Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:08:30.936Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Overseas Trade and the Decline of Privateering

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2011

Henning Hillmann  and
Christina Gathmann
Henning Hillmann*
Affiliation:
Professor of Economic and Organizational Sociology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, A5, 6, D-68131 Mannheim, Germany. E-mail: [email protected].
Christina Gathmann*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Mannheim, L7, 3-5, D-68131 Mannheim, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]..
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Using a novel data set on 2,483 British privateering cruises, we show that state-licensed raiding of commercial vessels was a popular and flourishing business among merchants that took a serious toll on enemy trade from 1689 to 1815. Why, then, did privateering merchants gradually turn away from these profitable endeavors? We show that the expansion of overseas trade increased the opportunity costs for merchants and resulted in the decline of privateering. Our findings document that the decline of privateering had as much to do with an expanding maritime economy as with the rising naval power of the British state.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , 13 September 2011 , pp. 730 - 761
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Andrews, Kenneth R.Elizabethan Privateering: English Privateering During the Spanish War, 1585-1603. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964.Google Scholar
Baugh, Daniel.British Naval Administration in the Age of Walpole. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Daniel K., and Dendy, S. Macaulay. “Private Warfare in the Age of Sail.” Unpublished Manuscript, Clemson University, 2002.Google Scholar
Bonney, Richard, ed. The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe, c. 1200-1815. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, John.The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688-1783. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Bromley, John S.The Manning of the Royal Navy: Selected Public Pamphlets, 1693-1873. London: Navy Records Society, 1974.Google Scholar
Bromley, John S.Corsairs and Navies, 1660-1760. London: Hambledon Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Buel, Richard.In Irons: Britain's Naval Supremacy and the American Revolutionary Economy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Chabert, Alexandre.Essai sur les mouvements des prix et des revenues en France de 1798 à 1820. Paris: Librairie des Médicis, 1945.Google Scholar
Crouzet, François.“Angleterre et France au XVIII siècle: essai d'analyse comparée de deux croissances économiques.” Annales, Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 21, no. 2 [1966] (1990): 254–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crouzet, François.“The Second Hundred Years War: Some Reactions.” French History 10, no. 4 (1996): 432–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowhurst, Patrick.The Defense of British Trade, 1689-1815. Folkestone: Dawson and Sons, 1977.Google Scholar
Crowhurst, Patrick.The French War on Trade: Privateering, 1793-1815. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Cuenca Esteban, Javier.“Statistics of Spain's Colonial Trade, 1747-1820: New Estimates and Comparisons with Great Britain.” Revista de Historia Economica 26, no. 3 (2008): 323–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dardel, Pierre.Navires et marchandises dans les ports de Rouen et du Havre au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: SEVPEN, 1963.Google Scholar
Davis, Ralph.“Seamen's Sixpences: An Index of Commercial Activity, 1697-1828.” Economica 23, no. 92 (1957): 328–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Ralph.The Rise of the English Shipping Industry. London: MacMillan, 1962.Google Scholar
Davis, Ralph.The Industrial Revolution and British Overseas Trade. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Deane, Phyllis, and Cole, W.A.. British Economic Growth, 1688-1959. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Downing, Brian M.Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eltis, David, Berent, Stephen, Richardson, David et al. . The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Glete, Jan.Navies and Nations: Warships, Navies, and State Building in Europe and America, 1500-1860. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1993.Google Scholar
Harding, Richard.Seapower and Naval Warfare from 1650-1830. London: UCL Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Hill, Richard.Prizes of War: Prize Law and the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, 1793-1815. London: Sutton, 1999.Google Scholar
Hillmann, Henning, and Gathmann, Christina. Overseas Trade and the Decline of Privateering. Working Paper, University of Mannheim, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jamieson, A.G., ed. A People of the Sea: The Maritime History of the Channel Islands. New York: Methuen, 1986.Google Scholar
Jeulin, Paul.L’évolution du port de Nantes. Organisation et trafic depuis les origines. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1929.Google Scholar
Levy, Jack S., and Clifton, T. Morgan. Great Powers War, 1495-1815. New Brunswick and Houston: Jack S. Levy and T. Clifton Morgan [producers], 1989. Ann Arbor: Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1994.Google Scholar
Lunsford, Virginia West.Piracy and Privateering in the Golden Age Netherlands. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lydon, James G.Pirates, Privateers, and Profits. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Gregg Press, 1970.Google Scholar
MacGregor, David.Merchant Sailing Ships, 1775-1815: Sovereignty of Sail. London: Conway, 1985.Google Scholar
Marsden, R.G., ed. Documents Relating to Law and Custom of the Sea, Vol. II: A.D. 1649-1767. Publications of the Navy Records Society, Vol. 50. London: Navy Records Society, 1917.Google Scholar
Martens, Georg Friedrich de.An Essay on Privateers, Captures, and Particularly on Recaptures According to the Laws, Treaties, and Usages of the Maritime Powers of Europe. Trans. Thomas Hartwell Horne. London: E. and R. Brooke, 1801.Google Scholar
McCusker, John J.Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600-1775: A Handbook. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menard, Russell R. “Transport Costs and Long-Range Trade, 1300-1800: Was There a European ‘Transport Revolution’ in the Early Modern Era?” In The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, edited by Tracy, James, 228–75, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, Jean.L'armement Nantais dans la deuxième moitié du XVIIIe siècle. Paris: SEVPEN, 1969.Google Scholar
