 Hi, my name is Eric Dolan. I'm speaking to you from Marblehead, Massachusetts, which is my home And I want to thank the National Archives for inviting me to give this talk today on Rebels at Sea privateering in the American Revolution just a little more background on me I've been a full-time writer since about 2007. Most of my books are in American history Usually have a maritime component I've spoken at the National Archives a number of times in the past some of the books Include Leviathan the history of whaling in America fur fortune an empire a history of fur trade in America Black flags blue waters the epic history of America's most notorious pirates on my last Book a furious sky in the history of American hurricanes, but today I am here to talk about privateering in the American Revolution It was late in the day on june 3rd 1780 when Salem captain Jonathan Harrod in his privateer the pickering were heading for the friendly port of Bilbao, Spain The British privateer Achilles however stood in the way Nobody would have faulted Harrod had he fled in the face of this superior foe While the pickering had a crew of 38 men and 16 cannons The Achilles bristled with 130 men and 43 cannons Hardly a fair fight, but that's not the way that Harrod and saw it He relished the chance to confront the enemy and strike a blow for the revolutionary cause Turning to the British prisoner who had informed him of the Achilles might Harrod and said I shan't run from her And he didn't as the Achilles began its advance Harrod and told his men that though the Achilles appeared to be superior to them in force He had no doubt that they should beat her off if they were firm and steady And did not throw away their fire Meanwhile in Bilbao Word spread that there was about to be a major naval battle offshore Pitting the americans against the british and about a thousand people Wander to the beach to watch this spectacle Booming broad sides and musket fire filled the air one of harrod's crew said that while shot flew around him Harrod in was as calm and steady as amidst the shower of snowflakes The battle raged for more than two hours Then harrod ordered his men to fill the cannons with bar shot, which is essentially two cannon balls connected by an iron bar And when that exits the cannon It starts spinning wildly and it could destroy rigging sails and even masts and it did considerable damage to the Achilles Having had enough the Achilles turned and fled with the rebel commander close behind But even despite but despite its injuries the Achilles was too fast and got away Harrod and spun about to reclaim the golden eagle a british Merchantship that he had captured a few days earlier that the Achilles had briefly Reclaimed all told one of pickery's pickering's crew had been killed his head sheared off By a cannon ball and eight men were seriously wounded The number killed and wounded on board the Achilles is unknown And I just want to tell you a brief story about this picture you're looking at right here This is the top third of a plaque that was placed in Salem, Massachusetts Which is right next door to marble head where I'm speaking to you from It was placed there in 1909 to honor Harrod in's heroics in his battle against the Achilles Now while I was working on the book I read that this plaque was supposed to be on the side of a house Where harrod had lived and it was in Salem and it was right near the witch house So I hopped on my bike. I rode over there. Hopefully to get a picture of the plaque I couldn't find it. So I called the local historian and asked her what had happened to the plaque And she laughed a little bit. She goes. Well, it's on the inside of a korean barbecue restaurant About a block away from where it initially had hung So I went to this restaurant walked in the front door And there was this plaque behind the cash register And I think that that is just emblematic of the way that privateering during the american revolution has been treated in history It's sort of shunted off to the side Now harrod didn't remained in bilbao for two months before heading back to Salem on the return voyage the pickering captured three more british prizes and when uh, the pickering returned to Salem the owners Rewarded or presented their intrepid intrepid captain with a silver tanker shown here With the pickering etched into the side as well as his initials and two Uh mugs to accompany in it Now during his tenure in the massachusetts navy and as a privateer harrod and took many prizes Captured hundreds of cannons and as many british prisoners He died of tuberculosis at the age of 59 In 1803 and his obituary in the Salem gazette Louded him as one of the most able and valiant naval commanders that the war produced The pickering was one of nearly two thousand American privateers and those are the vessels and harrod was one of tens of thousands of privateersmen who manned those vessels during the revolution Privateers were armed vessels owned and outfitted by private individuals that had government permission To attack enemy ships at times of war That permission came in the form of a letter of mark A formal legal document that gave the bearer the right to seize vessels belonging to belligerent nations And claim those vessels and their cargos or prizes as the spoils of war The proceeds from the auction of these prizes were in turn split between the men Who crewed the privateers and the owners of the ship as well as those who had invested in the enterprise Despite the contributions made by harridan and tens of thousands