A private war in the Caribbean : Nova Scotia privateering, 1793-1805

Abstract

This thesis explores privateering from the British Colonies in North American in the period between 1793 and 1805. It asks why individuals and communities turned to privateering and how they were affected by the enterprise. Privateers were privately owned warships licensed and regulated by the state to keep a portion of their raiding. In this period, a network of small coastal communities in Nova Scotia centred on Liverpool and Shelburne responded to disastrous changes in the military and trade environment with a small fleet of a dozen private warships which captured about sixty enemy vessels. Existing literature on privateering, mostly popular and amateur work, has interpreted this activity as the product of either patriotism or greed. However a closer look indicates that economic necessity as the driving force. The wars with Revolutionary France led to the capture of many Nova Scotia merchant ships and mariners, followed by crushing insurance rates and American encroachment of the fisheries and lucrative West Indies trade. Privateering was a response to this economic warfare that replaced Nova Scotia losses with captured enemy ships and found work for idle shipyards and seamen. In a sense, it was an armed defence of the economic markets of the Caribbean against French and American incursion. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)