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A letter of marque and reprisal (French: lettre de marque; lettre de course) was a government license in the Age of Sail that authorized a private person, known as a privateer or corsair, to attack and capture vessels of a foreign state at war with the issuer, licensing international military operations against a specified enemy as reprisal for a previous attack or injury.
A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. [1] Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or delegated authority issued commissions, also referred to as letters of marque, during wartime. The ...
Triton was launched at Calcutta in 1815 and sold shortly thereafter to Spanish owners. She was sailing from Bengal to Cadiz when an American-built and outfitted privateer with a letter of marque from the patriotic forces in Buenos Aires captured her in January 1817 in a sanguinary single-ship action during the Argentine War of Independence.
A privateer was a private person authorized by a country's government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping. Privateering was an accepted part of naval warfare from the 16th to the 19th centuries, authorised by all significant naval powers. Notable privateers included:
A captured American privateer captain, 20-year-old Gideon Olmsted, shipped aboard the British sloop Active in Jamaica as an ordinary hand in an effort to get home. Olmsted organized a mutiny and commandeered the sloop. But as Olmsted's mutineers sailed their prize to America, a Pennsylvania privateer took the Active. [14]
1781, January 9 – The sloop USS Saratoga captures the letter-of-marque Tonyn; 1781, March 7 – Liverpool privateer Woolton captures French merchantman Sartine; 1781, March 23 – British privateer Tarleton, of 14 guns, captures American letter of marque Tom Lee, of 12 guns. 1781, May 1 – HMS Canada captures the Spanish frigate Santa Leocadia.
Although not French Navy personnel, corsairs were considered legitimate combatants in France (and allied nations), provided the commanding officer of the vessel was in possession of a valid letter of marque (lettre de marque or lettre de course, the latter giving corsairs their name), and the officers and crew conducted themselves according to ...
On 27 April 1793, HMS Alarm captured the French privateer Chauvelin. That same day, the Revenue cutter Swallow, which was in company with Alarm, captured the privateer Enfant de la Patrie. [7] Both privateers had 10 guns; Chauvelin had 54 men and Enfant had 28. [8] On 23 November 1793, a smuggling cutter was observed off the coast near Shoreham ...