VoyForums

[ VoyUser Login optional ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3], 4 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 09:02:00 11/27/08 Thu
Author: Albert Parker
Subject: Re: Privateers
In reply to: Ron 's message, "Re: Privateers" on 22:47:04 11/26/08 Wed

I think there is some confusion about terminology, possibly because of different practices in different countries. I believe that there was an body of international law, at least in the Atlantic, governing warfare at sea. There might have been formal treaties that remained in force during declared wars, and there certainly seems to have been a set of understandings among European governments. For example, it was understood that prisoners of war were not to be executed, were to be fed by and at the expense of the capturing state, etc.

I think that it might help to think about a two-dimensional classification of armed ships at sea, asking two questions: Was the ship built at the expense of the government? and Were the officers and crew paid by the government?

Built by government: YES
Crew paid by government: YES
These were the purpose built warships being used by the "navy," the government department organized to monopolize violence at sea.

Built by government: YES
Crew paid by government: NO
I have only encountered this arrangement in France. From time to time, the French navy had more warships, designed as such and built at the expense of the government, than it had money to outfit and pay crews to man. In both the War of the Spanish Succession and the War of the Austrian Succession, private entrepreneurs were allowed to use these vessels, fit them out and pay crews at their own expense, and go to sea to prey on enemy (British, mostly, but including Dutch in the WSS) merchant shipping. I don't know what the terms were--whether the private individuals paid a fee or just shared their profits with the King. At least in the case of de Lage de Ceuilly's squadron in the Mediterranean in 1746, the naval conscription system (inscription maritime) seems to have been used to obtain sailors, as if the ships were still in navy service; but the costs were borne by de Lage, not by Louis XV. I'm not sure that there is an English term for vessels of this type. They had the motives of privateers but especially in the WSS they sometimes acted like navy battle squadrons, attacking the ships of the line escorting major convoys, as in the Batttle of the Lizard. An odd example of this type of arrangement was His Most Christian Majesty's Ship Elisabeth, a ship of the line of about 60 guns that was fitted out by Jacobites at Nantes to escort Prince Charles Edward Stuart (the "Young Pretender" or "Bonnie Prince Charlie") to Scotland for the nationalistic Scottish revolt known as "The '45," and to carry money and weapons for the rising. When Elisabeth and the smaller, faster, and more weatherly, but weakly armed, vessel in which Prince Charles was embarked, encountered HBMS Lion, 58, Elisabeth and Lion fought a bloodly drawn battle that enabled the Prince to continue on to Scotland but required Elisabeth to return to France, denying the Prince most of his money and munitions.

Built by government: NO
Crew paid by government: YES
This category includes various hired private vessels. The British navy used this type to obtain large numbers of smaller warshisp quicker than it could build them. In the 17th century, this category had included medium-sized ships. At that time, they might be hired with their merchant officers and crew, a body of government-paid soldiers or artillery experts and gentlemen officers being put on board to serve the guns, provide small-arms fire, and ensure that the civilians followed the orders of their admiral. By the 18th century, the British government usually just rented the hull, with no crew, and put on board officers and seamen just as if the vessel had been a purpose-built warship. An example from the War of American Independence was the Countess of Scarborough, consort of HBMS Serapis in escorting the inbound Baltic Convoy in 1779, and, like Serapis, captured by the squadron of John Paul Jones in the Battle of Flamborough Head.

Built by government: NO
Crew paid by government: NO
These are what I have always understood were meant by the English word "privateer." Ken has described the requirements these vessels had to meet to avoid being classified (and their crews prosecuted) as "pirates." Note that to be a privateer, an armed vessel had to meet two basic requirements: (1) It could only attack vessels registered to or flying the flag of a government with which its own government was in a state of formal declared war, and (2) It had to have a license to do so issued by its own government. If either of these conditions was not true, the vessel and its crew were pirates.

It's not at all clear to me whether the vessels described as Russian "privateers" in the Black Sea, 17878-92, were really privately-built vessels with privately-padi officers and crew.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 2.94, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2008 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.