Privateers and Privateering Part 1

Privateers and Privateering.

by E. P. Statham.

PREFACE

A few words of explanation are necessary as to the pretension and scope of this volume. It does not pretend to be a history of privateering; the subject is an immense one, teeming with technicalities, legal and nautical; interesting, indeed, to the student of history, and never comprehensively treated hitherto, as far as the present author is aware, in any single work.

The present object is not, however, to provide a work of reference, but rather a collection of true stories of privateering incidents, and heroes of what the French term "la course"; and as such it is hoped that it will find favour with a large number of readers.

While the author has thus aimed at the simple and graphic narration of such adventures, every effort has been made to ensure that the stories shall be truly told, without embroidery, and from authentic sources; and it has been found necessary, in some instances, to point out inaccuracies in accounts already published; necessary, in view of the fact that these accounts are accessible to any one, and probably familiar to not a few possible readers of this volume, and it appears to be only fair and just that any animadversions upon these discrepancies should be here antic.i.p.ated and dealt with.

It has not been considered necessary, save in rare instances, to give references for statements or narratives; the book is designed to amuse and entertain, and copious references in footnotes are not entertaining.

It will be noticed that the vast majority of the lives of privateers and incidents are taken from the eighteenth century; for the simple reason that full and interesting accounts during this period are available, while earlier ones are brief and bald, and often of very doubtful accuracy.

Some excuse must be craved for incongruities in chronological order, which are unavoidable under the circ.u.mstances. They do not affect the stories.

There remains to enumerate the t.i.tles and authors of modern works to which the writer is indebted, and of which a list will be found on the adjoining page.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

The privateersman, scouring the seas in his swift, rakish craft, plundering the merchant vessels of the enemy, and occasionally engaging in a desperate encounter with an opponent of his own cla.s.s, or even with a well-equipped man-of-war, has always presented a romantic and fascinating personality. Many thrilling tales, half truth, half fiction, have been written about him; and if he has not infrequently been confounded with his first cousin the pirate, it must be admitted that for such confusion there is considerable justification. The privateer is a licensed, the pirate an unlicensed, plunderer; but plunder, not patriotism, being, as a rule, the motive of the former, it is not perhaps surprising that, failing legitimate prey, he has sometimes adopted, to a great extent, the tactics of the latter.

Before proceeding to give an account of some of these licensed rovers and their adventures, let us consider for a moment or two the origin and development of privateering; this will a.s.sist us in forming an appreciation of the advantages and drawbacks of the system, and also of the difficulties which presented themselves to an honest and conscientious privateer captain--for such there have been, as we shall see, though there are not too many who merit such terms.

It is not very easy to say when privateering was first inaugurated, though it is pretty certain that the term "privateer" did not come into use until well on in the seventeenth century; licensed rovers, or private men-of-war, were known previous to this period by some other t.i.tle, such as "Capers"--from a Dutch word, "Kaper"--or "letters of marque," the latter a very incorrect term, adopted through a loose manner of speech, for a "letter of marque" is, strictly speaking, a very different affair from a privateer; indeed, the application of such a term to a ship is obviously absurd: to convert a piece of paper or parchment with writing on it into a seaworthy vessel would be a considerably more marvellous piece of conjuring than turning a pumpkin into a carriage, as the good fairy did for the accommodation of Cinderella.

There is no doubt that the employment of private vessels for the purposes of war, and the granting of letters of marque, went on side by side for a great number of years. From the earliest times, before the Norman Conquest, there were hordes of sea-rovers who, entirely on their own account, and solely for the purpose of plunder, infested the seas, robbing without scruple or distinction every defenceless vessel they encountered, and in many instances wantonly slaughtering the crews; they would also, on occasion, make a descent upon the coast either of their own or some adjacent country--they were quite impartial in this respect--and sack the farms and dwellings within easy reach, retiring to their vessels before any force could be a.s.sembled to deal with them. The Danes, as we know, were particularly handy at this kind of thing, and gave us no little trouble.

n.o.body appears to have made any great effort to put down this piracy; but sometimes it was convenient to enlist the services of some of these hardy and adventurous ruffians against the enemies of the sovereign. In the year 1049, for instance, that excellent monarch, Edward the Confessor, finding the Danes very troublesome on the south coast, sent a force, under G.o.dwin, to deal with them; and we are told that it was composed of "two king's ships, and forty-two of the people's ships"; these latter being, no doubt, a collection of--let us hope--the less villainous of these sea-rovers, hardy and skilful seamen, and desperate fighters when it came to the point.

