Privateers were privately owned, well-armed, ships that were commissioned by the Admiralty to attack enemy merchant vessels during wartime. As such, they operated within the law and the commissioning process required them to be awarded an authorisation called a ‘letter of marque’ to prove their legitimacy. This document granted each ‘private ship of war’ the legal right to operate against named enemy nations of Great Britain during times of war only. It was a dangerous role, but the financial rewards for owners and crewmen alike could be great.

Privateers had the useful function of harassing the enemy, restricting their movements, and depriving them of both provisions and vessels. This pleased the Admiralty, particularly since someone else was taking all the risks and paying for it. In his diaries, Samuel Pepys, who was Chief Secretary to the Admiralty, wrote in 1667 that ‘we have done the Spaniard abundance of mischief in the West Indies by our privateers at Jamaica, which they lament mightily’.

Serving in the Royal Navy was seen as an honourable undertaking – a chance to risk your life in the King’s Service – and the sons of the privileged were often recruited as officers. However, privateering was not always viewed in the same light, probably because it was driven by profit and this was not regarded as the domain of a gentleman. In 1754, the author Henry Fielding wrote of one privateer’s officer: ‘He had been the captain of a privateer, which he chose to call being in the King’s Service, and… had taken it into his head that he was a gentleman, from those very reasons that proved he was not one’.

Privateer or pirate?
Privateers and pirates are sometimes lumped together as similar roles. However, in legal terms they were entirely different. Pirates were outlaws on the high seas who attacked ships of any nation indiscriminately for profit. In peace or war, pirates might board a ship and steal or sink it, robbing the vessel of its cargo, killing or enslaving its crew, and ransoming and molesting the passengers. Privateers, on the other hand, could only operate against a named enemy nation in wartime, were not entitled to harm any captives, and ships they captured had to be signed off as legitimate by the Admiralty.

Having said this, the distinction sometimes became blurred. Some men employed as privateer commanders became pirates. Peter Easton, for example, started out as an Elizabethan privateer but ended up with a large fleet of armed pirate ships operating off the coast of Newfoundland that was too powerful for any nation to overthrow. Easton was able to retire in luxury, but some privateers-turned-pirates were caught and punished. The notorious Captain Kidd claimed to be a privateer, but was hanged for piracy in London in 1701.

Nonetheless, the difference between privateer and pirate can be difficult to judge. Welsh privateer Henry Morgan, for example, pursued a career that was as notorious as any pirate but his actions suited the government of the day so he was actually rewarded with a knighthood and the governorship of Jamaica.

Most privateer captains followed more reputable seagoing careers. Distinguished examples include George Somers, who established the British colony of Bermuda, but the most eminent of all was surely Sir Francis Drake, the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world. Yet Drake famously sailed into Cadiz and attacked Spanish shipping under the King of Spain’s nose, so was regarded as a pirate by that nation which offered a huge reward for his capture.

There’s probably no better example of the difference between privateer and pirate than a man named Woodes Rogers. He was a very successful privateer in the early 1700s, but after appointment as the governor of the Bahamas, he swiftly eliminated all the piracy there.

The ship and its crew
Many privateer ships were cargo vessels converted to carry a heavy armament, but others were specifically designed and built to order as privateers. They were generally small, speedy and manoeuvrable enabling them to chase slow merchant ships and to outrun the enemy’s warships. Privateers were sometimes given names designed to indicate their ferocity such as Tiger or Fearnought, others clearly had more of an eye on commercial gain with names such as Success and Perseverance. Many owners wanted to demonstrate their patriotism and chose names such as Royal Sovereign, Britannia, or even The Roast Beef!

A privateer had to have a big crew so that there were enough men to fire the cannons, as well as to board and take control of an enemy ship then sail it back to port. Capturing ships gave each crewman an incentive for success, yet the risks were also high: every sea battle risked death, a life-changing injury or imprisonment by a foreign power. There was also no guarantee that a privateer would even encounter enemy ships, let alone seize any.

The crew were generally bound by a set of written Articles, designed to make it clear how discipline was to be maintained, and specifying in advance how profits from the voyage were to be shared out. There were financial penalties for bad behaviour, and often incentives for bravery or sighting an enemy ship.

Although privateers could operate from any UK port, in practice a particularly large number were based in London, Liverpool and the Channel Islands.

Your privateer ancestor
Most records naming individuals who served on a privateer are kept at The National Archives (TNA) at Kew. Despite this, there is no research guide for privateers on the TNA website and few of the records have been digitised, so you usually need to make a personal visit to TNA to undertake research.

