There is something inherently romantic about the idea of going to sea in search of fame and fortune while supporting your country at the same time. Throughout the “Age of Fighting Sail.” American citizens who were not in the navy could do just that, through the issuance of a letter of Marque and Reprisal. Through such letters, the Continental and later U.S. navies gained a valuable auxiliary arm in the Revolution and War of 1812 against British commerce. The U.S. Navy was too small to greatly impact the economy of a global power like the British Empire, and citizen-outfitted ships and their crews performed a valuable service to their nation and allowed many to get rich very quickly from their efforts. This effort was called “privateering,” as involved not public, but privately funded “men of war” crewed by non-government crews.
The days of such efforts were already waning when European nations in the wake of the Crimean war signed the 1856 Declaration of Paris that effectively forbade the process of “privateering.” While the United States refused to sign this declaration, again for lack of a large navy to attack commerce, technological, political, and legal changes served to effectively end privateering before the outbreak of World War 1. Privateers in the modern world, especially in the heretofore peaceful Caribbean would face innumerable challenges in terms of intelligence, targeting, and above all, the safeguarding of sea lines of communication for U.S. commerce and U.S. citizens.
The Historical End of Privateers through Technology, Political, and Legal Instruments
While the Declaration of Paris is often cited as an end point for privateering, technological advancements and several key events made it very clear that the days of letters of marque and reprisal were over. Steam power provided many advantages in navigation and safety for ships of all kinds but also made them more dependent on fuel resupply. This affected privateering in that those with letters of marque could no longer hide at sea, with port appearances to refuel often the cause for the unmasking of such private men of war.
The development of the global telegraph system in the latter half of the 19th century, and later wireless communication allowed better exchange of information on ships engaged in privateering or other commerce raiding, again making it easier to track, localize and destroy these vessels. U.S. Minister to France, William L. Drayton, for example, was able to telegraph the presence of the Confederate raider Alabama in port Cherbourg, France to Captain John Winslow of the USS Kearsarge in Flushing, Netherlands to alert him. Warships in World War 1 engaging in counter-commerce campaigns such as Vice Admiral Maximillian von Spee and SMS Emden under Karl Mueller were also localized by modern communications and forced by their dependence on coal to approach ports where they were destroyed by waiting British naval forces, Soon the submarine became the only viable commerce hunter, but lacked the personnel needed to assign prize crews to captured ships. From this point on, destruction of commerce for military purposes overtook nearly all efforts to capture ships for their cargo value at sea.
Privateering also became a lot more dangerous when it is combined with attempts to influence events ashore. The Virginius Affair of 1873 demonstrated the speed at which one man’s privateer is another man’s dangerous insurgent to be executed. In 1873 the former Confederate blockade runner Virginius had been repurposed as an illicit arms smuggler to rebels fighting the Spanish government in Cuba. Virginius was captured by the Spanish warship Tornado, and her captive crew of American and British subjects were tried by a Spanish military court as pirates and sentenced to death. Despite British and American protests, 53 Virginius crew and passengers, including her captain Joseph Fry, were shot by Spanish authorities in Santiago de Cuba. The intervention of both a British (HMS Niobe,) and American (USS Wyoming,) threatening to bombard Santiago de Cuba brought the killing to end, and the British captain boldly coming ashore and refusing to shake the hand of the Spanish commander, saying, “I will not shake hands with a butcher.” Spanish action too was costly, and the Spanish government ultimately paid the U.S. government $80,000 in reparations for the deaths of U.S. citizens from the Virginius.
Privateering also became much more costly when those supporting raiding ships at sea found themselves in court. U.S. claims against Great Britain for the depredations of the Confederate raider Alabama were adjudicated by an internation arbitration from 1869 to 1873. The Confederacy issued its own letters of Marque and Reprisal at the start of the Civil War, but found few private vessel owners willing to take the risks. Theythen opted for purpose-built commerce raiders crewed by navy personnel. The United States charged that Great Britain was financially responsible in part for the destruction of U.S. commerce by Confederate raiders built and outfitted in part on British soil and sometimes crewed in part by British subjects. British legal opinion was that the United Kingdom was not responsible as the ships were not armed until outside British waters. Nonetheless, the United States demanded international arbitration and claimed $2b in damages or that Great Britain would cede Canada to the United States. The damages cited were ship losses incurred from not only the raider Alabama, but also the Florida, Lark,Tallahassee, and the Shenandoah, a raider never captured by Federal forces that surrendered to the Royal Navy after the Civil war ended.
The Arbitration that followed found in favor of the United States and Great Britain was ordered to pay the aggrieved nation $15,500,000.00. In today’s figures that’s over $405 million. . Britain was not happy, but was willing to pay to prevent further claims or threats to CanadaClearly support to privateering was something that could come back after the conflict and negatively affect sponsoring nation.
