The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Privateers

- Click here for the article.

Students of the U.S. Constitution will remember the peculiar phrase used in Article 1, section 8, that gives Congress the power to “grant letters of marque and reprisal.” A clue to the phrase’s meaning and a sign of its importance may be surmised from the power granted immediately prior to it in the Constitution: Congress’s power “to declare war.”

Letters of marque and reprisal, granted as early as the twelfth century, were designed to bring the anarchy of retaliation under the rule of law. A merchant whose property had been stolen could apply to his sovereign for a permit to take limited actions for the purpose of restitution, not revenge, against specified agents. A private cause of action was initially required, but in wartime sovereigns began to issue letters of marque and reprisal that were good against any enemy ship. Thus, private means were used to wage public wars.

Public navies were expensive, especially because they had to be maintained in peacetime as well as in wartime, and, until the late nineteenth century, tax systems tended to be ineffectual and inefficient. Governments, therefore, sometimes relied heavily on private initiative and enterprise to fight their wars. With a few extra cannon and men, a merchant vessel could be converted into a commissioned vessel capable of capturing small prizes should any cross its trading route. The more adventurous might build ships solely for the purpose of capturing prizes. The merchant vessels went on “voyages”; the commissioned vessels “cruised” and became known as privateers. The great era of Elizabethan exploration and expansion, for example, was financed and run by privateers. Sir Francis Drake, Sir Martin Frobisher, and Sir Walter Raleigh all operated as privateers with the Crown as partner.

Related: 

- The Law of Nations.

- Letter of Marque.

- Privateer.

- Sea lines of communication.

- Piracy.

- Corsairs.