![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
Piracy and privateering figure very extensively in history, and in current affairs, but much of the discussion is undermined by the common failure to define the terms and understand the legal distinctions between them. Moreover it is essential to consider with care the translation of languages and legal systems. The paper attempts to clarify the issues and dispel some of the confusion.
Notes
1 Originally prepared as a contribution to the conference ‘Persistent Piracy: Historical perspectives on maritime violence and state formation’ held at the University of Stockholm in May 2012.
2 Cf. Korteweg, Kaperbloed en koopmansgeest, 46, ‘Kaapvaart is dus niet alleen juridisch, maar ook taalkundig een verwarrend fenomeen’ (Privateering is thus a complex phenomenon, not only legally but linguistically).
3 Rubin, Law of Piracy, 20–1.
4 Van Loo, ‘For freedom and fortune’, 173.
5 Hobson, Imperialism at Sea, 320–3.
6 Glete, Swedish Naval Administration,16–17 and 611–12; Kempe, Fluch der Weltmeere, 18–21; Tallett and Trim, ‘Change and continuity’, 17–19; Gunn, ‘War and the emergence of the state’, 51.
7 Rodger, ‘New Atlantic’, 237–8.
8 Vigie, ‘Galères et “Sea-power”’.
9 Keen, Laws of War, 218–21; Mollat, ‘De la piraterie sauvage à la course réglementée’. Chaplais, ‘Règlement des conflits internationaux’; Chavarot, ‘La pratique des lettres de marque’; Mas Latrie, ‘Du droit de marque’; Marsden, Law and Custom of the Sea I,19, 38, 119–24; Gardiner, ‘Belligerent rights’. Korteweg, Kaperbloed en koopmansgeest, 51–3; Murdoch, Terror of the Seas, 79–91.
10 Jowitt, Pirates, quoted 4; Pérotin-Dumon, ‘The pirate and the emperor.’
11 Rubin, Law of Piracy, 1–18; Heller-Roazen, Enemy of All, 93–101. In medieval Latin the word ‘pirata’ refers primarily to a style of sea warfare, with few moral or legal overtones.
12 Harding, ‘“Hostis Humani Generis”’, 27.
13 Kempe, Fluch der Weltmeere, 159, quoting Tindal's An Essay Concerning the Laws of Nations (1694), 27–8.
14 Campbell, ‘Legal Definition of Piracy’.
15 Chaplais, Medieval Diplomatic Practice, I, 207.
16 Benton, Search for Sovereignty 4–23 and 120–3; Greene, Catholic Pirates, 62; Heller-Roazen, Enemy of All, 119–25; Murdoch, Terror of the Seas, 20–4; Fulton, Sovereignty of the Sea, 9–10, 59–85 and 118–24.
17 Vale, ‘Edward I and the French’; Krieger, Ursprung und Wurzeln der Rôles d'Oléron, 43–7. Chaplais, Medieval Diplomatic Practice I, 206; Marsden, Select Pleas I, xiv–xxxv; Rodger, Safeguard of the Sea, 78–9; Fulton, Sovereignty of the Sea, 15–20, 45–51, 209–12, 327–37; Quintrell, ‘Charles I and his Navy’.
18 Kempe, Fluch der Weltmeere, 121, quoting Raleigh's ‘Apology’.
19 Andrews, Spanish Caribbean; Haring, Buccaneers in the West Indies; Bradley, Lure of Peru; Bridenbaugh, No Peace beyond the Line; Andrews, ‘Caribbean Rivalry’; Kempe, Fluch der Weltmeere, 43–4, 70–1, 141 and 146.
20 Marsden, Law and Custom I, 155–8, 162–5 and 174; Rodger, Safeguard of the Sea, 182, 195 and 199.
21 Augeron, ‘Jacques de Sores’, 198.
22 Dietz, ‘Huguenot and English Corsairs’; Trim, ‘The “Secret War” of Elizabeth I’; Augeron, ‘De la Cause au Parti’; Delafosse, ‘Les corsaires protestantes’; Seguin, ‘La guerre maritime’; Korteweg, Kaperbloed en koopmansgeest, 54–8; Appleby, Under the Bloody Flag, 11–17; Roelofsen, ‘L'Amirauté à Veere’; Sicking, ‘Recht aan zee’.
23 Marsden, Law and Custom I, 127–287, quoted I, 270 and 278.
24 Andrews, English Privateering Voyages, 3–12; Appleby, Under the Bloody Flag, 194–5 and 200; Adams, ‘Embargo of May 1585’.
25 Baer, British Piracy in the Golden Age I, xiii–xviii and II, viii–xii; Benton, Search for Sovereignty, 147; Appleby, Under the Bloody Flag, 36; Harding, ‘“Hostis Humani Generis”, 32–3; Senior, Nation of Pirates,124–5.
26 Korteweg, Kaperbloed en koopmansgeest, 38–50 and 67–70; Benton, Search for Sovereignty,139–40; Roelofsen, ‘Grotius’; Lunsford, Piracy and Privateering, 10–14 and 191–210.
27 Korteweg, Kaperbloed en koopmansgeest, 201; Van Loo, ‘For freedom and fortune’, 183; Lunsford, Piracy and Privateering, 181.
28 Heller-Roazen, Enemy of All, 79 explains the etymology of ‘corso’ and ‘corsair’.
29 Good introductions to this large subject are: Fisher, Barbary Legend; Bono, I Corsari Barbareschi; Bono, Corsari nel Mediterraneo; Bono, Lumi e corsari; Earle, Corsairs of Malta and Barbary; Fontenay, ‘La place de la course dans l'économie portuaire’; Fontenay, ‘Corsaires de la Foi ou rentiers de sol ?’; Otero Lana, Los corsarios españoles; Heers, Barbary Corsairs; Khiari, Vivre et mourir en Alger, 75–94; Greene, Catholic Pirates.
30 Marsden, Law and Custom of the Sea I, 408–16.
31 The coinage is sometimes attributed to Sir Leoline Jenkins, the Welsh jurist who was Judge of the High Court of Admiralty during the Second Dutch War, but it is recorded slightly earlier.
32 Andrews, ‘Expansion of English Privateering’ I, 200–1.
33 Even the careful and scholarly Lunsford, Piracy and Privateering, seems not to appreciate that the VOC and WIC operated in fundamentally different legal circumstances.
34 Compare Gunn, Grummitt and Cools, War, State and Society, 61 and 154, with their source, Sicking, Zeemacht en Onmacht, 214–21, which they do not seem to have understood. They did not use the English edition of Sicking's book, Neptune and the Netherlands, 420–36, which is clear on reprisals but uses ‘privateer’ anachronistically.
35 Van Vliet, ‘Dutch navy’, invents ‘letters of consignment’, I guess to render commissiebrief. Van Loo, ‘For freedom and fortune’, 173–95, uses ‘letters of commission’, apparently to translate kaperbrieven.
36 Kempe, Fluch der Weltmeere, 44–87.
37 Nerzic, ‘La place des armements mixtes’.
38 It is the leading theme of Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake. Another recent reference is Swanson, ‘“Unspeakable Calamity,’ 118–19.
Additional information
N. A. M. Rodger, FBA, is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and was formerly Professor of Naval History in the University of Exeter.