Privateering in the 21st Century
It would be a challenge to re-activate privateering through letters of marque and reprisal in the 21st century. First and foremost, what is the payoff for the would-be privateer in exchange for the risk and expense in outfitting an operating a private man of war? Can enough income be gained by capturing a modern, giant containership, or even drug smuggling boats? Possibly yes, but how does the would-be privateer move such a large vessel back to port to collect their profits? Are there enough unoccupied sailors that could be hired to serve as a prize crew for such a captured ship? What is it to prevent an adversary submarine or unmanned platform from just destroying the captured ship?
If the war goes badly, and the host nation loses, the privateers could subject the losing state to further financial burdens, with victors seeking compensation from those that funded privateering, as the U.S. did to Britain with the Alabama claims. The British government paid the financial bill for the depradations of the Alabama and her sister raiders, not the British shipbuilders who constructed those Confederate combatants. Do U.S. taxpayers want to be held financially liable for the actions of a few adventurous risk-takers? Perhaps not.
In addition to these questions, what happens when civilians, possibly untrained and unfamiliar with the laws of warfare, start waging their own war on adversary commerce? If captured, they could be executed just like the crew of the Virginius. The various drug cartels based in Central and South America have proven to be ruthless combatants when provoked. What is to stop them from continuing a fight with American contract warriors in the Caribbean in main street America, with the prospect for many casualties amongst uninvolved U.S. citizens.
In the worst case, privateering represents a rebuke to the long-held government monopoly on violence at the state level, a product of the end of the 30 Years War in Europe and the Peace of Westphalia, in whose wake saw the disbandment of land-based private armies for hire. While war at sea was more remote in the 19th and even the earlier 20th century it is so no longer and the same kinds of violence against civilians perpetrated by mercenaries on land could find its way to sea. The last time a private “military” vessel sought to go to war in state service was during the Somali piracy campaign of the 2000’s when the Blackwater Corporation ship McArthur was presented as a patrol ship for hire as part of the international campaign against Somali-based piracy in the Red Sea and Bab al Mandeb strait. NATO, European Union and U.S. authorities rejected this offer, and private men of war have yet to make a return to the world stage.
Issuing modern letters of Marque and Reprisal may seem a romantic and inexpensive solution to the problem to having too small a navy, or the wrong types of ships to intercept an adversary’s commerce or drug smugglers. Many however forget the challenges of privateering in the recent past, including advances in communication that revealed their location, the problem of fuel resupply, the need for prize crews, and the dangerous precedent of the U.S. government sharing its monopoly on violence in support of state goals with unpredictable, non-state actors. Maritime privateering belongs to the past and should remain there.
Dr. Steve Wills, is the Navalist at The Center for Maritime Strategy.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Dr. Steven Wills
There is something inherently romantic about the idea of going to sea in search of fame and fortune while supporting your country at the same time. Throughout the “Age of Fighting Sail.” American citizens who were not in the navy could do just that, through the issuance of a letter of Marque and Reprisal. Through such letters, the Continental and later U.S. navies gained a valuable auxiliary arm in the Revolution and War of 1812 against British commerce. The U.S. Navy was too small to greatly impact the economy of a global power like the British Empire, and citizen-outfitted ships and their crews performed a valuable service to their nation and allowed many to get rich very quickly from their efforts. This effort was called “privateering,” as involved not public, but privately funded “men of war” crewed by non-government crews.
The days of such efforts were already waning when European nations in the wake of the Crimean war signed the 1856 Declaration of Paris that effectively forbade the process of “privateering.” While the United States refused to sign this declaration, again for lack of a large navy to attack commerce, technological, political, and legal changes served to effectively end privateering before the outbreak of World War 1. Privateers in the modern world, especially in the heretofore peaceful Caribbean would face innumerable challenges in terms of intelligence, targeting, and above all, the safeguarding of sea lines of communication for U.S. commerce and U.S. citizens.
The Historical End of Privateers through Technology, Political, and Legal Instruments
While the Declaration of Paris is often cited as an end point for privateering, technological advancements and several key events made it very clear that the days of letters of marque and reprisal were over. Steam power provided many advantages in navigation and safety for ships of all kinds but also made them more dependent on fuel resupply. This affected privateering in that those with letters of marque could no longer hide at sea, with port appearances to refuel often the cause for the unmasking of such private men of war.
The development of the global telegraph system in the latter half of the 19th century, and later wireless communication allowed better exchange of information on ships engaged in privateering or other commerce raiding, again making it easier to track, localize and destroy these vessels. U.S. Minister to France, William L. Drayton, for example, was able to telegraph the presence of the Confederate raider Alabama in port Cherbourg, France to Captain John Winslow of the USS Kearsarge in Flushing, Netherlands to alert him. Warships in World War 1 engaging in counter-commerce campaigns such as Vice Admiral Maximillian von Spee and SMS Emden under Karl Mueller were also localized by modern communications and forced by their dependence on coal to approach ports where they were destroyed by waiting British naval forces, Soon the submarine became the only viable commerce hunter, but lacked the personnel needed to assign prize crews to captured ships. From this point on, destruction of commerce for military purposes overtook nearly all efforts to capture ships for their cargo value at sea.
