Privateers

Abstract Attacks upon seaborne trade and shipping have been a feature of human maritime activity since the seas were first used for the transport of goods and people. Such violent assaults have assumed various forms, some being sanctioned by states and therefore deemed legitimate, whereas others have been perpetrated by unauthorized commerce‐raiders, often described as pirates. Among those empowered by states was the privateer, an individual who set forth his or her own vessel—also known as a privateer—to attack the seaborne properties of foreign citizens. Such predatory activity promised to generate significant benefits. To the state, which authorized the practice by the issuance of a license—variously known as a privateer commission, letter of marque, lettre de marque , or kaperbrief —the privateer might provide inexpensive military services, as well as serving as an instrument of economic warfare by damaging a rival's maritime interests. To those individuals who equipped and manned these privately owned ships‐of‐war, the rewards were chiefly economic, for privateering was essentially a form of enterprise in which shipowners and seafarers risked their capital and their lives in a quest to take properties that would subsequently be conveyed to their ownership by due process of prize law.