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JEAN BART, A FAMOUS FRENCH PRIVATEER CAPTAIN 202

From an engraving by J. Chapman.

REN? DUGUAY-TROUIN, A FAMOUS FRENCH PRIVATEER CAPTAIN 226

CAPTURE OF THE FRENCH PRIVATEER "JEUNE RICHARD" BY THE "WINDSOR CASTLE" PACKET 356

From an engraving by William Ward after the painting by S. Drummond, A.R.A.

INTRODUCTORY

INTRODUCTORY

The privateersman, scouring the seas in his swift, rakish craft, plundering the merchant vessels of the enemy, and occasionally engaging in a desperate encounter with an opponent of his own class, or even with a well-equipped man-of-war, has always presented a romantic and fascinating personality. Many thrilling tales, half truth, half fiction, have been written about him; and if he has not infrequently been confounded with his first cousin the pirate, it must be admitted that for such confusion there is considerable justification. The privateer is a licensed, the pirate an unlicensed, plunderer; but plunder, not patriotism, being, as a rule, the motive of the former, it is not perhaps surprising that, failing legitimate prey, he has sometimes adopted, to a great extent, the tactics of the latter.

Before proceeding to give an account of some of these licensed rovers and their adventures, let us consider for a moment or two the origin and development of privateering; this will assist us in forming an appreciation of the advantages and drawbacks of the system, and also of the difficulties which presented themselves to an honest and conscientious privateer captain--for such there have been, as we shall see, though there are not too many who merit such terms.

There is no doubt that the employment of private vessels for the purposes of war, and the granting of letters of marque, went on side by side for a great number of years. From the earliest times, before the Norman Conquest, there were hordes of sea-rovers who, entirely on their own account, and solely for the purpose of plunder, infested the seas, robbing without scruple or distinction every defenceless vessel they encountered, and in many instances wantonly slaughtering the crews; they would also, on occasion, make a descent upon the coast either of their own or some adjacent country--they were quite impartial in this respect--and sack the farms and dwellings within easy reach, retiring to their vessels before any force could be assembled to deal with them. The Danes, as we know, were particularly handy at this kind of thing, and gave us no little trouble.

Nobody appears to have made any great effort to put down this piracy; but sometimes it was convenient to enlist the services of some of these hardy and adventurous ruffians against the enemies of the sovereign. In the year 1049, for instance, that excellent monarch, Edward the Confessor, finding the Danes very troublesome on the south coast, sent a force, under Godwin, to deal with them; and we are told that it was composed of "two king's ships, and forty-two of the people's ships"; these latter being, no doubt, a collection of--let us hope--the less villainous of these sea-rovers, hardy and skilful seamen, and desperate fighters when it came to the point.

This is a genuine instance of what was known later as privateering; and it will be noticed that the "king's enemies" are specified as the only persons against whom the commission holds good; in other words, such a commission can have no significance, nor indeed can it be issued, in time of peace or against any friendly Power. This is an essential characteristic of privateering: it can only be carried on when a state of war exists, and the fitting out of a privateer to attack the subjects of any sovereign would in itself be an act of war.

The unhappy victim at once applied for redress to the king's representative, Sir John of Brittany, Lieutenant of Gascony, representing that he had lost some ?700, and requesting that he might be granted letters of marque against the Portuguese, to take whatever he could from them, until he had made up his loss. This was conceded, and authority bestowed to "seize by right of marque, retain, and appropriate the people of Portugal, and especially those of Lisbon and their goods, wheresoever they might be found," for five years, or until he had obtained restitution. This was dated in June: but the king's ratification was necessary, and this caused some delay, as Edward was at that time shut up in a Welsh castle; however, he was able in October to confirm the licence; but he added the proviso that if D'Ongressill took more than ?700 worth from the Portuguese, he would be held answerable for the balance.

While guarding, in this explanation, against such confusion of terms, we must, notwithstanding, accept the ultimate adoption of it; and so we shall find included among our privateers and their commanders some who were quite improperly described as letters of marque, and one, at least, who may correctly be thus designated, but who, as an interesting example of a sort of privateering at an early period, appears to deserve mention.

The bearer of a letter of marque--or "mart," as it was constantly termed by writers and others of that class of persons who never will take the trouble to pronounce an unusual word properly--came to be adopted as the type of a sort of swashbuckler--a reckless, bullying individual, armed with doubtful credentials in the pursuit of some more or less discreditable object: allusion of this nature is made more than once by Beaumont and Fletcher in their plays, as well as by other writers.

The immense value of a fleet of privateers, more especially to a country opposed to another possessing a large mercantile marine, is obvious, and their use developed very rapidly.

In the American and French wars of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries there were literally thousands of privateers engaged. It would appear as though almost every skipper and shipowner incontinently applied, upon declaration of war, for a commission, or warrant, or letter of marque--no matter what it was called; the main thing was to get afloat, and have a share in what was going.

