er
side to the story. Privateering, like all irregular service, was
demoralizing, not alone to the men engaged in it, but to the youth of the
country as well. The stories of the easy life and the great profits of the
privateersmen were circulated in every little town, while the revels of
these sea soldiers in the water-front villages were described with
picturesque embellishments throughout the land. As a result, it became
hard to get young men of spirit into the patriot armies. Washington
complained that when the fortunes of his army were at their lowest, when
he could not get clothing for his soldiers, and the snow at Valley Forge
was stained with the blood of their unshod feet, any American shipping on
a privateer was sure of a competence, while great fortunes were being made
by the speculators who fitted them out. Nor was this all. Such was the
attraction of the privateer's life that it drew to it seamen from every
branch of the maritime calling. The fisheries and the West India trade,
which had long been the chief mainstay of New England commerce, were
ruined, and it seemed for a time as if the hardy race of American seamen
were to degenerate into a mere body of buccaneers, operating under the
protection of international law, but plunderers and spoilers nevertheless.
Fortunately, the long peace which succeeded the War of 1812 gave
opportunity for the naturally lawful and civilized instincts of the
Americans to assert themselves, and this peril was averted.

It is, then, with no admiration for the calling, and yet with no
underestimate of its value to the nation, that I recount some of the
achievements of those who followed it. The periods when American
privateering was important were those of the Revolution and the War of
1812. During the Civil War the loss incurred by privateers fell upon our
own people, and it is curious to note how different a tone the writers on
this subject adopt when discussing the ravages of the Confederate
privateers and those which we let loose upon British commerce in the brave
days of 1812.

A true type of the Revolutionary privateersmen was Captain Silas Talbot,
of Massachusetts. He was one of the New England lads apprenticed to the
sea at an early age, having been made a cabin-boy at twelve. He rose to
command and acquired means in his profession, as we have seen was common
among our early merchant sailors, and when the Revolution broke out was
living comfortably in his own mansion in