32 SOME DORSET PRIVATEERS. 



follows: two-thirds to the owners who had fitted out the 

 privateer, and one-third to the captain and ship's company, 

 divided according to rating. The fees for the grant of a Letter 

 of Marque when the Duke of Buckingham was Lord Admiral 

 were 3 2s. 4d., with an additional 1 3s. 4d. if attendance 

 was not made in London. (It is curious that Whitaker's 

 Almanack for 1909 retains the out-of-date information 

 that the stamp duty on a letter of reprisal is 5 !) 



I will now turn from the general to the particular in order to 

 show, as far as time will permit, the extent to which Dorset 

 ports availed themselves of the privilege of endeavouring 

 to recoup their losses at sea during the seventeenth and 

 eighteenth centuries. The records of the Admiralty Court 

 and the Domestic State Papers yield a considerable harvest 

 of references to privateering in connection with this county ; 

 the earliest that has come under my notice is in 1588, when 

 the Mayor of Weymouth says that the borough had not 

 taken much benefit from Letters of Reprisal. The period 

 immediately following the death of James I. saw the largest 

 issue of these licences to help oneself and take the risks. 

 Charles I. came to the throne in 1625 under the shadow of 

 trouble with Spain, and shortly afterwards France made 

 common cause with his Catholic Majesty ; this war brought 

 about the grant of some seventy Letters of Marque to Dorset 

 applicants within the space of four years, and the number 

 of ships was still larger seeing that many were authorised 

 to take with them a satellite in the shape of a pinnace. The 

 object of this smaller vessel is not quite clear; she may have been 

 used for scouting purposes, or perhaps as a convoy for captured 

 prizes. In the cases of Poole and Weymouth, it is probable 

 that the big ships had been built for the Newfoundland 

 trade which then formed the staple industry of the two har- 

 bours. The merchants of the conjoined towns of Weymouth 

 and Melcombe owned three-fourths of the vessels which were 

 " set forth in warlike manner " from this county. Poole 

 was next in point of numbers, and Lyme was responsible 

 for only three or four. Many classes of Dorset people appear 



