Hybridity in Privateering- Pt 1 – Filling the Magazine

Looking to the future, he intends to attend a PhD program in the United Kingdom as he attempts to flesh out what British privateers were up to during the American Revolution. By doing so, he hopes to fill a hole in the american-centric histography of privateering during the Revolutionary War. Once that is done, he intends to have the entirety of his findings published in a book.

Introduction

The historiography surrounding American privateers has fluctuated quite a bit between the 20^th and 21^st centuries. One of the earliest works arguing the importance of American privateers during the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 was A History of American Privateers, written by Edgar Maclay in 1899. Maclay argued that furnishing the history of the US Navy without a full record of privateering would create an incomplete story. Indeed, he did excellent work at the time, assembling the data and stories of privateers that were scattered all over. Specifically, he was able to provide data pertaining to the number of American privateer vessels and their total amount of guns compared to that of the Continental Navy during the American Revolution. That does not mean it is a complete or full set of information, as the number of private vessels can be a difficult thing to tack down when it comes to the American Revolution as compared to the War of 1812’s centralized sources like Niles Weekly Register. He was even so bold at times to suggest that American privateers were the “predominating feature of our early sea power.” ³ Scholars would take his argument rather seriously, with Nathan Miller incorporating privateers into his grand 1927 book, The U.S. Navy: a History. ⁴ Yet, there seems to have been a bit of a lull for many decades, with the discussion of privateers seemingly being kept to their relationship with great men like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. ⁵ That is not to say the works done during this time are not helpful to the field, as Willian Clark’s contribution to the story of Benjamin Franklin’s privateers cannot be understated. It would not be until the late 2010s that the topic of privateers would be reinvigorated and not be seen as “simply a sideshow to the exploits of the Continental Navy.” ⁶ New works once again delve into the topic of privateering, analyzing its contribution to the American way of war. Many have questioned the idea of it simply being legalized piracy and, instead, have explored the often-mixed motivations of American privateers. Scholars like Eric Dolin and Anthony Green would come across very similar findings about the subjects of effectiveness and motivation in their works on the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. ⁷ For instance, both found a mixture of two motivations for privateers: economic gain and patriotism. Alongside this return to the examination of privateering came some mixing of newer military theories, with recent scholars like Kenneth Moss making mention of the crossover between privateers and hybrid warfare in Marque and Reprisal’s concluding remarks. ⁸

There are still a few critical questions surrounding American privateers, though. When it comes to detailing the true extent of privateers’ contribution to the Revolutionary War, the focus has primarily focused on economic damage and gain dealt by privateers. This has almost always utilized monetary amounts rather than direct products, as the total monetary amount can be calculated or found in sources much more easily. Looking to petitions, letters, or newspapers can often give a monetary amount, but to judge the total of a specific product that American privateers captured during the revolution has often been something few have attempted. This not only applies to privateers but to other areas of scholarship like American merchants and gunpowder. Even Brian DeLay, in “The Arms Trade and American Revolutions,” argues that the dependence of the Continental Army on foreign arms trade mostly relies on monetary evaluations of arms and powder sent to the rebels.⁹ Mentions of war goods brought in by privateers almost always rely on specific “windfalls,” such as the taking of the British supply ship Nancy. ¹⁰ As such, there is still a key question of the amount of important goods, such as gunpowder, that American privateers captured during the Revolutionary War.

This series of articles seeks to explore many of the avenues other scholars have yet to delve into. For one, a deep dive into privateering utilizing the new theories of hybrid warfare and the grey zone has yet to be undertaken. Alongside that, few have been bold enough to differentiate the mass usage of privateers as its own form of warfare from broader naval strategies such as “guerre de course”. Finally, no one has tried to calculate the amount of gunpowder that American privateers could have contributed during the years in was scarce. This series of articles intends to do exactly that, bringing together the new military theories and examining the mass usage of privateering as its own form of warfare, one that could be utilized outside of war or leveraged by neutral parties. By recognizing privateering as its own form of warfare, tied closely with the grey zone and hybrid in nature, modern connections to similar contemporary actors can be made. This allows the strength and characteristics of this style of warfare to be recognized in modern conflicts and grants a fuller understanding of either how to exploit or defend against these modern privateers. To accomplish this, the scope will be kept to a certain hightide of privateering, which was between the start of the American Revolutionary War and the end of the War of 1812. ¹¹