Valuable as have been the services of privateers, at various periods, as auxiliaries to the Navy, there is an obvious danger in letting loose upon the seas a vast number of men who have never had any disciplinary training, and whose principal motive is the acquisition of wealth--is, in fact, officially recognised as such; and although there existed pretty stringent regulations, amended at various times as occasion demanded, covering the mode of procedure to be adopted before the prize-money could be paid, these laws were constantly evaded in the most flagrant manner. Even the most honourable and well-disposed privateer captain was liable at any moment to find himself confronted by the alternatives of yielding to the demands of his rapacious crew for immediate and unlawful division of the spoil, or yet more lawless capture of an ineligible vessel, and personal violence, perhaps death, to himself; and the ease with which an unarmed vessel, overhauled within the silent circle of the horizon, unbroken by the sails of a solitary witness, could be compelled, whatever her nationality, upon some flimsy excuse to pay toll, frequently proved too strong a temptation to be resisted.

Von Martens, a great authority upon maritime law, is equally plain-spoken: "Pirates have always been considered the enemies of mankind, and proscribed and punished accordingly. On the contrary, privateers are encouraged to this day , notwithstanding all the complaints of neutral Powers, of which they are the scourge; and notwithstanding all their excesses, which it has been in vain attempted to suppress by ill-observed laws."

Admiral Vernon, in 1745, while acknowledging the services of privateers in distressing the enemy's trade and bringing an addition of wealth into the country, deprecates their employment on the ground of the general tendency to debauch the morals of our seamen, by substituting greed of gain for patriotism; and Lord Nelson, in 1804, says: "The conduct of all privateers is, as far as I have seen, so near piracy that I only wonder any civilised nation can allow them."

This is a sorry story of the privateer, and tends to discount sadly the romantic element so commonly associated with him. This is not a romance, however, and, having thus cleared the ground, we must be content to take the privateer, like Kipling's "Absent-minded Beggar," as we find him; and, by way of consolation and reward for our ingenuousness, we shall come across privateersmen whose skill, gallantry, and absolute integrity of conduct would do credit to many a hero of the Royal Navy.

The almost universal practice which prevailed in former times, of arming merchant vessels, particularly in certain trades, as a protection against pirates and privateers, has led to a considerable amount of misunderstanding. There are many instances upon record of spirited and successful defence, even against a very superior force, on the part of these armed traders, which have frequently been cited as privateer actions. These vessels, however, carried no warlike commission, and must not therefore be included in this category. Captain Hugh Crow, of Liverpool, who was engaged for many years in the West African slave trade, is a case in point. He fought some severe actions, upon one occasion with two British sloops-of-war, which he mistook in the dark for French privateers; the error being reciprocal, they pounded away at each other in the darkness, and it was not until Crow, after a desperate and most creditable resistance, was compelled at length to surrender, that victors and vanquished discovered their error: a very remarkable incident. Captain Crow was a shining light, in those unhappy slaving times, by reason of his humanity and integrity, and was beloved by the negroes from Bonny to Jamaica, where he landed so many cargoes.

Semmes was also employed as a commissioned naval officer by the Confederate States, in the Civil War of 1860; and though he was classed at first as a "rebel" by the Northerners, and threatened with a pirate's fate if captured, the recognition of the Confederates as a belligerent State by foreign Powers had already rendered such views untenable.

It appears desirable to allude to these instances, in order to anticipate a possible question as to the exclusion of such famous seamen from these pages.

There is also considerable confusion among authors as to the distinction between a pirate and a privateer, some of them being apparently under the impression that the terms are synonymous, while others, through imperfect knowledge of the details and ignorance of international law, have classed as pirates men who did not merit that opprobrious title, and, on the other hand, have placed the "buccaneers"--who were sheer pirates--in the same category as legitimate privateers.

For instance, Captain Woodes Rogers, of whom we shall have a good deal to say later on, is alluded to by one writer as "little more than a pious pirate," and by another simply as a pirate, bent upon "undisguised robbery"; whereas he was, in fact, more than once in serious conflict with his crew, upon the occasion of their demanding the capture and plunder of a ship which he was not entitled to seize--and, moreover, he had his own way.

There have been, no doubt, and with equal certainty there will be, incidents in warfare which afford very unpleasant reading, and in which the aggressors appear to have been unduly harsh and exacting, not to say cruel, towards defenceless or vanquished people; but that does not prove that they were not within their rights, and to impugn the conduct of an individual from a hastily and perhaps ignorantly adopted moral standpoint, at the expense of the legal aspect of the matter, must obviously involve the risk of gross injustice. War is a very terrible thing, and is full of terrible incidents which are quite inevitable, and the rough must be taken with the smooth--if you can find any smooth!

It is an axiom of international law that, when two nations are at war, every subject of each is at war with every subject of the other; and, in view of this fact, it appears extremely doubtful whether any merchant vessel is not at liberty to capture one of the other side, if she be strong enough. It is, in fact, laid down by Sir Travers Twiss, a high authority, that if a merchant vessel, attacked by one of the enemy's men-of-war, should be strong enough to turn the tables, she would be entitled to make a prize of her: an unlikely incident, of course.