of other privateersmen Many believed that privateering was a sideshow in the war Privateering has long been given short shrift in histories of the conflict general histories as well as maritime and naval histories of the american revolution Rebels at sea fills the void by offering a comprehensive account of privateering that demonstrates that it was critical To winning the war and that's one of the things that got me interested in writing this book Is that I felt that this aspect of the american revolution privateering had been overlooked too long And to really understand the revolution you have to take into account privateering american privateersmen took the maritime fight to the british and made them bleed In countless daring actions against british merchant ships and not a few warships privateers caused british maritime insurance rates to rise Diverted critical british resources to protecting their vessels and to attacking privateers Added to british weariness over the war which lasted nearly eight years And played a starring role in bringing france Into the war on the side of the americans Which was a critical turning point in the conflict On the domestic front privateering brought much needed goods and military supplies Into the nation provided cash infusions for the war effort Boosted coastal economies through the building outfitting and manning of privateers And bolstered america's confidence that it might actually win In this cruxotic attempt to defeat the most powerful nation of the day Thousands of books have approached the revolution from virtually every angle Rebels at sea places privateersmen most of whom were not famous or even well known individuals at the very center of the war effort It demonstrates that when the united states was only a tenuous idea They stepped forward and risked their lives to help make it a reality And fighting against the british on the seas the americans relied on four different maritime forces There were state navies Washington's secret navy which only operated for about a year near the beginning of the conflict The continental navy and privateers Of these four privateers were by far the most numerous And the most effective capturing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1600 to 1800 british ships Worth many millions of pounds Now massachusetts i'm speaking dear from was the first colony to authorize privateering in november of 1775 The importance of the massachusetts privateering act and unleashing The privateering in the colonies became even clearer in hindsight Some 40 years later john adams who is a big proponent of privateering as well as the continental navy Wrote that the passage of the massachusetts act is one of the most important documents in history The declaration of independence is a trifle In comparison with it and just consider that the declaration of independence which everybody knows about Adams felt that the massachusetts privateering act was much more important New hampshire and rhoda island followed suit in early 1776 with their own privateering statutes At the same time pressure was growing for the continental congress to come up with an umbrella program for privateering That would apply to all of the colonies instead of pursuing this piecemeal approach where individual colonies Decided on their own schedule to pursue privateering in his letter to and oh And the continental congress went ahead and on march 23 1776 They established a privateering law and the regulations about privateering were issued just a couple of weeks later In his letter to the colonies Announcing the law and the regulations john handcock president of the continental congress said It is necessary in conducting the warlike operations on the part of america To meet our enemy on every ground and defend ourselves in the best manner we can Against all attempts in whatever shape to deprive us of either liberty or property Privateers were to be a major part of the colonial war effort With their capital tied up at the docks merchants And ship owners eagerly pursued privateering The prizes brought in provided goods and ships that they could sell and alias haska derby shown here Out of salem. He owned 39 privateers He is reportedly the first millionaire in america, although i think john jacob aster Gives him a run for his money Now many invested in privateers indeed privateering spurred a speculative frenzy Across the colonies it was sort of like a mini Stock market where people took out shares in privateers and their expected success Among the more illustrious speculators was general george washington Who invested in at least one privateer appropriately enough called the general washington General's nathaniel green and henry nox as well as paul revere also invested in privateers Now privateer captains were typically known by the ship owners and they were contacted directly to take over The privateers alias davis senior shown here a fascinating character He was issued the last letter of mark in the entire american revolution in march of 1783 Well, the other story i want to tell about alias is when i was writing in this book. It was during covid and my daughter who is now a junior literary agent in new york city was home She was about 22 at the time and she was uh home and when i came across this picture I showed it to lily because i thought he was really handsome and she took a look at it And said you know dad i really could get into privateering So he's he's a fascinating guy. Have you ever come to the k-band museum on glosster? His house is attached