Rebels at sea, p.7
Rebels at Sea, page 7
Confound the ill luck, sir, I was going to sea myself on board the Rattlesnake and my wife fell a yelping. These wives are queer things. I told her I wondered she had no more ambition. Now, says I, when you walk the street, and anybody asks who that is? The answer is “Byrne the Barber’s wife.” Should you not be better pleased to hear it said, “That is Captain Byrne’s lady, the Captain of marines on board the Rattlesnake?”
Oh! says she, I had rather be called Byrne the barber’s wife, than Captain Byrne’s Widow. I don’t desire to live better, than you maintain me, my dear.
So it is, sir, by this sweet, honey language I am choused [cheated] out of my prizes, and must go on, with my soap and razors and pinchers and combs. I wish she had more ambition.
After relaying this melancholy account to his wife, Adams added, “If this letter should be intercepted by the Tories, they will get a booty—let them enjoy it.”
Byrne’s story contained more than an element of truth. Throughout the colonies, the draw of privateering was strong, as shown by the tens of thousands of men who enthusiastically signed on to cruises. Although privateering depended on the skill and brawn of officers and crews, it was shipowners and investors who got individual ventures off the ground.
The Boston Port Act and the Restraining Act, on a limited basis, and then the Prohibitory Act, covering all the colonies, nearly shut down American maritime commerce. Sailors and fishermen were out of work, and the vessels they had sailed on were idled. With their capital tied up at the docks or moored in the harbors, shipowners eagerly pursued privateering as a means of reinvigorating their business or to avoid bankruptcy. Prizes brought in by privateers provided goods and ships they could sell, and dual-purpose letters of marque held out the opportunity of profiting from cargoes transported and prizes captured along the way. As a group of Bostonians concluded at a town meeting in 1781, “The stagnation of the fishery furnished us with the means of cruising against the enemy’s property, and ’tis to the astonishing successes that have hitherto attended to that kind of enterprise, that we owe the principal part of our present trade.”
Nathaniel Shaw’s granite mansion in New London, now home to the New London County Historical Society. Shaw and two of his sons, Nathaniel Shaw Jr. and Thomas Shaw, were leading merchants of the day, and this house served as the headquarters for the Connecticut navy. Nearly fifty privateers sailed from New London during the war; many were fully or partly owned by the Shaws. Photograph taken in the 1930s.
Merchants were also motivated by anger. This can be seen in the transformation of Robert Morris. In September 1776 he wrote to Silas Deane that even though “those who have engaged in privateering are making large fortunes in a most rapid manner, I have not meddled in this business which I confess does not square with my principles for I have long had extensive connections and dealings with many worthy men in England and could not consent to take any part of their property because the government have seized mine, which is the case in several instances.” By December, Morris had changed his mind. “You must know,” he wrote to a business associate, “I had determined not to be concerned in privateering but having had several vessels taken from me and otherways lost a great deal of my property by this war, I conceive myself perfectly justifiable in the eyes of god or man to seek what I have lost, from those that have plundered me.” Morris proceeded to make his first investment in a privateer, and when that privateer captured thirteen prizes, he let go of any remaining reservations. “My scruples about privateering are all done away” with, he wrote to that same associate in April 1777. “I have seen such rapine, plunder & destruction denounced against and executed on the Americans that I join you in thinking it a duty to oppose and distress so merciless an enemy in every shape we can[.]” Fueled by a desire to strike back—and surely by the immense returns as well—Morris spearheaded multiple privateering ventures.
Early twentieth-century picture of a painting of Robert Morris by Charles Willson Peale.
One of the most active merchant-privateers was Elias Hasket Derby, of Salem, Massachusetts. A bustling seaport town of roughly five thousand on the eve of the Revolution, Salem saw its sizable commercial fleet idled by the war and punitive British actions. Many of Salem’s leading merchants transitioned to privateering, none more successfully than Derby, whose family had been engaged in maritime trade since the late 1600s. Of the 158 privateers Salem launched during the war, 39 of them were either owned or partially owned by Derby.
Another privateering baron was Philadelphia’s Blair McClenachan. After serving in the Continental army and seeing action at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, this Scottish immigrant set his sights on the sea. From 1777 through the end of the war, McClenachan owned or had a major stake in fifty-five privateers. Many of them were extremely successful, their profits leading Americans to call him the “Midas” of the Revolution. Some of the men on his privateers even took to affectionately calling him “The Millionaire Maker.”