Privateering also became a lot more dangerous when it is combined with attempts to influence events ashore. The Virginius Affair of 1873 demonstrated the speed at which one man’s privateer is another man’s dangerous insurgent to be executed. In 1873 the former Confederate blockade runner Virginius had been repurposed as an illicit arms smuggler to rebels fighting the Spanish government in Cuba. Virginius was captured by the Spanish warship Tornado, and her captive crew of American and British subjects were tried by a Spanish military court as pirates and sentenced to death. Despite British and American protests, 53 Virginius crew and passengers, including her captain Joseph Fry, were shot by Spanish authorities in Santiago de Cuba. The intervention of both a British (HMS Niobe,) and American (USS Wyoming,) threatening to bombard Santiago de Cuba brought the killing to end, and the British captain boldly coming ashore and refusing to shake the hand of the Spanish commander, saying, “I will not shake hands with a butcher.” Spanish action too was costly, and the Spanish government ultimately paid the U.S. government $80,000 in reparations for the deaths of U.S. citizens from the Virginius.
Privateering also became much more costly when those supporting raiding ships at sea found themselves in court. U.S. claims against Great Britain for the depredations of the Confederate raider Alabama were adjudicated by an internation arbitration from 1869 to 1873. The Confederacy issued its own letters of Marque and Reprisal at the start of the Civil War, but found few private vessel owners willing to take the risks. Theythen opted for purpose-built commerce raiders crewed by navy personnel. The United States charged that Great Britain was financially responsible in part for the destruction of U.S. commerce by Confederate raiders built and outfitted in part on British soil and sometimes crewed in part by British subjects. British legal opinion was that the United Kingdom was not responsible as the ships were not armed until outside British waters. Nonetheless, the United States demanded international arbitration and claimed $2b in damages or that Great Britain would cede Canada to the United States. The damages cited were ship losses incurred from not only the raider Alabama, but also the Florida, Lark, Tallahassee, and the Shenandoah, a raider never captured by Federal forces that surrendered to the Royal Navy after the Civil war ended.
The Arbitration that followed found in favor of the United States and Great Britain was ordered to pay the aggrieved nation $15,500,000.00. In today’s figures that’s over $405 million. . Britain was not happy, but was willing to pay to prevent further claims or threats to CanadaClearly support to privateering was something that could come back after the conflict and negatively affect sponsoring nation.
Privateering in the 21st Century
It would be a challenge to re-activate privateering through letters of marque and reprisal in the 21st century. First and foremost, what is the payoff for the would-be privateer in exchange for the risk and expense in outfitting an operating a private man of war? Can enough income be gained by capturing a modern, giant containership, or even drug smuggling boats? Possibly yes, but how does the would-be privateer move such a large vessel back to port to collect their profits? Are there enough unoccupied sailors that could be hired to serve as a prize crew for such a captured ship? What is it to prevent an adversary submarine or unmanned platform from just destroying the captured ship?
If the war goes badly, and the host nation loses, the privateers could subject the losing state to further financial burdens, with victors seeking compensation from those that funded privateering, as the U.S. did to Britain with the Alabama claims. The British government paid the financial bill for the depradations of the Alabama and her sister raiders, not the British shipbuilders who constructed those Confederate combatants. Do U.S. taxpayers want to be held financially liable for the actions of a few adventurous risk-takers? Perhaps not.
In addition to these questions, what happens when civilians, possibly untrained and unfamiliar with the laws of warfare, start waging their own war on adversary commerce? If captured, they could be executed just like the crew of the Virginius. The various drug cartels based in Central and South America have proven to be ruthless combatants when provoked. What is to stop them from continuing a fight with American contract warriors in the Caribbean in main street America, with the prospect for many casualties amongst uninvolved U.S. citizens.
In the worst case, privateering represents a rebuke to the long-held government monopoly on violence at the state level, a product of the end of the 30 Years War in Europe and the Peace of Westphalia, in whose wake saw the disbandment of land-based private armies for hire. While war at sea was more remote in the 19th and even the earlier 20th century it is so no longer and the same kinds of violence against civilians perpetrated by mercenaries on land could find its way to sea. The last time a private “military” vessel sought to go to war in state service was during the Somali piracy campaign of the 2000’s when the Blackwater Corporation ship McArthur was presented as a patrol ship for hire as part of the international campaign against Somali-based piracy in the Red Sea and Bab al Mandeb strait. NATO, European Union and U.S. authorities rejected this offer, and private men of war have yet to make a return to the world stage.
Issuing modern letters of Marque and Reprisal may seem a romantic and inexpensive solution to the problem to having too small a navy, or the wrong types of ships to intercept an adversary’s commerce or drug smugglers. Many however forget the challenges of privateering in the recent past, including advances in communication that revealed their location, the problem of fuel resupply, the need for prize crews, and the dangerous precedent of the U.S. government sharing its monopoly on violence in support of state goals with unpredictable, non-state actors. Maritime privateering belongs to the past and should remain there.
Dr. Steve Wills, is the Navalist at The Center for Maritime Strategy.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.