The End of Privateering
16 APRIL 1856
THE END OF PRIVATEERING
Against the powerful and threatening Spanish Navy of the 1580s, Queen Elizabeth I of England commissioned civilian sea captains to arm their vessels and raid Spanish shipping. Such notables as Francis Drake, John Hawkyns, and Walter Raleigh became her “Sea Dogs,” who received official sanction for the practice of “privateering.” In the years that followed, nations whose naval strength was outclassed by their opponents often resorted to issuing “Letters of Marque and Reprisal.” Such sanctions allowed private vessels to capture lightly armed merchantmen of an enemy–to be sold for the profit of the privateer and his crew.
In March of 1776 our Continental Congress issued Letters of Marque, the petitioners of which began operating in the Gulf of St. Lawrence taking fishing smacks and raiding shore towns. By the end of 1776 there were 136 American privateers at sea, their most lucrative hunting grounds being the West Indies. In all over 800 privateers operated during our Revolution, taking over 600 British prizes. Indeed 16 of the 102 warships lost by the Royal Navy in the Revolutionary War were lost to American privateers, while no English privateer took a Continental Navy warship! The practice made many wealthy, but one serious problem developed. The higher wages paid by privateers along with better working conditions, reduced danger, and moderate discipline, made privateering attractive to waterfront sailors. Continental Navy ships sat idle at the docks for want of crews, as the available manpower flocked to privateering. Privateering was renewed in the War of 1812, His Majesty losing 1344 freighters thusly, some American privateers even cruising boldly off the English coast!
But after the Crimean War the world’s powers acknowledged the evils of privateering. Universally, the pursuit of profit drove privateers into frank piracy. They began using their official sanction to attack not just enemy shipping, but any ship, for the sake of profit. This, coupled with confusion over neutral vessels carrying ill-defined “contraband,” potentially dragged neutral nations into existing conflicts.
On this day the governments of 55 nations signed the Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law, written by France and Britain, an international agreement to end the practice of privateering. The United States, on the brink of Civil War, initially chose not to sign this agreement, despite President Lincoln’s later disdain for the practice. The Confederacy alone commissioned Civil War privateers, and only on a small scale. Not until 1898, during our Spanish-American War, did President William McKinley endorse the principles of the Paris declaration.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 20 APR 22
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Love, Robert W. History of the US Navy, Vol 1 1775-1941. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 15-17, 39-40, 103.
Potter, E.B. and Chester W. Nimitz. Sea Power: A Naval History. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1960, pp. 72, 213-14.
Schwartz, Brandon. “U.S. Privateering is Legal.” Proceedings, Vol 146 (4), April 2020, P. 1406.
Stark, Francis Raymond. The Abolition of Privateering and the Declaration of Paris (reprint). New York, NY: Columbia University Press, (from) 1897.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Despite this Paris Declaration, privateering continued off and on during the 19th century, particularly in the struggles for South American independence from Spain. Indeed, the piracy our Navy fought in the West Indies during the 1820s-30s was largely an illegal extension of privateering by the emerging nations of Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela. Spain, one of the last signing hold-outs, finally consented to this declaration in 1908–after the Hague Conventions clarified that any armed vessel operating on behalf of a warring nation must be considered a commissioned warship. Curiously, the provision in Article I of our Constitution allowing Congress to issue letters of marque has never been removed, though it is doubtful we would again do so.