Privateering Bibliography

Armour, Charles A. and Thomas Lackey. Sailing Ships of the Maritimes: An Illustrated History of Shipping and Shipbuilding in the Maritime Provinces of Canada,1750-1925, Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1975.

Has a good chapter on privateering and prizes with some fine illustrations.

Bromley, John S. Corsairs and Navies,1660-1760. Hambleton Press, 1987.

Several brilliant social history essays on French privateers, privateering culture, naval prize-courts and naval officers who acted as privateers.

Chapelle, Howard. The History of the American Sailing Ship. New York: Bonanza Books, 1935.

________ . The Search for Speed Under Sail. New York: Norton, 1967.

Very useful for model builders with many plans of the American and French privateers vessels which influenced and closely resembled Nova Scotian privateers.

Chard, Don. "The Impact of French Privateering on New England, 1689-1713". American Neptune. Vol. 35 (July 1975), pp.153-165.

A useful look at French and Acadian privateering from Port Royal.

Conlin, Daniel.

"A Historiography of Private Sea Warfare in Nova Scotia", Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society Vol. I, (1998), 79-92.

"Privateer Entrepot: Commercial Militarization in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, 1793-105", The Northern Mariner Vol. VIII, No. 2 (April 1998).

"A Private War in the Caribbean: Nova Scotia Privateering, 1793-1805," The Northern Mariner, Vol. VI, No. 4, (October 1996), 29-46.

"A Private War in the Caribbean: Nova Scotia Privateering 1793-1805" M.A. Thesis at Saint Mary's University, Halifax: April 22, 1996

Copies available at Saint Mary's University, the Public Archives of Nova Scotia, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and on National Library of Canada microfiche.

Horwood, Harold and Ed Butts. Bandits and Privateers: Canada in the Age of Gunpowder. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1987.

Colourfully written but a simplistic and romantic look at privateering making exaggerated and unsourced claims.

International Journal of Maritime History. Vol. I (1989).

Almost a whole issue devoted to privateering with articles by English privateering authority David Starkey and American authority Carl Swanson along with a debate on the place of privateering in history.

Johnston, A.J.B. The Summer of 1744. A Portrait of Life in 18th Century Louisbourg. Ottawa: Parks Canada, 1983.

Has a good account of the see-saw war between Louisbourg and New England privateers.

Kert, Faye. "The Fortunes of War: Privateering in Atlantic Canada in the War of 1812". MA Thesis. Carleton University, 1986.

________ . "Taking Care of Business: Privateering and the Licensed War of 1812".Global Crossroads and the American Seas. Missoula Press, Missoula, Montana, 1988, pp.135-143.

________ . Prize and Prejudice: Privateering and Naval Prize in Atlantic Canada in the War, Research in Maritime History No. 11, (St. Johns, Nfld, 1997).

Very useful work by the Canadian authority on War of 1812 privateering, giving a more scholarly assessment of C.H.J. Snider's Under the Red Jack.

Leefe, John. The Atlantic Privateers: Their Story 1749-1815. Halifax: Petheric Press, 1978.

Aimed at a high school audience, Leefe provides a good introduction to privateering using document examples.

MacMechan, Archibald. There Go the Ships. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1928.

Contains a good chapter on the large privateer, Charles Mary Wentworth.

Mullane, George. "The Privateers of Nova Scotia, 1756-1783". Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society. Vol. XX. (1921) pp. 17-42.

Mullins, Janet. Some Liverpool Chronicles. Liverpool NS: Liverpool Advance, 1941. ________ . Liverpool Privateering. Liverpool NS: Fred S. Morton, 1935.

Nichols, George E.E. "Notes on Nova Scotian Privateers". Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society. Vol. XIII (1908), pp. 111-152.

Mullane, Mullins and Nichols provide an early and useful, if antiquarian, look at privateering in Nova Scotia.

Pritchard, James "Canada and the Defence of Newfoundland During the War of the Spanish Succession, 1702-1713", Canadian Military History Since the 17th Century: Proceedings of the Canadian Military History Conference, Ottawa, 5-9 May 2000, pp. 49-59.

Raddall, Thomas H.. The Rover: The Story of a Canadian Privateer. Toronto: Macmillan, 1958.,br>

________ . Pride's Fancy. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1946.

While not a historian, Raddall conducted detailed research on privateering. The Rover is aimed at a junior high school audience but is still a good adult read. Pride's Fancy is a rather melodramatic 1940s novel but gives a vivid and mostly accurate portrayal of the technical and economic side to privateering.

Rediker, Marcus. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World 1700-1750. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987

A fascinating and influential comparison between merchant seamen, pirates and privateers.

Reid, John and P. Buckner. Eds, The Atlantic Region to Confederation: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Contains several references to privateering that sum up the dismissal of privateering by professional historians.

Rodger, N.A.M. The Wooden World An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy. London: William Collins & Sons, 1986. A major revisionist work on naval life with aggressive comparisons made to pay and working conditions aboard privateers.

Rogers, Stan. "Barrett's Privateers". Fogerty's Cove. Dundas Ont: Cole Harbour Music Ltd, 1977.

Rogers, Woodes. Life Aboard a British Privateer: Life aboard a British privateer in the Time of Queen Anne: Being the Journal of Captain Woodes Rogers. London: Chapman and Hall, 1894. (First published in 1712 by W. Rogers).

A fascinating journal of a very large privateering venture.

Ross, James Henry. "Privateering in Nova Scotia During the American Revolutionary War 1775-1783". BA Honours thesis Mount Allision University, 1957.

A useful, although incomplete picture of revolutionary privateering in Nova Scotia.

Snider, Charles Henry J. "Perkins Privateers". Canadian Magazine. Vol. 70, No.4 (1928), pp.10-11.

________ . "Nova Scotians on the Spanish Main". Canadian Magazine. Vol. 70, No. 3 (Nov. 1928), p.5-7.

________ . Under the Red Jack: Privateers of the Maritime Provinces in the War of 1812. London: Martin Hopkinson & Co, 1928.

Snider's work, while jingoistic in places and full of imaginary dialogue, was very well researched and Under the Red Jack remains a useful reference to Nova Scotian War of 1812 privateers.

Starkey, David. British Privateering Enterprize in the Eighteenth Century. Exeter Great Britain: University of Exeter Press, 1990. ________ . "British Privateering Against the Dutch in the American Revolutionary War, 1780-1783", in Stephen Fischer ed. Studies in British Privateering, Trading Enterprize and Seamen's Welfare,1775-1900. University of Exeter, 1987. pp19-39

Starkey is the top authority on British privateering and his book is large both in scope and detail, although lacking in social history considerations.

Statham, E.P. Privateers and Privateering. London: Hutchinson & Co, 1910.
A restrained popular patriotic account of British privateering.

Steel, David. The Ship-Masters Assistant and Owner's Manual. London: D. Steel, 1792.
Has a chapter with a great *how-to* guide to privateering law.

Swanson, Carl E. Predators and Prizes: American Privateering and Imperial Warfare, 1739-1748. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.
Swanson is the most authoritative American scholar on privateering and establishes the heavy influence of privateering in colonial economies and war strategy. Louisbourg and Nova Scotia are mentioned in passing.

Williams, Gomer. History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque. London: W. Heineman and Liverpool: E. Howell, 1897.
A very large work on several centuries of Liverpool, UK privateering. Devoid of analysis, but useful for details and examples.

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