to the museum and is well worth Visiting now privateer captains. They got the biggest share of the prizes The crewmen got smaller shares, but they also Benefited mightily now while crewmen were sometimes known by the owners Most of the time they weren't and they had to be found and enticed It was common at the time to see Advertisements like this one in colonial newspapers Where perspective privateers men would be invited to the local pub In what was called a hearty welcome They were applied with liquor Usually enormous quantities of liquor and asked to sign the articles of agreement which is which established their roles and responsibilities On the privateer in the book I have the receipts from one of these hearty welcomes and the amount of alcohol that was consumed is Fat a phenomenal and as people who know about colonial history You realize that Most people were in various states of mild or severe Inebriation during the day because they didn't trust water and they tended to drink alcohol instead Now black men served on many privateers some were freemen One of those was james fortin shown here of philadelphia At age 14 he signed on to the pennsylvania privateer royal lewis And the reason he signed on is because of two documents When the declaration of independence came out on july 8th of 1776 a few days after it was officially Signed it was read allowed in philadelphia and james fortin heard that reading And he took heart in the words the soaring rhetoric of the declaration of independence about men being created equal and thought perhaps that would Uh Would spread to all of his fellow Black men and women who were in the colonies and most of whom were treated horrifically In the practice of slavery Then four years later in 1780 pennsylvania became the first State to pass an abolition of slavery law It was only a gradual abolition of slavery if you were a current enslaved person You didn't get your freedom your children were freed when they reached age 28 But those two documents helped Make james fortin decide that he wanted to throw in his lot With his fellow americans and be a patriot instead of go over to the british side or just sit out the war So at age 14 he signed on to the pennsylvania privateer royal lewis fortin's job was to bring gunpowder to one of the Cannons where the men could prime the cannon and then fire the fire Into another ship Now the cruise was a triumph with the royal lewis capturing seven prizes and bringing them back to philadelphia There were some mishaps a cannon ball ripped through the hull Right where james fortin was and three of the men manning the cannon were killed But fortin survived fortin was so excited about the success of the royal lewis that he signed on for another Cruise he shouldn't have been so eager in hindsight because barely a day out of port The royal lewis was captured by the hms Ampheon whose captain was a guy named john basely fortin as he wrote in his Recollections or memoirs He basically thought that he was in really bad trouble because he said people of his complexion Who were captured by the british? Tended to be sent to the slave marks in the caribbean and he thought that that was going to be his fate But fortunately for him captain john basely had on board A 12 year old son who needed a companion and he chose fortin to be that companion And so for a few weeks fortin developed a strong relationship with basely's son So when basely and the hms ampheon pulled into new york harbor Where they were going to transfer all of the crew of the royal lewis to one of the prison ships there the dreaded jersey He gave fortin an option He said you can go to england and be the ward of my son You'll be free. You'll be educated and you'll have money. You'll have all the good things in life Or i can pass you off to the local prison master and you'll be placed on the jersey like the rest Of the men from your privateer and fortin decided That he would not turn on his country and he told him that i will not go to england I will have to go to the prison ship and he did he lasted for eight months Which is amazing given what i will tell you later about this prison ship And he was released he went back to philadelphia And after the war james fortin became one of the premier Salemakers in philadelphia and when he died in the early 1840s He was worth 70 000 dollars And he continued to hold on to the hope that his new nation Would live up to the soaring rhetoric of the declaration of independence and even won William Lloyd garrison some money just found the liberator uh the premier Anti-slavery publication of the era Now other black men were enslaved persons who ran off and joined privateers in a bid to gain their freedom And many owners also rented out there enslaved persons as a money-making scheme Now this picture is a just fascinating picture. It's contemporary painting in the american revolution And for many years it was thought to be the only non-painting of a black privateersman and as such it was valued at 300 000 dollars And it was also reproduced in a number of books that talked about black men and women's contributions to the revolution Now francis tavern in new york wanted to stage an exhibit many years ago that focused on uh black contributions to the american revolution And they wanted this painting to be the centerpiece of their exhibition So the owner of the painting sent it out to a local art conservator to get it spruced up The art conservator used a solvent to wipe the one of the hands and off came the black paint and revealed a White hand