Your ancestor might have been involved with privateers in two different ways. If wealthy, he or she might have been an owner or co-owner of a privateer. Samuel Pepys, for example, jointly owned a privateer called The Flying Greyhound. In the past, small groups of business people might fit out a privateer as an investment and they are usually named in various legal papers associated with the ship. Secondly, an ancestor might have actually served aboard a privateer. Most records at TNA only identify seven or eight of the most senior members of the crew by name, but it is not uncommon to find a reference to an ancestor serving on a privateer via a will. For example, in the TNA national collection from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/wills-1384-1858/) there are wills from 325 men who identify themselves as serving aboard a privateer.

The legal papers that enabled a privateer to operate were of three kinds. The first was a financial security statement in case the captain of the privateer exceeded his legal authority, and the owner had to indemnify the Admiralty against this happening. These documents are generally called bails or bonds and are found in series HCA 25 at TNA. They date from 1549 to 1820 and are grouped by year. They name the captain and the ship, but bonds are not indexed by name so you must have an idea of the years to search before looking. However, all the bonds for privateers acting against America in the War of 1812 can be found online at 1812privateers.org/ .

Much more useful are the declarations concerning the privateer’s readiness for war. These can be found at TNA as series HCA 26 (from 1689) and they name many more individuals. The captain is usually referred to in navy-style as the ‘commander’; if a ‘master’ is identified on board the vessel, this is the sailing master who was responsible for navigation. The owners are named as well. The declarations also reveal the ship’s other senior personnel such as the lieutenant or mate (who was second in command), gunner (in charge of armaments), boatswain (ship’s discipline), carpenter, cook, and surgeon. These documents state total crew numbers without naming all the individual seamen, as well as the ship’s tonnage and armament. The home port may be given, but if not it can be inferred from the owners’ resident town, which is usually stated. Each volume of declarations until 1783 has its own index.

The text from declarations for 1689-97, 1744, and 1756-61 is available on TNA’s website. For these years, you can search for an ancestor by typing his name or ship into discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/advanced-search and confining your search to reference HCA 26.

After providing a financial bond and a declaration of preparedness, privateers were issued with a letter of marque. There are registers of these for 1777-1815 in ADM 7/317-332 and 649. They contain less information – typically ship name, commander, tonnage, armament, crew numbers, and the nation that the privateer operated against. Entries for privateers acting against France 1793-1815 have been indexed by ship and captain’s name at 1812privateers.org and ships active against America for 1777 to 1783 at 1812privateers.org. This site also holds the full text of the declarations for this period as well.

Privateers in action
Once you know which ship your ancestor served on, you can explore various sources to find out more about any sea battles he was involved in. British privateers operated in two distinct arenas – the English Channel and the Atlantic (especially the American coast) – and they were often allocated specific sea routes (or ‘stations’) to cruise by the Admiralty. Newspapers are often useful for identifying whether your ancestor captured any enemy ships or was himself captured. A typical entry from the Evening Post in 1780: ‘The Enterprize privateer, Captain Eden, has taken and sent into Falmouth the Dutch galliot Vrow Anne, from Cadiz to Ostend, laden with Spanish wool, cochineal, wine etc.’

Apart from conventional newspapers, the publication Lloyd’s List may be helpful. This is a daily summary of shipping news that has been published since 1741. You can see complete editions free up until 1826 at www.maritimearchives.

co.uk/lloyds-list.html. They often contain brief details of privateer actions against the enemy and of ships lost and damaged. Helpfully, there is also an index to Lloyd’s List by ship name, captain’s name and date at www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lloydslist.

When enemy ships were captured by a British privateer they were called prizes, and the legitimacy of the action had to be evaluated by a Admiralty Prize Court to ensure that crews had operated within the law. In successful cases, prize ships were handed over to privateer crews and owners and were said to have been ‘condemned’. Prize Court papers are in series HCA 32 at TNA, arranged by date from 1664 to 1815, and often contain a wealth of detail such as eyewitness accounts of what happened. The List and Index Society has indexed 1776 to 1817 by captured vessel’s name (indexes 183, 184 and 194).

Once certified as legitimate by the Prize Court, the captured ship and its cargo was sold and the profits divided up. The owners took a large share of the profits – commonly around half – while the crew shared the rest according to a pre-established formula. Typically the captain took about 12 shares of the profit, his senior lieutenant six, the boatswain three, able seamen one, and ship’s boys half a share. It could be a very lucrative business and crews were sometimes not even paid a wage because the expectation of income from capturing enemy ships was so high.

Although a profitable business for three centuries, the age of the privateers came to an abrupt halt in 1815 when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. Yet it was only in 1857 that it was actually made illegal.