Privateer Hybridity: Filling the Magazine

As the first part in a series dedicated to exploring the hybrid nature of privateers, this work tackles areas all too familiar to those who have studied privateers: logistics and commerce. However, to highlight the interesting hybrid nature of privateers an attempt has to be made to bring forth a new form of analysis. Instead of focusing on the damage dealt to enemy commerce, attempting to demonstrate the amount of supplies brought back by these irregulars of the sea reveals how much they could indirectly support a nation’s more conventional forces.

From the years of 1775 to 1778, only 10% of the Continental Army’s gunpowder demand could be fulfilled on the continent. ¹² With only three powder mills located in the rebelling colonies, it was no wonder that there was such a drastic demand for powder. ¹³ If the rebelling colonists could not get it from their own production, then they would have to turn elsewhere. The colonists attempted to collect whatever black powder they could from the sea, with 90% of the gunpowder they would have access to coming from maritime ventures by American vessels or those willing to assist the American cause. ¹⁴ Privateers aided in these ventures both directly and indirectly. The direct route was through the capture of ships with black powder on board. There were notable occurrences of captured British supply vessels, and indeed, these windfalls could offer a sizable respite to the powder desert the Americans found themselves in. While these supplies were not constant, they were boons to the Continental Army.

Looking to the story of George Washington’s little Navy, one can glimpse these blessings delivered through piratical ways by following the success of the Franklin. As a stroke of luck, the British military supply ship Hope had been separated by its two escort ships, allowing the Franklin to strike after having shadowed it along its route to Boston. Its two escort ships were still in view, but the winds were against them, meaning they could not move to rescue the Hope in time. The Franklin captured it, seizing over 1,500 barrels of black powder on board. ¹⁵ This is a considerable amount for the time, but wars are also very costly. Every shot fired by a soldier takes black powder, so how long did a supply vessel like this last for the Continental Army?

The answer is not as long as Washington would have liked. To equip a Continental Army made up of 20,000 soldiers to the same standard as the red coats, it would take over 400 barrels of black powder. ¹⁶ This would give every soldier an average of 60 rounds they could fire during an engagement. This estimate does not include anything about powder being lost due to bad weather conditions or artillery powder usage. As such, any prolonged engagement for Washington would dwindle this precious supply, with only the ability to fully equip his soldiers 3 ½ times before they were completely out of powder. Add onto this that these supplies were often escorted by multiple fierce naval vessels, and it is only at very opportune points that a privateer can capture one of these vessels. As such, these big hauls were often boons of the sea rather than a steady resource. Yet, a hyper fixation on supply vessels is detrimental when looking at sources of gunpowder that privateers could directly supply, as there was one other source that was much more stable than supply ships: Ships’ magazines.

Throughout the era of the sail, there were many threats a merchant vessel could encounter at sea. Whether it be pirates, an enemy navy, or privateers, there was a strong incentive to have an armed vessel. As such, many merchant ships had some form of magazine or an area to store black powder in case they were attacked. For a merchant vessel to be without powder was dangerous, and as one article in the Public Advertiser noted after the capture of multiple British merchant vessels, “extraordinary”. ¹⁷ These stores of powder are much harder to track for historians, as they are often not listed in a merchant’s cargo manifests, and a barrel of powder is rarely something important enough to log for privateers. As such, it is a hard task to quantify just how much black powder a privateer could bring in. Since no historians have tried to quantify black powder captured from magazines yet, it falls on this one to attempt it. It should be noted that what follows are simply estimates.