underneath sometime most likely in the mid 20th century Somebody realizing that a painting of a black privateersman of which there were none known Would be much more valuable than a painting of a white Mariner american mariner during the american revolution and he was right Because once this was discovered to be a forgery of a type its value sank to three thousand dollars And francis tavern was forced to withdraw the invitation for it to be the centerpiece of its exhibition Now there were also black men who were treated as transient property when privateers captured british slavers as they did quite often Off the west coast of africa they in turn became slave traders because they didn't free the slaves They sold them in slave marts in the colonies and in the caribbean Now many have argued that privateersmen were motivated more by greed than patriotism Fame naval officer john paul jones shown here believed it was nothing but greed Early on in the war he complained that the common class of mankind are actuated by no nobler principle than that of self interest This and this alone determines all adventures in privateers A less cynical assessment views privateersmen is being motivated by a combination of profits and patriotism And this view is closer to the truth Part of the reason privateering was scorned There was that many believed that the practice undermined the republican ideals of the revolution Which called for the sacrifice of private interests in the pursuit of liberty According to mercy otis warren author of one of the earliest histories of the revolution Privateering had a tendency to contract the mind and let it just shrink into selfless views and indulgencies totally inconsistent with genuine republicanism Many of the founding fathers and mothers and other elites agreed in principle I mean in theory, but in practice However, many elites had a more complex view of patriotism One that wasn't based on hewing to republican ideals above all else The majority of the delegates to congress clearly believed the privateering was a patriotic endeavor that served the public good They made it a major part of america's war effort and strategy fully aware that it was making some including a number of them Very rich had congress deemed the privateering worked against the public good Or wasn't a net benefit to the war effort They could have squashed privateering at any moment and recall all the letters of mark They never considered that possibility and that's because they didn't view patriotism and the pursuit of profit as being mutually exclusive Now the argument the privateers were only in it for the money implies that others engaged in the fight were not And that is absolutely not true While the men who rose up after the battle of bunker hill were burning with patriotic fervor That fire was difficult to maintain for many soldiers by later years of the war The only way that congress could keep some semblance of a strong fighting force was to use cash bonuses and promises of land To keep men on the front lines and even that often didn't work because the money was not forthcoming nor was the land Now the navy was no different The mariners had joined washington's navy as well as those who signed up for state navies And the continental navy were all partially motivated by money Each of the naval services offered officers and crew a cut of the profits in addition to their base salaries Otherwise, they wouldn't have served this recruiting poster Which was put together by john paul jones and was plastered all over the port of portsmouth new hampshire trying to obtain seamen to join the continental navy vessel ranger Could have just as easily been a recruiting poster for a privateer On it or in it They hold out the opportunity for anybody who signs on to distinguish themselves and the glorious cause of their country and To make their fortunes Who knows how many privateer owners and privateers men were moved by patriotic impulses But that percentage was surely in line with the levels of patriotism prevalent in the society at large As privateers men and soldier christopher prince said looking back on his revolutionary career Through the whole course of the war. I've had two motives in view One was the freedom of my country and the other was the luxuries of life Now privateers experienced many triumphs and tragedies during the war the pennsylvania Privateer brig hulker over the span of about four to five years of 11 different captains brought in 71 prizes In its most successful cruise it captured 10 large bridge British merchant ships Which were sold at the docks in philadelphia For two million pounds Newberry port merchant Nathaniel tracy was the principal owner of 47 privateers Which captured 120 bright 120 british ships and realized profits of nearly four million dollars Now one of the worst tragedies to befall privateers occurred during the panopscot expedition The largest american maritime force assembled during the revolution It consisted of 19 warships 12 of which were privateers Their mission was to dislodge british forces that were building a fort on the peninsula on a peninsula and main's Penobscot bay where modern-day castine is today. It's called fort george The expedition sailed from boston on july 19 1779 poor organization and leadership And a critical delay in launching the attack led to a fiasco When the british navy or part of it showed up at the mouth of panopscot bay on august 14th And included among its complement was a 64 gun warship It was a complete route in the end 16 american