THE DUTCH CONNECTION: PRIVATEERS, PIRATES, CORSAIRS

This week, we’re going to deal with something a little different from the usual fare.

This blog is, of course, about North African corsairs. But those corsairs didn’t exist in a vacuum. They were embedded into a larger historical context.

And that historical context included the Dutch.

So for the next couple of weeks, we’re going to look at how the Dutch fit into the larger historical context of the times—specifically the first half of the seventeenth century.

First, a little general background about the European context.

The discovery of the New World and the riches that could be extracted from it led to bitter clashes between European powers. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation led to even more bitter conflicts. As a result, the various European countries were embroiled in a continuing series of brutal wars and internal rebellions.

During all this, they also had to fend off the military advances of the Ottoman Empire, which at the time represented a genuine existential threat, while simultaneously contending with the constant depredations of the Barbary corsairs.

All this warfare and violent conflict was ruinously expensive.

The early seventeenth century world was not the same as ours. We refer to European countries of that time using familiar names—the Netherlands, England, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain—and the very familiarity of these names makes it all too easy to forget that these were not actually what we would today recognize as nation states.

One of the differences was that early seventeenth century countries lacked the large, stable tax base that we today take for granted as the foundation of any state. Among other things, this meant that they did not have the money required to maintain large, permanent armies or navies.

So during the sustained conflicts that marked much of the period, governments resorted to employing mercenaries and privateers on a temporary basis to achieve their military goals.

Privateers were private actors (hence the name) unconnected to the official naval forces and not on any government payroll. The costs of equipping a privateering expedition were born entirely by the financial backers of individual ships (either wealthy individuals or consortiums) and by the privateers themselves.

They all made a profit by receiving shares on the loot they brought back.

Because privateers didn’t just attack and sink enemy ships. They looted them. That loot was sold at auction, and the privateers took their cut—as did the government, the financial backers of the expedition, and a lot of other people.

As a result, privateering became a large-scale business enterprise.

Like any business, it was regulated. The government provided privateers with lawful cover in the form of official licenses, typically known in English as letters of marque or reprisal (kaperbrieven and commissies van retorsie in Dutch) authorizing the privateers either to attack and loot enemy shipping outright or to retaliate against an enemy who had attacked and looted Dutch shipping. In return, the privateers paid the government a hefty share of the proceeds from the sale of the loot they brought back.

To be legal (and so avoid the danger of being hanged as a pirate if caught) a privateer captain needed an official commission issued by an official licensing authority. The first prerequisite to obtaining such a legal commission was that a state of war—declared or de facto—had to exist.

For the Republic of the Netherlands, the primary conflict was the Eighty Years’ War—the Dutch war of independence—which lasted from 1568 to 1648. Two hundred years before the Americans launched their celebrated rebellion against the English, the Protestant Dutch launched their own revolt against the Catholic Spanish Habsburg Empire.

This Dutch war of independence was a long, grueling struggle that ground on for four generations. Privateers played a crucial role in this conflict. Not only did they seriously damage Spanish shipping; they also brought in vast amounts of looted wealth to support the cause of independence. Beyond that, they were seen as patriots, as freedom fighters valiantly resisting Habsburg tyranny. Many became folk heroes.

Despite its heroic appeal and legal veneer, however, privateering was essentially piracy—which made it a seriously risky business. There was a very real chance of being killed or maimed during a naval engagement, or of drowning if your ship was sunk.

A sea fight in the seventeenth century was a brutal affair.

Here is one contemporary description:

____________________

[The ships] hunting [each other] down, striking […] hard, crashing ship against ship, straggling, grouping one with another, exchanging artificial fires, attacking with the cold steel with all their might and with the flames. Inspired by fury, drunk with hate and the smoke, both sides blinded by passion, no longer men but wild beasts, they left it to inhumanity and desperation to do their worst in that conflict… with the perpetual discharge of guns, the flames of burning ships, masses of black smoke, which encumbered and confounded the air, the noise of masts and spars falling and breaking, the shouts and groans of poor wretches who were in pain…

____________________

Not only was there the general crazy chaos and danger of ships clashing and broadsides booming. There was also the individual dangers to the men involved.

Much modern ammunition (particularly military ammunition) is jacketed. That is, the lead core of the bullet in encased—jacketed—by a thin, hard shell of metal, like copper. Modern military ammunition is of a surprisingly small caliber (the cartridge used by the American M4 carbine, for example, is 5.56 mm, slightly less than 1/4 inch) and high velocity. Being hit by one of these bullets is rather like having a nail driven through you.

Seventeenth century ammunition was not jacketed and, by modern standards, was of low velocity. Musket shot consisted of lead balls from .4 to .65 of an inch (10-16.5 mm) in diameter that flattened and deformed when they encountered something. Being hit by one of these was more like being smashed hard with a hammer than penetrated by a nail.

The following contemporary description, penned by the captain of a British privateer ship engaged in a naval battle with the Spanish, gives you an idea:

____________________

The enemy [the Spanish ship] fired her stern chase [a cannon mounted on the ship’s stern] several times, and we returned it with our forechase [a cannon mounted on the ship’s bow] until, getting close aboard, we gave her several broadsides and also plied our small arms briskly, which they returned as thick for a while but did not ply their guns so fast as we…

We engaged them for about three glasses [an hour and a half], during which time we had only myself and another wounded. I was shot through the left cheek, the bullet striking away a part of my upper jaw and several teeth, which spilled out onto the deck when I fell… I was forced to write what I wanted to say in order to prevent the loss of blood and because of the pain I suffered when speaking…

In the night [following the battle], I felt something clogging my throat, which I swallowed with much pain and supposed it was a part of my jawbone or the shot.

I soon recovered myself, only my throat and head being greatly swollen, but I had much ado to swallow any sort of liquid for sustenance, which made me very weak.

____________________

We’ll continue this series of posts about Dutch privateers/pirates/corsairs next week.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

For those who may be interested…

The description of the sea battle comes from “Marc Antonio Giustinian, to the Doge and Senate” (June 22, 1666), in Allen B. Hinds, ed., Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 35, 1666-1668, pp. 14-15.

The description of being hit in the cheek with a musket ball comes from Woodes Rogers, A Cruising Voyage Around the World, pp. 293-294.