HAPPENING NOW! PRIVATEER FESTIVAL, Flag talks by Ranger Scott Scheads, Fife & Drum Concerts by the Fort McHenry Guard Junior Fife & Drum Corps and the Privateer story! All day April 12, 9 to 4pm at Fells Point, Baltimore, Md. During the War of 1812, America’s “second war of independence,” President James Madison attempted to overcome the small size of the U.S. navy by issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal for private ships. These documents were granted to the vessel, not the captain, often for a limited time, expressing the enemy upon whom attacks were permitted, and converted the private merchant vessel into a naval auxiliary, or Privateer. This entitled the crew to honorable treatment as prisoners of war, if captured. However, this also permitted the vessel to be armed, and opened the way, in essence, to legal piracy. Privateers were permitted to prey upon the merchant fleet of Great Britain, and take captured cargo and vessels as prizes. American privateers, many of them sailing out of Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore clippers built in Fell’s Point, captured or sank some 1,700 British merchant vessels during the two-and- a-half-year war. Other Baltimore clippers served as cargo vessels to bring needed munitions and other armaments through the naval blockade that the British imposed on the U.S. coastline, which included Chesapeake Bay.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Apr 2014 14:04:34 +0000
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