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Updated: June 11, 2025
Out of such conditions, and out of the wars which the Napoleonic plague forced upon the world, sprung the practise of privateering; and while it is the purpose of this book to tell the story of the American merchant sailor only, it could not be complete without some account, however brief, of the American privateersman.
The treaty between the United Netherlands and England had been followed by an embargo upon English vessels, persons, and property, in the ports of Spain; and after five years of unwonted repose, the privateersman again set forth with twenty-five small vessels of which five or six only were armed under his command, conjoined with that of General Carlisle.
Having extracted all the information he wanted, Porter undeceived the privateersman, took possession of the ship, threw overboard her guns and ammunition, and then released her, with a letter to the Viceroy; which, backed by the presence of the Essex, was calculated to insure peaceable treatment to American vessels.
All his people before him were sea folk. His grandfather, Anthony West, made forty-six voyages between 1801 and 1847. And his father, Robert, sailed master to the north-west coast before the gold days and was captain of some of the fastest Cape Horn clippers after the gold discovery. Elijah West, father's great-grandfather, was a privateersman in the Revolution.
With such antecedents behind him, and such associations awaiting him, Nathaniel Hawthorne was born, July 4, 1804. His father, the captain of a trading-vessel, was one of three sons of the privateersman Daniel, and was born in 1776; so that both father and son, it happens, are associated by time of birth with the year and the day that American independence has made honorable and immemorial.
Fortunately, a Spanish merchant among our prisoners spoke a little English, so that Mr Falconer had not to betray to them his knowledge of their language. The fat friar shrugged his shoulders when he heard what he was to do. He seemed, however, not a little pleased to get out of the clutches of the terrible privateersman.
"No; I have been a privateersman all my life, barring a few smuggling ventures in the late peace, but I have never put to sea without my letters of marque and reprisal, duly signed and sealed." Rupert curled his lip as he looked at the other. "And what did your letters of marque say as to the Portuguese slaver we sank in the Gaboons?" he demanded scornfully.
When left alone, Raoul bethought him that Ithuel and Filippo were on shore as usual, the New Hampshire man consenting to serve only on condition of being allowed to land; a privilege he always abused by driving a contraband trade on occasions like the present. So great was the fellow's dexterity in such matters, that Raoul who disdained smuggling, while he thought himself compelled to wink at it in others had less apprehensions of his committing the lugger than he might have felt in the case of one less cunning. But it was now necessary to get these two men off or abandon them; and fortunately remembering the name of the wine-house where they had taken their potations the previous night, he repaired to it without delay, luckily finding Ithuel and his interpreter deep in the discussion of another flask of the favorite Tuscan beverage. 'Maso and his usual companions were present also, and there being nothing unusual in the commander of an English ship of war's liking good liquor, Raoul, to prevent suspicion, drew a chair and asked for his glass. By the conversation that followed, the young privateersman felt satisfied that, though he might have succeeded in throwing dust into the eyes of the vice-governatore and the podest
He lived with one man-servant in a Georgian homestead with knocker and iron-railed steps, balanced eerily on the steep ascent of North Court Street beside the ancient brick court and colony house where his grandfather a cousin of that celebrated privateersman, Captain Whipple, who burnt His Majesty's armed schooner Gaspee in 1772 had voted in the legislature on May 4, 1776, for the independence of the Rhode Island Colony.
Boyd had been in the thick of that business and knew that no one had been hurt except Barnboard Tam, whose horse had run away with him and brushed him off, a red-haired Absalom in homespuns, against the branches in Marnhoul Great Wood. One of the crew of the Golden Hind, American-owned privateersman with French letters of marque?
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