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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 5 page paper provides an overview of Donald Chidsey’s book American Privateers, published in 1962, which places the concept of privateering into the context of American history. This paper relates the style of the book, the content and the author's purpose. Bibliography lists 1 source.
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5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: MH11_MHPrivat.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
and the use of privateering in times of war. The progression of his work, then, moves from the conceptual view of privateering to the application in understanding the actions
of privateersmen as a component of American warfare (1). Chidsey provides some introductory material that supports a greater understanding of privateering relative to warfare. The distinction made
by Chidsey and other historians on this topic is that there was a difference between pirates and privateersmen, even though they conducted themselves in much the same manner. Chidsey
recognized that privateersmen were hired by governments in order to deter the shipping operations of another government, and became a tool of war. At the same time, these men
and their ships were not owned and directed by the government and so their special commissions afforded them distinct rights and privileges. The governments using privateers issued special commissions
known as "letters of marque and reprisal" to the captains of such ships, and this distinguished a hired privateer from a pirate. The irony, of course, is that these privateers
were actually pirates, but they were official pirates who had been hired in the service of their country to support specific military objectives. Though the historical context provided by
Chidsey relates the idea that privateering was not a new concept, he does focus on the use of privateering in American warfare. Chidsey makes it clear that American privateers
operated on something of a more noble purpose in terms of their assistance to the nascent American states. However, that does not stop him from emphasizing the fact that throughout
both the Revolutionary War of and the War of 1812, American privateers were able to capture and seize the goods from hundreds of ships. Acknowledging this, though, does not detract
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