Nearly two hundred years later, in 1243, King Henry III. issued regular patents, or commissions, to certain persons, seamen by profession, "to annoy the king's enemies by sea or land wheresoever they are able," and enjoined all his faithful subjects to refrain from injuring or hindering them in this business; the condition being that half the plunder was to be given to the king, "in his wardrobe"--that is, his private purse--and it is quite probable that both the king and the recipients of his commission made a nice little profit out of it.

This is a genuine instance of what was known later as privateering; and it will be noticed that the "king's enemies" are specified as the only persons against whom the commission holds good; in other words, such a commission can have no significance, nor indeed can it be issued, in time of peace or against any friendly Power. This is an essential characteristic of privateering: it can only be carried on when a state of war exists, and the fitting out of a privateer to attack the subjects of any sovereign would in itself be an act of war.

Now let us see what is meant by a letter of marque; there is a good instance on record at the end of the thirteenth century, in the reign of Edward I.

One Bernard D'Ongressill, a merchant of Bayonne--at that time a portion of the realm of the King of England--in the year 1295, was making a peaceful, and, as he hoped, a profitable voyage from Barbary to England, in his ship the _St. Mary_, with a cargo of almonds, raisins, and figs; unfortunately he encountered heavy weather, and was compelled to run into Lagos--a small sea-port at the south-west corner of Portugal which affords secure shelter from westerly gales--and, while he was waiting for the weather to moderate, there came from Lisbon some armed men, who robbed D'Ongressill of the ship, cargo, and the private property of himself and his crew, and took the whole of their spoil to Lisbon. The King of Portugal very unscrupulously appropriated one-tenth of the plunder, the remainder being divided among the robbers.

The unhappy victim at once applied for redress to the king's representative, Sir John of Brittany, Lieutenant of Gascony, representing that he had lost some 700, and requesting that he might be granted letters of marque against the Portuguese, to take whatever he could from them, until he had made up his loss. This was conceded, and authority bestowed to "seize by right of marque,[1] retain, and appropriate the people of Portugal, and especially those of Lisbon and their goods, wheresoever they might be found," for five years, or until he had obtained rest.i.tution. This was dated in June: but the king's ratification was necessary, and this caused some delay, as Edward was at that time shut up in a Welsh castle; however, he was able in October to confirm the licence; but he added the proviso that if D'Ongressill took more than 700 worth from the Portuguese, he would be held answerable for the balance.

This is an excellent example of the form and import of a letter of marque; and it will be noticed that England was not at war with Portugal, nor did the issue of this letter of marque const.i.tute an act of war; it was, in fact, a licence to a private individual to recover by force from the subjects of another sovereign the goods of which he had been despoiled; the practice dates back, certainly, to the early part of the twelfth century, and probably further; and it was in use in England until the time of Charles II., or later. The one condition, not mentioned in the case of D'Ongressill, was that letters of marque should not be granted until every effort had been made to obtain a peaceful settlement; representations may, however, have been made to the King of Portugal; but if, as stated by D'Ongressill, he had pocketed a t.i.the of the spoil, one can imagine that there might be some difficulty in the matter; the possession of one-tenth would naturally appear, in the eyes of his Majesty of Portugal, to const.i.tute nine points of the law!

The application of the term letter of marque to vessels which were in reality privateers has caused a good deal of confusion; some naval historians of great repute have fallen into error over it, one of them, for instance, alluding to the commissions granted by Henry III., in 1243, as the "first recorded instance of the issue of letters of marque"; rather an inexcusable mistake, from which the present reader is happily exempt.