ships were burned by their own men to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy And the rest were captured or sunk as for the men soldiers and sailors alike They bolted into the woods and tried to find their way back to new hampshire in massachusetts before starving And apparently it was quite an amazing scene because most of the american ships Had cannons on board that had been primed for firing Against the fort But instead when they were lit the the ships were lit the cannons exploded adding to the fireworks How many americans died during the siege of panopscot and their precipitous flight is a matter of dispute With estimates ranging from as few as 33 to a high of nearly 500 And many have labeled this the most devastating naval defeat the united states suffered up until the japanese attack on pearl harbour in december 7th of 1941 Now one of the most important things that privateers did was to help bring france into the war on the side of the americans In the early years of the war france allowed american privateers in the caribbean and in france to use their ports Reprovision and sell prizes All of this was in violation of treaties that france had with great britain And that plus the damage done by the privateers Infuriated the british The continental congress sent william bingen to the french colony of martinique Where a large part of his job was to expand american privateering efforts It worked brilliantly in 1778 it was estimated that american privateers had captured 250 british ships in the caribbean and that trade between great britain and its sugar colonies Had plummeted by 66 So alarming were these figures that the earl of suffolk urged parliament to keep them from the public Pointing out the impropriety of acknowledging what ought not to be acknowledged at so critical a period The weakness of the nation Meanwhile, benjamin franklin who was in france to negotiate a formal alliance was convinced that privateering was helping The american cause with the french while at the same time injuring britain That's that which makes the greatest impression in our favor here franklin wrote is the prodigious success of our armed ships and privateers london's public advertiser asserted that if france continued to allow american privateers to use their ports An immediate war between france and this country will be the inevitable consequence The critical turning point in the war Critical turning point in getting france to ally with the american cause was of course the american victory Over gentlemen johnny bergoyne and his troops at saratoga on october 17 17 77 Just last week my son and i visited the battlefield which was a fascinating thing Now privateering while not causing a sharp turn in american fortunes on its own Help create the situation in which this great american victory Could prove decisive in bringing france into the conflict It did so by greatly increasing the enmity between france and britain and also inflicting serious damage on the british economy Now arguably the most horrific chapter in the american revolution concerned the prisons in england and the british Prisonships off new york city in both places american privateers have been made up the bulk of the prison Population the two main prisons in britain were known as mill and fortan prison and together they held only about 3 000 men during the war and their death rates were about three to six percent Which is not that bad compared to other prisons of this era Now mill and fortan prisons were bad enough however, but by far the worst experience any combatant had to endure Was a stay on one of the british prison ships moored off new york city Between 15 000 and 22 000 men were held on these ships All of the prison ships were horrific, but the jersey was by far the worst Nicknamed hella float the jersey had been a fourth rate 64 gun warship Uh, and it was basically placed in wallow bow bay, which is right near right off brooklyn Where the brooklyn navy yard is you can see the picture of it here. It was this masted essentially and permanently wedged into the Into the bay right there the the keel went into went into the mud and didn't move It was only a couple hundred feet from the shore now at any one time the jersey held between 800 and 50 and 1200 prisoners Between six and 12 men died every day every morning is the sun rose guards would yell rebels bring up your dead And those dead would then be rode to shore and buried in shallow graves That were often uncovered during high tides, uh, stormy conditions So the skeletons are what was left of the their dead comrades would basically roll into the water within sight of the jersey One inmate left the following damning portrait of his time on the jersey There were about 1100 prisoners on board. There were no berths or seats to lie down on not a bench to sit on Many were almost without clothes the dysentery fever frenzy and despair prevailed among them And filled the place with filth discussed and hara the scantiness of the allowance the bad quality of the provisions The brutality of the guards and the sick pining for comforts. They could not obtain All together furnished continually one of the greatest scenes of human distress and misery ever beheld Let's take a look at this side view of the jersey imagine 1200 men being kept on that in such horrible conditions The number of deaths on the jersey alone is shocking The best estimate points to it being roughly 11,500 The vast majority of which were american privateers By comparison in the entire war somewhere between 4400 