Shipowners such as Morris, Derby, and McClenachan often invested in privateering ventures involving other men’s vessels. But there was another class of men who were not shipowners themselves but crucial to privateering solely as investors. Privateering spurred a speculative frenzy across the colonies. Among the more illustrious speculators was General George Washington, who invested in at least one privateer (appropriately enough, the General Washington). Generals Nathanael Greene and Henry Knox, as well as Elbridge Gerry, each invested in multiple ventures. Other noted personages who gambled on privateering included Samuel A. Otis, a Boston merchant who served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and was a purchasing agent for the army’s quartermaster general, Greene; Isaac Sears, an early leader of New York’s Sons of Liberty and a man who was ironically dubbed “King Sears” for his role in fomenting anti-British demonstrations in the years leading up to the Revolution; John Winthrop, Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard, and former acting president of the university; and Paul Revere, the Boston silversmith whose midnight ride on April 18, 1775, warning the countryside that the British regulars were coming was immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s largely inaccurate 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
A view of the Salem waterfront, circa 1770s.
Beyond owning or investing in a privateer, there was yet another method of profiting from privateering. One could bet on the outcome of a cruise by paying a crewman for the rights to a portion of his future prize earnings. Such transactions benefited the privateers by giving them ready cash that could help them support their families while they were away. But the purchaser only gained if the cruise was a success, and that was by no means assured. More than a few privateering ventures went bust, meaning that there were no profits to share. When Andrew Sherburne, a New Hampshire boy of fifteen, sailed with the privateer Alexander, he granted power of attorney to his mother, giving her free rein to sell interest in his prize share while he was away. She exercised that option by selling one-quarter of his share for seventy dollars. While the purchaser lost his entire investment when the Alexander came back empty-handed, the seventy dollars was a boon to Sherburne’s mother, enabling her to buy firewood, fodder for her only cow, and other essentials.
Whether as owners, investors, or purchasers of future earnings, wiser speculators factored in the fluctuations of the privateering enterprise and spread their money across many ventures. As Morris observed, “It is well worth risking largely, for one arrival will pay for two, three, or four losses, therefore it is best to keep doing something constantly.”
Just as the prospect of making money motivated privateer owners and investors, so too did it motivate the crews. Captains and officers were typically men known to the owners by virtue of past service or reputation, and would usually be hired directly and offered the largest number of shares of any prizes taken. While crewmen were sometimes known by the owners prior to being hired, in most cases they were not, and had to be found and enticed.
Advertisement in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, August 4, 1781, encouraging men to join the privateer sloop Hope.
It was common to see advertisements in colonial newspapers encouraging men to sign on for a cruise. One that ran in the Boston Gazette on November 13, 1780, was headlined “An Invitation to all brave Seamen and Marines, who have an inclination to serve their country and make their fortunes.” It continued:
The grand privateer Ship Deane, commanded by Elisha Hinman, esquire, will sail on a cruise against the enemies of the United States of America, by the 20th instant. The Deane [has] 30 carriage guns,* and is excellently well calculated for attacks, defenses, and pursuit. This therefore is to invite 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 his excellency’s, Governor 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,† which is allowed by all true seamen, to be the LIQUOR OF LIFE.
The “hearty welcome” was a common tactic that privateer owners employed to get men to join the crew. Those who responded to a privateer recruiting ad in Salem in the summer of 1781 were feted at raucous multi-day gatherings at a local pub where the owners racked up a healthy bill supplying sixty-seven and a half bowls of punch, nine and a half bowls of grog, and thirty-six bowls of cherry toddy.
For many young men, joining a privateer represented an opportunity for adventure and fortune and also, perhaps, a chance to escape stultifying manual labor. As one New Hampshire mariner who would serve on a navy ship and a privateer related, “At this period it was not an uncommon thing for lads to come out of the country, step on board a privateer, make a cruise and return home, their friends remaining in entire ignorance of their fate until they heard it from themselves. . . . There was a disposition in commanders of privateers and recruiting officers to encourage this spirit of enterprise in young men and boys. Though these rash young adventurers did not count the cost, or think of looking at the dark side of the picture, yet this spirit, amidst the despondency of many, enabled our country to maintain a successful struggle and finally achieve her independence.”
Once lured in, the men had to sign the ship’s articles—the agreement between the captain and the crew laying out the owner’s and captain’s responsibilities, the duties of the crew while on board, rewards and punishments for certain behaviors, and the share distribution. The agreement for the privateer sloop Hibernia, which sailed from New London on October 10, 1780, included twelve articles. Under Article I, the owners agreed to fit out the Hibernia at their own expense and provide arms and food sufficient to last for a two-month cruise. In return, they would receive half of all prizes taken during the cruise. Additional articles spelled out incentives and disincentives for various actions. The first man to sight a valid prize was awarded a finder’s fee of £100, and the first to board the enemy’s ship after orders for boarding were issued would receive £300 “as recompence for his valor.” If an officer or crewman shirked his duty or, worse, was found guilty of cowardice, mutiny, theft, embezzlement, concealment of any goods, or “any violence to a male or indecency to a female prisoner,” he would forfeit his share(s) and “suffer such other punishment as the crime may deserve.”