While guarding, in this explanation, against such confusion of terms, we must, notwithstanding, accept the ultimate adoption of it; and so we shall find included among our privateers and their commanders some who were quite improperly described as letters of marque, and one, at least, who may correctly be thus designated, but who, as an interesting example of a sort of privateering at an early period, appears to deserve mention.

The bearer of a letter of marque--or "mart," as it was constantly termed by writers and others of that cla.s.s of persons who never will take the trouble to p.r.o.nounce an unusual word properly--came to be adopted as the type of a sort of swashbuckler--a reckless, bullying individual, armed with doubtful credentials in the pursuit of some more or less discreditable object: allusion of this nature is made more than once by Beaumont and Fletcher in their plays, as well as by other writers.

The immense value of a fleet of privateers, more especially to a country opposed to another possessing a large mercantile marine, is obvious, and their use developed very rapidly.

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 princ.i.p.al 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 embarra.s.s 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 subst.i.tuting 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 a.s.sociated 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 cla.s.sed 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.

It appears desirable to allude to these instances, in order to antic.i.p.ate a possible question as to the exclusion of such famous seamen from these pages.

There is also considerable confusion among authors as to the distinction between a pirate and a privateer, some of them being apparently under the impression that the terms are synonymous, while others, through imperfect knowledge of the details and ignorance of international law, have cla.s.sed as pirates men who did not merit that opprobrious t.i.tle, and, on the other hand, have placed the "buccaneers"--who were sheer pirates--in the same category as legitimate privateers.

For instance, Captain Woodes Rogers, of whom we shall have a good deal to say later on, is alluded to by one writer as "little more than a pious pirate," and by another simply as a pirate, bent upon "undisguised robbery"; whereas he was, in fact, more than once in serious conflict with his crew, upon the occasion of their demanding the capture and plunder of a ship which he was not ent.i.tled to seize--and, moreover, he had his own way.

There have been, no doubt, and with equal certainty there will be, incidents in warfare which afford very unpleasant reading, and in which the aggressors appear to have been unduly harsh and exacting, not to say cruel, towards defenceless or vanquished people; but that does not prove that they were not within their rights, and to impugn the conduct of an individual from a hastily and perhaps ignorantly adopted moral standpoint, at the expense of the legal aspect of the matter, must obviously involve the risk of gross injustice. War is a very terrible thing, and is full of terrible incidents which are quite inevitable, and the rough must be taken with the smooth--if you can find any smooth!

It is an axiom of international law that, when two nations are at war, every subject of each is at war with every subject of the other; and, in view of this fact, it appears extremely doubtful whether any merchant vessel is not at liberty to capture one of the other side, if she be strong enough. It is, in fact, laid down by Sir Travers Twiss, a high authority, that if a merchant vessel, attacked by one of the enemy's men-of-war, should be strong enough to turn the tables, she would be ent.i.tled to make a prize of her: an unlikely incident, of course.

It is unnecessary, however, to enter upon further discussion of this subject, which would involve us in very knotty problems, upon some of which the most accomplished authorities are still at variance, and which would afford very indifferent entertainment for the reader, who will now turn over the page and follow the fortunes of our privateers--which will be found by no means devoid of interest, in spite of strict adherence to the plain unvarnished truth.

[Footnote 1: Sir Harris Nicolas, in his "History of the Royal Navy,"

interprets the Latin word _marcare_ (or _marchare_) "to mark," and, in referring to this incident, says that Bernard was accorded the right of "_marking_ the men and subjects of the King of Portugal," etc. It is curious that so diligent and accomplished a chronicler should have fallen into this error. The verb _marcare_, as he would have discovered by reference to the "Glossarium" of Du Cange, the learned French archaeologist, was in fact a bit of "law Latin," coined for a purpose; that is, to express in one word the rights conceded by a letter of marque; it will not be found in any ordinary Latin dictionary. The grant of a licence to "mark" the subjects of some monarch, and their goods, is, indeed somewhat of an absurdity--clearly, the "marker" would first have to catch the men and their possessions!]

[Footnote 2: In an original letter formerly in the possession of the late Sir William Laird Clowes, quoted by him in "The Royal Navy."]