsmen." Article 9 forbids them to "ransome any prisoners or captains;" and the tenth and last article reserves the right to issue other instructions from time to time, if necessary.

The 16 Geo. 3, c. 5. See Frothingham's Rise of the Republic of the U. S., p. 486.

2 Force, American Archives, Fourth Series, vol. V., p. 1443 et seq.

The privateers which rapidly took the sea under these instructions were unlike any which the world had ever seen before. It would be idle, of course, to pretend that they were all inspired by patriotic motives only; but it is certain that the patriotism of most of them was of a purer character than that of their English and French predecessors. For the first time in its history the privateer-system assumed approximately the shape of a marine militia or volunteer navy. Nothing so well illustrates this fact as the generous readiness of our early privateers to place themselves under general naval control for the purpose of helping along any maritime adventure. Continental ships, the vessels of the state navies, and private individuals frequently joined in dangerous and often pecuniarily unprofitable ventures, for the general good of the cause; and the spectacle of three privateers uniting with regular war-vessels in an attack upon the transports sent to Howe in June, 1776,' was a unique

Frequently, also, perhaps too frequently, they actually went out of their way to attack vessels of the British navy, and sixteen of His Majesty's cruisers figure prominently in the list of their prizes. It was this admirable, yet misdirected zeal that Adams so much deplored when, writing to Calkoen in 1780 3 he said that had it not been for their imprudence, the American frigates and privateers would "by this time, well-nigh have ruined the British commerce, navy and army."

Towards the close of 1776 a new and magnificent prospect began to open for private vessels of war. On October 1,

1 Winsor, VI., p. 568. See also Cooper, ch. xii. In January, 1778, an American privateer assailed in the night the British fort of New Providence in the Bahamas, capturing the fort and a sixteen-gun man-of-war. Jameson's Dict. of U. S. History, tit. Privateers.

2 Maclay, Hist. of the Navy, Part I., ch. viii.

3 Adams, Works, Vol. VII., p. 266, at 312.