and 6800 americans were killed in action Now one of the biggest criticisms of privateers is that they siphon valuable manpower From the continental navy and that is absolutely true Many men chose to join privateers rather than the navy in the hopes of earning more money But that doesn't mean that had there been no privateers the continental navy would suddenly have been transformed Into a fearsome fighting machine There are roughly 60 continental navy vessels in the atlantic throughout the revolution Building and assembling a navy from scratch would have been a gargantuan pass for a well functioning Well funded government for the relatively inexperienced poorly staffed and financially strapped Continental congress it was almost insurmountable challenge The continental navy's record in battle is not an enviable one 28 vessels were captured or destroyed and many others were lost at sea sold returned to france or burned To keep them from falling into enemy hands at war's end just a few navy ships were left There were however some bright spots for the continental navy Raids on caribbean munitions depots brought back much needed gunpowder Navy ships did an excellent job of ferrying correspondence and diplomats back and forth across the atlantic And continental navy ships captured Roughly 200 prizes most of which were merchant ships the same kind of prizes that privateers brought back To port and even this is the battle between the navy ship bond home richard john paul jones captain And the hms sarapas while it buoyed hopes And pride in the american colonies was really a period victory Because this the bond home richard ended up sinking more than 100 men were killed And the convoy that jane jones had been in search of got away during the battle Now nevertheless despite the bright sports bright spots of the continental navy in july of 1780 john adams reflecting on the fortunes of the navy wrote In looking over the long list of vessels belonging to the united states taken and destroyed And recollecting the whole history of the rise and progress of our navy It is very difficult to avoid tears The american revolution was the navy's first hour, but not its finest If there had been no privateers there would have been more men for naval ships There would have been more cannons and more ammunition to go on those ships But the absence of privateers would not have meant a larger or more or significantly more effective navy congress would not somehow have had more money to spend on naval vessels While many would have preferred that americans sent forth a powerful navy that was not a realistic option In the absence of such a force america relied heavily on its privateers Under such circumstances that was the best strategy available Whatever the critics said On the home front privateers contributed materially to the american economy Privateering was a great economic boon for coastal towns and cities Keeping many businesses afloat during the war and creating new ones as well as new fortunes And the money that privateers men earn helped them provide for their families and thereby give an additional jolt to local economies Each prize auction delivered a new stream of commodities into the colonies in august of 1779 A philadelphia wrote to congress Saying that privateers have rendered us the most essential services and brought us many articles for public and private use Without which the war could hardly have been supported Privateering also had a psychological in effect on the home front About 30 newspapers across the states Chronicle the revolution they had thousands of articles on privateering and maritime issues A number of those articles were critical of privateering, but most were positive And that caught that coverage gave people confidence that the larger war might still be won Which was particularly important, especially in the first years of the revolution When most of the news for the americans was disastrous or depressing The formal end of the war came on september 3rd 1783 When the treaty of paris was signed Surviving privateers that had been merchant men before the war now reverted to form While those vessels built for privateering were refitted as merchant men These ships now played their part in transporting america's wares to distant ports proudly flying the new nation's flag The men who owned and financed privateers as well as those who had chosen to fight for their country on the decks of these vessels Looked back on their accomplishments with pride and wondered as did all americans What the future would bring for themselves and their new country Now I have my website listed here and the reason I listed Is because there are a number of things on it that might be of interest if you in fact have any interest in this book Or any of my other books If you go to ericjdolyn.com You can read the introduction to all 15 of the books that I have written So you can get a sense of whether you might be interested in reading them The entire book it also lists all the places where I am speaking I've got about another 30 or so talks this summer. Most of them are in person in new england, but as far afield as california and mississippi So please take a look at the website if you want more information on me and my books And I just want to reiterate that part one of the main reasons that I wrote this book Is I felt that privateering had been neglected for too long by history and historians and we needed a book to pull together the entire story To make it clear that as george washington said Winning the revolution