To quantify the amount of powder captured from magazines, the first step is to get some source that lists many prize ships from the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812. As there are no sources up to the task for the Revolutionary War, the collection of prizes taken by American privateers in Niles’ Weekly Register will be what this estimate relies on. Luckily, there were no obvious changes in how much powder a vessel carried between 1776 and 1812. As privateers do not note black powder barrels found in the magazine in the cargo that is often reported by the register, one has to find the few times in which the number of barrels is mentioned, but are not the actual cargo. Keeping to the register, there is only one mention of the amount of gunpowder by barrel, which is that of the 14-gun Brig named the Garland. ¹⁸ Cross-referencing it with the outfitting of the 10-gun sloop named the Sachem during the revolution, a way of measuring how many barrels were part of the magazine is revealed. ¹⁹ Despite being different ship designs with different cannon counts, the Sachem left port with five barrels of gunpowder. When being brought in by privateers, the more well-armed Garland had only three barrels. ²⁰ The determining factor in the amount of stored powder does not seem to be about ship design but rather the number of cannons on board. With a tentative assumption that the Garland had likely engaged the privateer, but taking into account that many vessels were taken by surprise and often surrendered without a prolonged fight, the estimated count for vessels with over nine guns had approximately 4 barrels of powder on average, vessels with five to eight guns had two, and any four-gun ships or those in which the guns were never remarked upon likely only had one.

Table A: Estimates for possible gun powder barrels captured by the top twenty American privateer vessels during the war of 1812

Some may argue that it is ill-advised to utilize the number of captured vessels taken by the twenty American privateers between 1812 to 1815 and apply that to the time between 1775 to 1778. This author would wholeheartedly agree if there was not only one glaring piece of information. First, these top twenty privateer vessels from the War of 1812, even with their combined total of 511 prizes taken, do not equal the 559 vessels that parliament stated had been captured by the year 1778. ²¹ As such, these numbers are a lowball that can give some insight into how much black powder privateers were generating outside of anything they found in cargo.

Second, 1775 is when gunpowder barrels standardized measurements are changed to 100lbs. To use estimates before then would be much more inaccurate as barrels carried different amounts of powder. Luckily, the 100lb measurement was still being used in past the War of 1812 and thus is a much better estimate to utilize. ²²

Looking at the data, the top twenty ships alone could have brought back enough black powder to arm a total of 31,500 soldiers based on Washington’s estimate of one barrel per 50 soldiers. ²³ An impressive amount of black powder for a group of twenty ships to possibly bring back. Indeed, there was even some impetus to ensure the loading of the black powder barrels along with the cargo, as it was a good that was in high demand. For reference, in April of 1776, a profit of 120 percent could be made for merchants purchasing powder from other countries and selling it in American ports. ²⁴ Safe to say, the profit margins would be much higher for privateers, as they were not keen on paying for said gunpowder. While some powder may have certainly gone back into sustaining the privateer vessel, privateer vessels also had an easier time accessing foreign ports where it was more available and thus less costly to stock up on. Even if privateers cut in on desperately needed gunpowder supplies within the colonies, it should be noted that agents of the continental congress held the assumption that American privateers would return with captured gunpowder. This is made evident in sent letters between continental agents and their connections. As one Josiah Waters wrote to continental agent Nathaniel Shaw Jr:

“I wrote to you the 19^th Inst. Acquainting you of the arrival of the Prize Ship Mermaid. […] This will be forwarded to you by Capt. H. Billings, who came Passenger in the Three-Square-Gimblet, Letter of Marque Brig […] that on board the Brig is a number of articles for the Continent to your address- such as Brass Field Pieces, Gun powder an as also a number of other articles for your own account.” ²⁵

With the combination of estimates and evidence, the nature of privateering as simply a scourge on commerce is shown only to be one half of its character. The other is the capture of scarce goods which find their way back to the privateer’s nation to often equip more conventional forces. By keeping this in mind, one can begin to see the hybridity present in different systems of privateering. By allowing a decentralized and irregular naval force to prey on enemy commerce, not only is a nation able to place naval pressure on the enemy, but also profit from the capture of war material that can be used to equip more conventional forces.

References