Atlantic Warfare Yesterday : 367 



pensed with. In general, the distinction between war and peace at 

 sea has not been sharply drawn. The expectation that there is always 

 a sharp break between war and peace is a modern idea, so also is the 

 complete separation between naval vessels and merchantmen. 



Very often trading vessels have gone armed at least for self-protec- 

 tion from pirates, hostile natives, privateers, commerce raiders, etc. 

 Private armed vessels with crews trained in combat carried special 

 commissions from their various countries. They were known as pri- 

 vateers and their special function was to attack and capture mer- 

 chantmen of an unfriendly or hostile power. The captured vessel and 

 its cargo were known as prizes and could be sold in a neutral port, 

 the proceeds being divided in various ways between the owner, the 

 officers and sometimes the crew. The commission was important be- 

 cause without it a privateer looked very much like a pirate and 

 piracy was frowned on. Letters of marque and reprisal were issued 

 to armed merchantmen under which the captains were authorized 

 to mix raiding, warfare and commerce in such proportions as seemed 

 to them artistic and convenient. 



The privateers were an important and quasi-permanent feature of 

 international commerce on the high seas, for there was usually some 

 war going on and even in times of relative peace new hostilities were 

 rapidly developing or old hostilities were slow in dissolving. 



Some people seem to believe that the convoy system was discov- 

 ered and developed at the time of World War I. It is at least as old as 

 the Greeks and the Romans and it was widely used in the seventeenth 

 and eighteenth centuries as a standard defense against privateers. 

 Spain used it to get her gold and silver home from Panama. France 

 and Holland ran convoys from the West Indies. England was so per- 

 petually dependent on her colonies and possessions that she ran con- 

 voys in all directions — from the West Indies, from various points on 

 the American coast, from the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. 



During the American Revolution the United States did create an 

 official navy but it was small, unevenly officered and relatively in- 

 effective. It was the privateers and the irregular sea fighters that 

 troubled the British and kept American resistence alive until effec- 

 tive help finally came from France and other allies. As many men 

 served in the privateers as in the Continental Army at its largest and 

 often the ratio was 4 to i. 



It was George Washington who first armed ships to send against 

 England and his first efforts, though feeble, were nonetheless effec- 

 tive. In September 1775 he was in command of the colonial militia 



