Patriot Pirates: The Privateer War for Freedom and Fortune in the American Revolution | 
| Author: Robert H. Patton
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $15.12
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 16989
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4
ISBN: 0375422846
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.35
EAN: 9780375422843
ASIN: 0375422846
Publication Date: May 20, 2008
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Product Description
They were legalized pirates empowered by the Continental Congress to raid and plunder, at their own considerable risk, as much enemy trade as they could successfully haul back to America’s shores; they played a central role in American’s struggle for independence and later turned their seafaring talents to the slave trade; embodying the conflict between enterprise and morality central to the American psyche.
In Patriot Pirates, Robert H. Patton, grandson of the battlefield genius of World War II, writes that during America’s Revolutionary War, what began in 1775 as a New England fad--converting civilian vessels to fast-sailing warships, and defying the Royal Navy’s overwhelming firepower to snatch its merchant shipping--became a massive seaborne insurgency that ravaged the British economy and helped to win America’s independence. More than two thousand privately owned warships were commissioned by Congress to prey on enemy transports, seize them by force, and sell the cargoes for prize money to be divided among the privateer’s officers, crewmen, and owners.
Patton writes how privateering engaged all levels of Revolutionary life, from the dockyards to the assembly halls; how it gave rise to an often cutthroat network of agents who sold captured goods and sparked wild speculation in purchased shares in privateer ventures, enabling sailors to make more money in a month than they might otherwise earn in a year.
As one naval historian has observed, “The great battles of the American Revolution were fought on land, but independence was won at sea.”
Benjamin Franklin, then serving at his diplomatic post in Paris, secretly encouraged the sale of captured goods in France, a calculated violation of neutrality agreements between France and Britain, in the hopes that the two countries would come to blows and help take the pressure off American fighters.
Patton writes about those whose aggressive speculation in privateering promoted the war effort: Robert Morris--a financier of the Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, member of the Continental Congress who helped to fund George Washington’s army, later tried (and acquitted) for corruption when his deals with foreign merchants and privateers came to light, and emerged from the war as one of America’s wealthiest men . . . William Bingham… John R. Livingston--scion of a well-connected New York family who made no apologies for exploiting the war for profit, calling it “a means of making my fortune.” He worried that peace would break out too soon. (“If it takes place without a proper warning,” said Livingston, “it may ruin us.”) Vast fortunes made through privateering survive to this day, among them those of the Peabodys, Cabots, and Lowell's of Massachusetts, and the Derbys and Browns of Rhode Island.
A revelation of America’s War of Independence, a sweeping tale of maritime rebel-entrepreneurs bent on personal profit as well as national freedom.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 history that feels new July 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I got this for my son and read it myself first. I learned things different from anything I have heard before. Some are slimy colonial characters but many just trying to get ahead like everyone. I liked how the stories came together and connect the characters and action together at the end. There was just enough money talk to be interesting but not boring. If I hear people talk about the revolution and not mention sea events in the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean then I'll know they didn't read this book.
new perspective, well told June 25, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This was very enlightening for me. I got a totally new sense of the down-and-dirty Revolutionary world. There are ocean battles in it, but if that's all you're looking for there are probably other books to go to. This one has a much wider scope that includes business, naval strategy, politics, even the slave trade. It features an array of high and low characters, and most of them aren't household names, which I thought was a good thing but others may disagree. I think the storytelling is really artful and smooth, because in a pretty short narrative it presents all sorts of scenes from Massachusetts to the Caribbean to Paris and London, but it weaves them together well, and then it ends with a couple of teenage seamen whose adventures capture the suffering, persistence, and sheer guts of the American patriots. This book turned out to be a much more significant portrayal of history than I'd thought when I first bought it.
 boring June 23, 2008
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
I am halfway through and may not finsih it.
It is interesting to see all the conflict-of-interest and outsourcing war profiteering scams were just as prevalent in 1777 as 2007, if not more so. Some things never change.
There is way too much review of correspondance and obscure contracting issues and almost NOTHING from the point-of-view of the actual privateers. If you are looking for action, look elsewhere.
 How Not to Write a History Book June 21, 2008
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
First, take an interesting subject. Second, focus on the most boring, obscure people related to that subject. Third, constantly repeat yourself. Fourth, fail to reread 1776 to learn how to write gripping history.
 Good but not really good June 18, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book is told in chronological, geographic vignettes which follow various people with quick biographical sketches as they engaged in privateering. There is little in the way of overview on privateering in general or its overall impact on the war. What is there is scattered throughout the book. Patriot Pirates would benefit from a more focused approach: a survey of privateering; or a thesis to be proved- privateering was critical to weakening the British war effort; even overview chapter. The narratives could have been better employed as highlights to these approaches. As is, it is an easy read with some good information on privateering and a solid bibliography for further reading. Much of the non-privateering information will be repetitive to even casual students of the era.
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