When most people think about pirates, they think of the pirates from movies: swashbuckling gangsters who prowled the Caribbean waters in search of gold. This is not always the case, however. Governments for centuries have used these pirates to attack their enemies. These pirates were officially called privateers. According to John Whiteclay Chambers II, the author of The Oxford Companion to American Military History “Privateering was a legal enterprise, conducted under state licenses called letters of marque and reprisal; governments subjected it to increasing regulation as it grew in scope and importance. Piracy, on the other hand, was a capital crime that European states had largely eliminated by the early 1700s.” A simpler way to look at…show more content… During the Elizabethan era of exploration and expansion, privateers were used extensively. The British government employed many privateers, like Sir Francis Drake, Sir Martin Frobisher, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Several of the English New World colonies were funded by privateers or used them for transportation. These privateers helped pave the way for colonists in the New World. At the time, most countries could not afford to keep a standing army and navy at all times, so it was more cost efficient to hire private merchants or pirates to disrupt their enemy’s commerce. This was a very inexpensive way for countries to cripple their enemy’s sea supply lines. Because of privateering’s inexpensiveness, it flourished in the American colonies, which helped them gain their independence from the British Empire. The period where privateers were most used was called The Privateer Era. The Privateer Era began in around the 1740s when France and Spain went to war. Letters of Marque were issued and privateering was mainly focused in the Caribbean, where many goods like rum and sugar made privateering profitable. Since privateering was shown to be some profitable for the sailors and inexpensive for governments, privateering had flourished in this era and paved the way for privateers to be used during the American Revolution and the War of…show more content… On land, the army did not have much effect on the British army but they held out until the French declared war against Great Britain and helped the American colonies. Even George Washington acknowledged this during the siege of Boston in 1775, “Finding we were not likely to do much in the land way, I fitted out several privateers, or rather armed vessels, in behalf of the Continent.” Washington realized that privateers would be more effective than his army. However, part of this reason was that the army was under funded, so the soldiers could not receive the adequate supplies and the government could not pay them. This cut into the overall participation and effectiveness of the Continental Army. In addition to being more effective than the army, privateers were also superior to the American Navy. The navy was unable to do much in the war and did not have any notable people asides from the naval commander John Paul Jones. This is from lack of funding and participation, which also plagued the Continental Army. When the war began, the navy had just eight ships. Privateers numbered over two thousand. The Continental Navy captured 198 British ships while the privateers captured more than