It is unnecessary, however, to enter upon further discussion of this subject, which would involve us in very knotty problems, upon some of which the most accomplished authorities are still at variance, and which would afford very indifferent entertainment for the reader, who will now turn over the page and follow the fortunes of our privateers--which will be found by no means devoid of interest, in spite of strict adherence to the plain unvarnished truth.

TWO EARLY INCIDENTS

ANDREW BARTON

There was living at the commencement of the sixteenth century a Scotsman, named Andrew Barton, who acquired considerable notoriety by reason of his exploits at sea; and indeed, he was instrumental in bringing to a definite issue the condition of high tension existing between England and Scotland at that time, which culminated in the battle of Flodden Field.

All this argues a considerable amount of favour towards the Bartons on the Scottish monarch's part; for it must be admitted that the renewal of letters of marque, after they had run intermittently for thirty years in respect of one incident, was a straining of the elasticity of conventions.

They were formidable fellows, these Bartons; hardy and daring, skilled in all the strategy of the sea, and, when occasion arose, perfect gluttons at fighting. Andrew appears to have been the most formidable, and added to his other attributes that of being a born leader of men.

The public feeling was voiced, however, by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey--afterwards victor of Flodden, and second Duke of Norfolk--who exclaimed that "The King of England should not be imprisoned in his kingdom, while either he had an estate to set up a ship, or a son to command it."

Barton appears to have endeavoured, in the first instance, to escape; according to Leslie, he made friendly advances to Howard, insisting that the English and Scotch were not at war; this would have been a sound and logical attitude for Barton to assume, and it may be that he acted so; but in the end Howard chased him, and, finding himself outsailed, the Scot faced the foe with his usual boldness, and a desperate encounter ensued.

Howard's force was probably superior to that of his antagonist, but Andrew Barton and his ship's company were not to be intimidated by odds against them, when once they entered upon an engagement, and Lord Thomas soon realised that the task he had undertaken was no child's play.

Reeling alongside each other, at the closest quarters, the two vessels exchanged shots from their cannon as rapidly as they could be loaded and fired, while the crossbowmen and arquebusiers discharged a perfect hail of arrows, "quarrells," and bolts; Howard placed his ship again and again alongside, in the attempt to board, only to be beaten off by the valiant Scots, the decks of both vessels plentifully strewn with the wounded and dying.

Barton was by this time mortally wounded; his leg was shattered by a cannon-shot, and his body pierced in several places; but he sat up against the bulwarks, blowing his whistle and beating a drum to rally his men, as long as the breath remained in him; and it was not until they saw the fighting flame quenched in the eye of their intrepid and yet unconquered leader, and his chin drop upon his breast, that the sturdy Scots were fain at length to yield to Howard and his men.

Both vessels were immediately added to the English Navy, the nucleus of which was then in process of formation; the prisoners were conveyed to London, and confined in the palace of the Bishop of York, awaiting the king's pleasure.

As might be expected, the Scottish historians, Leslie and Buchanan, give a somewhat different account from that of Edward Hall, in whose chronicle the most nearly contemporary narrative is to be found. Leslie's allegation as to the friendly overtures of Barton finds no corroboration in Hall's Chronicle; and indeed, it is difficult to believe that Andrew Barton did not thoroughly comprehend the situation from the first.

Thus far Edward Hall; Buchanan says: "They who were not killed in the fight were thrown into prison at London; from whence they were brought to the king, and, humbly begging their lives of him, as they were instructed to do by the English, he, in a proud ostentation of his great clemency, dismissed, and sent the poor innocent souls away."

When James remonstrated, demanding redress for the death of Andrew Barton and his comrades, and the capture of their ships, Henry replied that the doing of justice upon a pirate was no occasion for a breach of friendly relations between two princes. "This answer," says Buchanan, "showed the spite of one that was willing to excuse a plain murder, and seemed as if he had sought an occasion of war."

This incident was celebrated in verse, not immediately afterwards, but in the reign of Elizabeth.

Probably the ballad was written after 1588--the Armada year--by way of glorifying the Howards, who were very high in royal and popular favour at that time; such anachronisms were very common in popular ballads of this and later times.

The writer represents that Barton's smaller vessel was sunk; and he it is who tells us about that alleged journey of Andrew's head:

My Lord Howard tooke a sword in his hand, And smote of Sir Andrew's head; The Scotts stood by did weepe and mourne, But never a word durst speake or say.

He caused his body to be taken downe, And over the hatch-bord cast into the sea, And about his middle three hundred crownes: "Whersoever thou lands, itt will bury thee."

With his head they sayled into England againe, With right good will, and fforce and main, And the day before new Yeereseven Into Thames mouth they came againe.

Then King Henerye shiffted his roome; In came the Queene and ladyes bright; Other arrand they had none But to see Sir Andrew Bartton, Knight.

But when they see his deadly face, His eyes were hollow in his head; "I wold give a hundred pound," sais King Henerye, "The man were alive as hee is dead."

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