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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 ...
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]
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has floated the idea of the U.S. green-lighting private parties to target drug cartels for profit. The senator laid out the proposal in posts on X. "Letters of marque and ...
[2] [3] The size of her crew indicates that she was sailing as a privateer. Later, as a packet or merchant vessel, she had a crew of fewer than 10 men. As a privateer, the extra men above the number required to sail her where there to act as prize crews on any vessels she would capture. Captain William Tardiff acquired a letter of marque on 22 ...
On 13 May Captain Sedgefield Dale acquired a letter of marque. Then on 31 May Captain Harding Shaw acquired a letter of marque. [2] On 19 July Lloyd's List (LL) reported that the privateer Thought, of London, had brought several vessels into Falmouth. One was the French privateer Passe Partout, of 16 guns and of Bordeaux.
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 ...
Charming Sally was a privateer in service with the Continental Navy in 1779, during the American Revolutionary War.. Previously a merchant ship, Charming Sally entered Continental Navy service when her master, Alexander Holmes, master, received a letter of marque on 27 January 1779.