Our Privateer History: ‘Patriot Pirates’

Apart from the heroics of John Paul Jones, the Revolutionary War is not known for its naval battles. There were no epic set pieces à la Trafalgar, and the Continental Navy wasn’t much to look at anyway. But there was still plenty of action on the high seas.Indeed, as Robert H. Patton contends in “Patriot Pirates” (Pantheon, 320 pages, $26), maritime engagements would prove a decisive factor in the war, as hundred of American privateers harassed British merchant vessels and dueled Royal Navy warships. From the balmy West Indies to the icy waters of the northern Atlantic and beyond, American privateers ranged far, capturing provisions, raising revenue for the war effort, and enriching their crewmen. (They weren’t all campy Jack Sparrow types, either — many came from prominent families and cut dignified figures.) These mariners have been largely written out of official history — “privateers were not part of our navy,” noted the editors of “Naval Documents of the American Revolution” — but Mr. Patton (grandson of George S.) here restores them to their rightful place in the story of that struggle.Despite its intriguing subject matter and catchy title, there is less color in “Patriot Pirates” than you might expect. This isn’t pulp swashbuckling, but rather history in the manner of a dry, academic monograph. Still, Mr. Patton provides a carefully documented account. As he explains, the lure of cash money spurred the privateers in their missions, but so did the American cause. Privateers “attracted a slew of waterfront denizens as varied in seamanship as in motive and whose balance of greed and patriotism tilted from case to case,” he writes. The buzzing entrepreneurialism of the Colonies naturally lent itself to the aggressive, privateering spirit: As John Adams observed in 1776, “Thousands of schemes for privateering are afloat in American imaginations.” (Adams had a nice way with metaphors.) All in all, it wasn’t a bad deal for privateers — defend the republic; smite the British Empire; make a buck.Still, the founders had to set aside their doubts over how much economic self-interest might subvert republican virtue. Adams himself pushed Congress to sanction privateering, though George Washington wanted raids on British shipping limited to vessels in military support. But the necessity of war forced his hand. The British fought back hard, and Congress responded aggressively, deeming cargo “of what kind so ever shall be liable to seizure.” A free-for-all ensued. From 1778 to 1781, applications for privateering commissions soared. By the early 1780s, there were 500 private warships prowling for British quarry, while the fledgling Continental Navy had fewer than 10 vessels at sea. The Essex County, Mass., ports of Beverly, Salem, Marblehead, and Newburyport became hubs of privateering initiative, a point of pride for Adams.American ships earned a fearsome reputation as they took the fight to the British and put a dent in the economy of a formidable imperial power. One of the most renowned privateer captains — and most loathed by the British — was Gustavus Conyngham, known as “the Dunkirk pirate.” At the helm of the “Revenge,” he took 20 prizes in just 14 months. But one of the most enterprising figures of Mr. Patton’s pages was William Bingham, a Revolutionary-era wheeler-dealer who mastered what he called “the art of uniting war and commerce.”Wealthy and well educated, Bingham set up in French-controlled Martinique, in 1776 a thriving axis of arms trading and other prized goods. Bingham was charged with securing weaponry for the Continental Army, but was also an ambitious schemer. He sponsored several privateer ships, and soon found himself flush with cash. “Bingham’s privateering activities,” writes Mr. Patton, “vaulted him into the financial stratosphere.” (His take on just one shipload of coffee and sugar netted him more than quarter of a million in today’s dollars.) Congress worried that Bingham was getting out of hand, yet he severely disrupted Britain’s valuable Caribbean trade.Even so, American shipping took a beating from the British. As Mr. Patton notes, in one six-month span of 1776-77, 120 American vessels were captured in the West Indies, and thousands of prisoners taken. And the privateers themselves were hardly impervious to a well-aimed shot from the Royal Navy. To be a privateer meant being equal parts predator and prey.Mr. Price is a frequent contributor to Bookforum and other publications.

Our Privateer History: ‘Patriot Pirates’

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