There was also a form of workmen’s compensation. Should anyone, during an engagement with the enemy, lose a leg or arm, or otherwise be “so disabled as not to earn his bread,” he was entitled to £1,000 from the profits generated by the first prize. Each person on board was allotted a specific number of shares, deducted from the 50 percent of the prize money due the ship’s company. The captain received the most, eight shares, while boys under the age of sixteen were at the bottom of the scale, with half a share each. Other payouts included the surgeon, who received four shares, the carpenter, cook, and sailmaker, who each received two, and the gunner’s mate and boatswain, who were given one and a half apiece. The articles set aside seven “dead shares” to be distributed at the end of the cruise to those men who had contributed most to making it a success. The Hibernia’s articles of agreement were typical, and many others had similar provisions, although the particulars might vary from venture to venture.
Who signed on? Privateersmen are invariably described as being men because virtually all of them were. But there was at least one potential exception. According to early nineteenth-century historian Edgar Stanton Maclay, when the American privateer Revenge was captured by the British privateer Belle Poole, one of the men on board the Revenge stepped forward and announced that he was a she. “Her love for adventure had induced her to don male attire, and she had been serving many months without her sex having been known.” Unfortunately, Maclay doesn’t cite his sources, and a diligent search by this author failed to uncover any primary documents that would further illuminate this story. But, even if true, this female privateer stands alone in the known annals of the Revolution. There are, however, verified examples of women dressing as men and serving on whaling ships, in the Continental army, and on pirate ships, so the notion that some women joined privateers is possible.
While the sex of privateersmen is quite clear, identifying other common characteristics is more difficult.‡ There is no single source recording the ages or backgrounds of the many tens of thousands who became privateersmen. A sample of a few privateersmen would not necessarily reflect the whole. Nevertheless, there are some worthwhile generalizations that can be made. The average age of men serving in the Continental army was in the low to mid-twenties, and it is likely that the same was true on board privateers, since the average age of colonists hovered around sixteen, and going to sea, even for short periods of time, was not something for the faint of heart or weak in constitution. Lending further support to this range is the fact that the average age of professional seamen at this time was around twenty-five.
Many privateers had maritime backgrounds, something that roughly one in ten colonists could boast of. Privateering regulations set down by Congress, however, required that one-third of the crew be landsmen. Although there is little evidence that this was enforced, a significant number of privateersmen were landsmen, especially toward the end of the war, when many mariners had either been killed at sea or placed in prison. These landsmen, or green hands, had to learn on the job, likely experiencing bouts of seasickness and days or weeks of being thoroughly confused about a vessel’s rigging and operation.
Privateer crews were frequently comprised of men and boys who knew each other. In fishing towns such as Marblehead, it was common for friends as well as multiple members of extended families to sign up for the same privateer. An extreme example was the privateer Thorn, which sailed out of Newburyport in early 1781. Captain Samuel Tucker and virtually all of the men in the 124-member crew hailed from Marblehead. Thirty-three were related.
After relinquishing command of the Continental navy ship Lexington, John Barry looked for another navy post, but there were too many commanders and too few ships. So he became captain of the Philadelphia privateer Delaware, which he took on two successful cruises. Engraving of John Barry, by J. B. Longacre, after the painting by Gilbert Stuart, circa 1859.
Many privateersmen also served on Continental navy vessels. They transitioned between the various forms of maritime service depending on a range of factors, including the desire to earn more money, and limitations on the number of available berths on naval ships. By one account, sixty men who captained privateers had also commanded or served as officers on Continental navy ships during the war. Many would go on to great fame after the war, establishing naval careers based in part on skills acquired during their privateering past. These men include Silas Talbot, future commander of the USS Constitution; Thomas Truxtun, who would be one of the original six commanders appointed by George Washington to the first permanent navy in the United States, established in 1794; and John Barry, often called the father of the U.S. Navy, who had an illustrious naval career during the Revolution and would rekindle his fame during the Quasi-War with France (1798–1800) as commander of the fleet.
Privateers also pulled men from the army, again for a variety of reasons, among them the prospect of striking it rich and the opportunity to serve the revolutionary cause by other means. The latter is what compelled James Campbell, a lieutenant in the eighth company of Maryland’s forces, to submit his resignation on May 1, 1776. In the letter announcing his decision to join the Baltimore privateer Enterprize, he assured his superiors that “no consideration would induce me to leave the service but the hopes of being more useful in another department.” His superior echoed this justification, informing the Maryland Council of Safety that Campbell was leaving the company “in order to be of more essential service to his country by distressing the trade of our enemies in a privateer.”