was a standing miracle and there were many many elements that went into that success I am not arguing that privateering was the most important But it was certainly critical and I believe without privateering the outcome of the war might have been quite different So with that, thank you for listening to me and I hope you get a chance to take a look at the book chat uh Okay, I've got a couple of questions. Can you comment on the possible existence of american pirates who may have fought with both american Privateers as well as british merchant ships Okay during the american revolution a lot of people have called privateering legalized piracy And that's because for many hundreds of years going back to the 13th century when privateering was first Initiated among european countries many privateers many individuals with letters of mark Actually acted just like pirates. They did not attack the enemies of the nation that had issued them the letters of mark They instead either attack Countries that they weren't at war with Or just other individuals. They basically acted like pirates. So francis draken is an example And during the king williams war in america Late 1600s a lot of american quote-unquote american privateers Instead of attacking the french which they were supposed to went around k-porn into the indian ocean and attack moogal ships Transiting between india and the red sea ports of jeta and mocha bringing that booty back home to the american colonies I talk about this extensively in my book black flags Blue waters the epic history of america's most notorious pirates And I also talk about the fact that the golden age of piracy the second part of it in the 17 teens was partly launched because Many british privateers who had worked and had been privateers during the war the spanish succession When that war concluded in 1713 suddenly they were thrown out of work basically britain was going through a depression So a number of them possibly even blackbeard Took the skills they had learned being a privateersman and applied it to becoming a pirate During the american revolution the american privateers. They were not legalized pirates They had a code of regulations that they operated under and they didn't just attack They weren't enemies of all nations. They didn't attack any ship afloat They attacked british ships or ones that were bringing british munitions to the british military And there was a very formal process. They had to go through and they often treated their prisoners quite well So they were not like pirates enemies of all mankind. They were fighting for a cause They had a profit motive. They acted like pirates in the sense that they captured ships But they also had patriotic motives and they were fighting on behalf of their country not on behalf of themselves only Which is what pirates typically did So that is uh, is there any private privateership in existence today? Not that I know of sort of like I wrote a book called leviathan the history of whaling in america There's only one wooden whale ship that you can still visit. I just visited it the other day when I spoke at mystic seaport That's the charles w morgan. I am not aware of any actual privateering vessel during the american revolution That is still around today There are some reproductions of privateering vessels from the war of 1812 that I know are around but those are reproductions Let's see. Can you comment about french privateering ships big question One of the things I learned in writing this book and I have to add that every book I've written with the exception of one has been on a topic I don't know a lot about before I start working on the book and that's to keep myself excited about the topic for the 18 months to nearly two years that it takes me to research and write these books I had no idea That privateering played a major role in getting the french to join us as allies But also once france joined us As allies they started issuing their own letters of mark and during the last years of the war hundreds of french privateers came out of french ports They often had american captains and some of those american captains performed so well they were given the highest naval awards From the french government after the war How do I compare them? They were very much like american privateers a lot of them were former merchant ships A lot of them were fishing vessels that would be modified to bring on more armaments They may cut some more holes in the bulwark to put more cannons in or down below But they were quite similar to american privateers and operated in a very similar Fashion so I can't answer that question any more specifically if there were some signal differences between french privateers and american privateers Other than the fact that a lot of american privateers had mostly americans on board But before france joined us as allies a lot of the american privateers That were operating out of french ports While captain and sometimes the first mate or second mate would be an american A lot of the men on board were french And that added to the complaints that the british had about the french essentially getting engaged in the war without being engaged in the war and whether they should Be attacked by the british Let me see I can't see Can you comment I think those are all the Question let's see american pirates. Yeah, those are all the questions. So I want to thank you again for taking a little bit of time to listen about Privateers and privateering and I hope you get a chance to read the book. Take care. Bye. Bye