Privateers; Letters of Marque & of Reprisal

But certainly, from my own observation rather than from any profound study of the subject, in practice, in correspondence and official documents, British captains of the period of the Great French Wars call the aggressive, purpose-built or purpose-commissioned commerce raider a "Letter of Marque"; c.f. the comments of Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl Dundonald, when commanding the "Pallas", 32, in 1805, in sending into Plymouth for condemning at the Prize Court "a very pretty Letter of Marque" which he had caught raiding British shipping, and taken. Or the log of Locker or the "Lowestoffe" in 1777 from which I had previously quoted directly.

At a conference in Portsmouth a while ago I had the good fortune to find myself sitting next to one who undoubtedly is an authority on Marcher Law, and who I heard include the subject in a lecture at the NMM the previous year, N.A.M. Rodger, who I shall quote below, also on the subject of Letters of Reprisal (from French "Reprendre", pp. "Repris", literally "to retake", "to take back"), even if he was writing primarily in that passage of an earlier era. This is from "The Safeguard of the Sea", pp. 199-200, Vol. 1 of his planned complete history of the (British - since there are still others!) Royal Navy, the first since Clowes over 100 years ago. I quote this just because it is interesting to trace the origins of the terms, not because I think it completely answers our friendly debate, which it doesn't, particularly since here it is primarily dealing with the Tudor period, in the chapter "Operations 1550-1572". He says:

"Here we need to pause a moment to define some terms. It is usual and convenient to talk of Elizabethan 'privateering'. but the word is strictly anachronistic, for it was only coined in the seventeenth century to describe a legal status which was just then emerging from obscurity. In sixteenth century England there were only two ways in law by which ships owned by private citizens might capture other ships for profit. One was a general proclamation, which in principle limited captures to the ships of a named enemy in wartime, but provided no means of enforcing its terms. The other was the much older "letter of reprisal", deriving from medieval marcher law (whence the term lettre de mark), under which a merchant, traveler or shipowner who had been robbed in the territory or by the subjects of a foreign prince in time of peace, and had been unable to obtain justice in the courts of that country, was authorised by a court (the Admiralty Court in the case of reprisals by sea) to recoup his losses, up to a specified sum, by seizing the property of persons belonging to the town or country concerned. This letter of reprisal, originally (and still in French) known as a 'letter of marque', was entirely different from the 'letter of marque' of the late seventeenth or eighteenth century, a licence issued by an Admiralty Court in time of war, under legal safeguards, empowering a privately-owned ship to cruise against the shipping of a named enemy, and to sell her prizes only after they had been condemned as enemy property by such a court. This, the classic form of privateering, could by definition be practised only in wartime, whilst in theory letters of reprisal could be issued only in peacetime. In sixteenth century practice, however, 'peace' might very often mean undeclared war; civil wars and rebellions provided numerous authorities, desperate or unscrupulous, willing to issue letters with no questions asked; reprisals usually provoked counter-reprisals; and English Lords Admiral were notoriously ready to turn a blind eye towards any activity from which they were entitled to ten percent of the proceeds

(Roger M's note: I couldn't resist quoting this as originally written, from Rodger's notes!)

"Our soverane lord and lordis of consale are sickirlie informit that ane certane [number] of his liegis, maisteris, awnaris and marinaris of schippis [dwell] and in Leith is to depart in weirefare, and be that rubrys and spulzeis maid upon frenndis that have causit our sovrane lord and his leigis to have mony inymyis quhilkis war frenndis before, and presoponis that thai sall do siclik in tyme tocom..."

In Scotland, moreover, a letter of reprisal was heritable property which might remain in force for generations: in 1561 Captain Patrick Blackader was taking Portuguese prizes by virtue of a letter originally granted in 1476. Further confusion existed in the Mediterranean where the North African 'regencies' and the Christian powers maintained more or less permanent warfare of which the capture of slaves was the principal object. In the Americas...etc."

In ye meane tymme, my frenndis, ye are herebye informit that we knowe not sickirlie ane anser but presoponis that thai sall do siclik in tyme tocom. I remasne, my liegis, maisteris, awnaris, marinaris and modeleris of schippis of sundrye kyndes, youer fidel servante
{Roger Marsh}

PS - my spellecheckerr just blewwe uppe, with noyse as loude as twere a thonderdent that with ye blastte I amoust wer yblent.

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