Privateer

A vessel owned by one or more private individuals, armed and equipped at his or their expense, for the purpose of carrying on a maritime war, by the authority of one of the belligerent parties. A privateer is a private vessel commissioned by the state by the issue of a letter of marque to its owner to carry on all hostilities by sea, presumably according to the laws of war. She continues under the control of her private owner, and her crew are under the same discipline as the crew of a merchant ship. Formerly a state issued letters of marque to its own subjects, and to those of neutral states as well, but a privateersman who* accepted letters of marque from both belligerents was regarded as a pirate. For the purpose of encouraging the owners of private armed vessels, they are usually allowed to appropriate to themselves the property they capture, or, at least, a large proportion of it; 1 Kent 96.

See Keane v. The Gloucester, 2 Dali. (U. S.) 36, 1 L. Ed. 278; The Mary and Susan, 1 Wheat. (U. S.) 46, 4 L. Ed. 32.

By the Declaration of Paris ( q. v.) privateering was abolished, but the United States, Spain, Mexico, and Venezuela did not accede to this declaration. The creation of a volunteer navy by a sel loaned by her private owner to the state. Her officers are commissioned and her crew are subject to the discipline of a ship oi war; she only resembles a privateer in that her prizes belong to her owner. In 1870, when Prussia proposed the creation of a volunteer navy, the French government protested, but the English government held that such a navy was to be distinguished from privateers, and that their employment was no evasion of the Declaration of Paris; but from this opinion Phillimore decidedly dissented.

Risley, Law of War 112.

The Convention Relative to the Conversion of Merchant-Ships into War-Ships, adopted at The Hague in 1907, defines the conditions subject to which merchant-ships may be incorporated into the fighting fleet of a state in time of war. Such ships must be under the direct authority and immediate control of the power whose flag they fly; they must bear the external marks which distinguish the war-ships of their nationality; their commanders must be duly-commissioned officers in the service of the state; their crews must be subject to the rules of military discipline; they are bound to observe in their operations the laws and customs of war; and their names must figure on the list of the ships of the military fleet of the belligerent.

Higgins, The Hague Peace Conferences, 308-321.

A merchant vessel without any commission may become a lawful combatant in selfdefence, and if she captures her assailant, the latter may be condemned as lawful prize. During the civil war in America, congress authorized the president to issue letters of marque, but he did not do so. The confederates offered their letters of marque to foreigners, but they were not accepted. The confederate vessels were commissioned as of its regular navy. Boyd’s Wheat.

Ink Law

The president’s proclamation at the outbreak of the Spanish- American war,.1898, declared that privateering would not be resorted to by the United States. It has been thought that the constitutional provision empowering congress to issue letters of marque deprives it of the power to join in a permanent treaty abolishing privateering.

See 28 Am. L. Rev. 615; 24 id. 902; 19 Law Mag. & Rev. 35.