Archive for the 'News' Category

The American congressman Ron Paul posted a video towards the beginning of the week that instantly piqued my interest. In it he discusses the current pirate activity in and around Somalia. He waffles quite a bit at the beginning about how nebulous Islamic radicals and their effect in destabilising Somalia. It just after that he mentions the idea of using a power established within the Constitution of the United States to issued Letters of Marque and Reprisal to private groups.

Here’s the video in full:

A Letter of Marque is an official document, like a warrant or private commission which empowers the bearer to seize and attack the assets of any group or power that is an enemy of the issuing government. They were used extensively during the early modern period when governments lacked the resources or finances to outfit and supply ships. Private warships would be outfitted by companies or rich investors and issued with letters of Marque allowing them to attack and seize enemy ships. These would then be conveyed to one of the issuing government’s ports and an amount of prize money awarded dependant upon the value of the ship and its cargo. The distinction between vessels carrying a letter of marque who were known as privateers, and pirates who plundered other ships for simple profit, was so fine that often the privateers themselves hardly knew the difference. To the nation under attack by the privateers there was no difference, and a privateer would be hung at the low tide markers as sure as any pirate.

Now as someone that has studied historical piracy in quite some detail I feel I have to pass comment on his idea. I think that like a lot of people Mr. Paul has forgotten, or maybe never took the time to learn, the lessons of the past. Historically the issuing of letters of marque has often backfired on the governments that granted them. Either through political embarrassment or through reckless or through the the privateer wilfully overstepping the bounds of their authority as set out in the letter.

In fact it backfired so often, and so disastrously, that most of great powers signed a treaty called The Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law in 1856. The treaty had several purposes, but the key one was the absolute abolishment of Privateers and Letters of Marque. Young United States however refused to sign the treaty citing concerns that neautral shipping suspected of carrying war materials to belligerent powers could still be seized, and that it needed to employ privateers owing to the small size of her navy. The USA still hasn’t ratified this, or any similar treaty.

Interstingly many of the most famous historical figures that we would commonly call pirates were actually privateers of some kind or another. A prime example would be Captain Kidd one of the most famous pirates of the early modern era, and a Scotsman to boot. He was granted a letter of marque and commissioned to outfit a ship and cruise against pirates and French shipping in the Indian Ocean. He suffered a run of bad luck, including much of his crew being shanghaied and pressed into naval service, a cholera outbreak and being utterly unable to locate any French or pirate vessels along the east African coast. Eventually in desperation to turn a profit for his backers it seems he resorted to outright piracy. It was around this time that he seized the Armenian ship the Quedagh Merchant and her cargo which was worth a kings ransom. This may not have been entirely his idea however, as eyewitness accounts suggest he could barely control his mutinous and plunder hungry crew. Eventually many deserted and signed on with another pirate leaving Kidd with a skeleton crew and the Quedagh Merchant. Kidd was eventually captured in New York and put on trial accused of piracy. It was one of the most sensational trials of the eighteenth century; Kidd was forced to forego legal representation and had to defend himself against what amounted to a political show trial. Unsurprisingly he was found guilty and hanged on May 23, 1701 at Execution Dock in Wapping.

He is not alone in being a government man that served his king and country as a privateer and yet be remembered as a pirate by history. Sir Henry Morgan, perhaps the greatest of the Caribbean buccaneers saw himself as a patriot and defender of Jamaica. He undertook daring raids against the Spanish empire in the new world secure in the knowledge that he was serving his king and country. Unfortunately a shift in Europe’s political landscape left him an embarrassing liability to the English Crown and he was summoned back to England. However by the time he returned the political winds had shifted once more and he was returned to Jamaica in triumph as the new governor.

Much as I hate to admit it, piracy was largely eliminated by strong national navies, and the British Navy played a particularly important role in this. I sincerely doubt that a policy of adding government sanctioned trigger happy private enterprise forces into the already volatile region around the Indian Ocean would have the effect that Ron Paul believes. It seems more likely that you would have quickly replaced a few groups of badly equipped, if determined individuals, with an unregulated and profit driven armed force operating in international waters beyond the effective rule of law. How long do you think it will be before some of them start carrying out “inspections” of passing vessels or “impounding” goods?