SHIPPING: Fortunes at Sea

The advertisement in the Boston Gazette made it sound like a holiday: “All those jolly fellows who love their country and want to make their fortune at one stroke, to repair immediately to the Rendezvous at the head of Hancock’s Wharf, where they will be received with a hearty welcome by a number of brave fellows there assembled and treated with that excellent liquor called grog …” When a band of fortune hunters gathers in response to such a lure, these “brave fellows” are soon recruited into the growing forces of legalized buccaneers whom General Washington calls “our rascally privateersmen.”

Rascally they may be, but the privateersmen are providing the embargo-ridden American economy with badly needed supplies and giving employment to thousands of Americans thrown out of work by the British blockade. Privateering was legalized throughout the Colonies by the Continental Congress only this past March, and today the privateer fleet already totals 136 ships with 1,360 guns—far outnumbering the Navy’s 31 vessels and 586 guns. Of the nearly 50 British ships captured since last November, the large majority have been seized by privateers. So privateering is becoming big business (it is estimated, for example, that Providence, Rhode Island, gained £300,000 from privateering and shipbuilding in about twelve months, double the value of all its property in 1774), but it is not always very “jolly.” Among the recent clashes:

> On June 6, the 14-gun brig Yankee Hero chased what it thought was a large unarmed merchantman off Newburyport, Massachusetts. The large vessel dropped the disguise from its gunports and revealed itself as the 34-gun British frigate Milford. When Captain James Tracy refused to surrender, the Milford’s guns pounded the Yankee Hero for two hours, killing or disabling nearly half its 40 crewmen. Tracy, wounded in the thigh, managed to gasp, “Strike the colors,” then fainted.

> On June 29, the six-gun brig Nancy was smuggling West Indian gunpowder to Philadelphia when she was trapped by British warships. Under cover of fog, her crew beached her off Cape May, New Jersey, and unloaded 265 barrels of powder—leaving behind just enough for a large explosion. They then lit a long fuse to a keg of powder and fled. Five of the British boats emerged from the fog and sent boarding parties onto the Nancy. Just as they took possession, with three cheers, the cached gunpowder went off. Says one witness: “Eleven dead bodies have since come on shore with two gold-laced hats and a leg with a garter.”

The increase in privateering has been slow and intermittent, like the war itself. The first official use of Continental privateers occurred outside Boston last October, even before the congressional authorization. General Washington, lacking any naval cruisers to attack the British ships bringing supplies to the forces besieged inside the city, hired vessels to start making raids. Within a month, one of them, the Lee, made a major catch—the ordnance brigantine Nancy, loaded with 2,000 muskets and bayonets, 3,000 rounds of 12-pound shot, a large supply of gunpowder, flints and a huge mortar.

To the victims, privateering is hardly different from piracy, but it has long been sanctioned by the laws of war. Both Congress and the individual colonies are now issuing privateering commissions and letters of marque (the latter to merchant ships that want to carry commercial cargo as well as arms for raiding). A captured cargo must be brought back before an Admiralty court, condemned, and sold at auction. The privateersman finances his own ship and sells to other backers a share in all captured goods. Even the officers and crew work for their portion—a third to a half share of the booty. If they are caught, they risk being hanged for piracy, since the British do not yet recognize the legality of American privateers, but no privateer has yet been punished by anything worse than imprisonment or impressment into the British Navy.

Despite all the risks, the rewards of privateering can be enormous. Elias Hasket Derby of Salem, for example, turned to privateering last March only after British warships had wrecked four of his vessels—and he expects this year’s earnings from raiding to total more than £40,000. Other notables who have invested in these speculative ventures include Congressman Robert Morris of Philadelphia, the Cabots of Boston, and even, despite his criticisms, General Washington. So has Washington’s artillery officer, Colonel Henry Knox. Says he: “I am exceedingly anxious to effect something in these fluctuating times, which may make us lazy for life.”