Meyer, William R.“English Privateering in the War of 1688-1697.” Mariner's Mirror 67, no. 3 (1981): 259–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, William R.“English Privateering in the War of Spanish Succession, 1703-1713.” Mariner's Mirror 69, no. 4 (1983): 435–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Brian R.Abstract of British Historical Statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Brian R.International Historical Statistics: Europe, 1750-2000. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.Google Scholar
Mokyr, Joel.The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700-1850. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Morgan, Kenneth.Bristol and the Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, Douglass.“Sources of Productivity Change in Ocean Shipping, 1600-1850.” Journal of Political Economy 76, no. 5 (1968): 953–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Rourke, Kevin H.“The Worldwide Economic Impact of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793-1815.” Journal of Global History 1 (2006): 123–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Rourke, Kevin H., and Jeffrey, G. Williamson. “After Columbus: Explaining Europe's Overseas Trade Boom, 1500-1800.” The Journal of Economic History 62, no. 2 (2002): 417–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pares, Richard.“The Manning of the Royal Navy in the West Indies, 1702-63.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (Fourth series) 20 (1937): 31–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pares, Richard.Colonial Blockade and Neutral Rights, 1739-1763. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938.Google Scholar
Powell, J.W. Damer. Bristol Privateers and Ships of War. Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1930.Google Scholar
Price, Jacob M.France and the Chesapeake: A History of the French Tobacco Monopoly, 1674-1791, and of Its Relationship to the British and American Tobacco Trades. Vol. II. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) HCA 25/203-207: High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Warrants, Bonds and Bails for Letters of Marque.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO). HCA 26/1-104: High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Registers of Declarations for Letters of Marque.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO). HCA 30/561-562, 774, 777, 779: High Court of Admiralty, and Supreme Court of Judicature, High Court of Justice, Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division: Admiralty Miscellanea.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO). HCA 32/1834: High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Papers.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO). HCA 34/1-22, 30-57, 59, 61-65: High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Sentences and Interlocutories.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO). HCA 45/1-65: High Court of Appeals for Prizes: Case Books.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO). HCA 49/31(8): High Court of Admiralty: Vice-Admiralty Courts: Proceedings.Google Scholar
Redlich, Fritz.The German Military Enterpriser and His Work Force: A Study in European Economic and Social History. 2 vols. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1964/65.Google Scholar
Richardson, David.The Bristol Slave Traders: A Collective Portrait. Bristol: Bristol Branch of the Historical Association, 1985.Google Scholar
Rodger, N.A. M.The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy. New York: W.W. Norton, 1986.Google Scholar
Rodger, N.A. M.Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004.Google Scholar
Romano, Ruggiero. “Documenti e prime considerazioni alla ‘Balance du commerce’ della Francia dal 1716 al 1780.” In Studi in onore di Armando Sapori, 1267–1300. Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1957.Google Scholar
Schneider, Jürgen, Schwarzer, Oskar, and Zellfelder, Friedrich. Währungen der Welt I. Europäische und nordamerikanische Devisenkurse, 1777-1914, Volume 2. Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1991.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Elizabeth B.English Overseas Trade Statistics, 1697-1808. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Shepherd, James F., and Walton, Gary. Shipping, Maritime Trade and the Economic Development of Colonial North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Stark, Francis R.The Abolition of Privateering and the Declaration of Paris. Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, [1897] 2002.Google Scholar
Starkey, David J. “A Restless Spirit: British Privateering Enterprise, 1739-1815.” In Pirates and Privateers, edited by Starkey, D.J., van Eyck van Heslinga, E.S., and de Moor, J.A., 126–40. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1990a.Google Scholar
Starkey, David J.British Privateering Enterprise in the Eighteenth Century. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1990b.Google Scholar
Starkey, David J. “War and the Market for Seafarers in Britain.” In Shipping and Trade, 1750-1950: Essays in International Maritime Economic History, edited by Fischer, L.R. and Nordvik, H.W., 25–42. Pontefract: Lofthouse Publications, 1990c.Google Scholar
Starkey, David J., van Eyck van Heslinga, E. S., and de Moor, J. A., eds. Pirates and Privateers: New Perspectives on the War on Trade in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Swanson, Carl E.Predators and Prizes: American Privateering and Imperial Warfare, 1739-1748. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Tarrade, Jean.Le commerce colonial de la France à la fin de l'Ancien Régime. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1972.Google Scholar
Timewell, H.C.“Guernsey Privateers.” Mariner's Mirror 56, no. 2 (1970): 199–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Usher, Abbott P.“The Growth of English Shipping, 1572-1922.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 42, no. 3 (1928): 465–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ville, Simon.“Size and Profitability of English Colliers in the Eighteenth Century: A Reappraisal.” Business History Review 58, no. 1 (1984): 103–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, John R.“The Profitability of Sugar Planting in the British West Indies, 1650-1834.” Economic History Review 31, no. 2 (1978): 197–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Gomer.History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque with an Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade, 1744-1812. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, [1897] 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar