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51-550: The archipelago is uninhabited and has area of approximately 6 square kilometres. The highest point is 144 m (472 ft) ( Stenin Island ). The largest island is Bolshoy Pelis (4 km). Islands were discovered for Europeans by French whalers in 1851 and named Iles pelée . Later the archipelago was named after commander of schooner Vostok Voin Rimsky-Korsakov . This Primorsky Krai location article

102-536: A "private war", a concept alien to modern sensibilities but related to an age when the ocean was lawless and all merchant vessels sailed armed for self-defense. A reprisal involved seeking the sovereign's permission to exact private retribution against some foreign prince or subject. The earliest instance of a licensed reprisal recorded in England was in the year 1295 under the reign of King Edward I . The notion of reprisal, and behind it that just war involved avenging

153-619: A "privateer status", but Congress never authorized a commission, nor did the President sign one. The issue of marque and reprisal was raised before Congress after the September 11 attacks and again by Congressman Ron Paul on July 21, 2007. The attacks were defined as acts of "air piracy" and the Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001 was introduced, which would have granted the president the authority to use letters of marque and reprisal against

204-434: A brick furnace called the tryworks . Spermaceti was especially valuable, and as sperm whaling voyages were several years long, the whaling ships were equipped for all eventualities. There have also been vessels which combined chasing and processing, such as the bottlenose whalers of the late 19th and early 20th century, and catcher/factory ships of the modern era. The crews of whaling vessels fought small skirmishes for

255-462: A long time and left the whale to thrash around in its death throes. These harpoons inject air into the carcass to keep the heavier rorqual whales hunted today from sinking. However, the harpoon-cannon is still criticized for its cruelty as not all whales are killed instantly; death can take from minutes to an hour. Japan is currently the only country that engages in whaling in the Antarctic, which

306-450: A prize if the opportunity arose in its normal commerce. In contrast, the term privateer generally referred to a fighting vessel, fore-and-aft rigged , fast, and weatherly. Letters of marque allowed governments to fight their wars using mercenary private captains and sailors in place of their own navies as a measure to save time and money. Instead of building, funding, and maintaining a navy in times of peace, governments would wait until

357-525: A specified enemy as reprisal for a previous attack or injury. Captured naval prizes were judged before the government's admiralty court for condemnation and transfer of ownership to the privateer. A common practice among Europeans from the late Middle Ages to the 19th century, cruising for enemy prizes with a letter of marque was considered an honorable calling that combined patriotism and profit. Such legally authorized privateering contrasted with unlicensed captures of random ships, known as piracy , which

408-543: A wrong, was associated with the letter of marque until 1620 in England. To apply for such a letter, a shipowner had to submit to the Admiralty Court an estimate of actual losses incurred. Licensing privateers during wartime became widespread in Europe by the 16th century, when most countries began to enact laws regulating the granting of letters of marque and reprisal. Such business could be very profitable; during

459-481: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Whaler A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling : the catching or processing of whales . The term whaler is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Japan , still dedicates a single factory ship for the industry. The vessels used by aboriginal whaling communities are much smaller and are used for various purposes over

510-515: Is from marcar , also Provençal, meaning to seize as a pledge. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the first recorded use of "letters of marque and reprisal" was in an English statute in 1354 during the reign of King Edward III . The phrase referred to "a licen[c]e granted by a sovereign to a subject, authorizing him to make reprisals on the subjects of a hostile state for injuries alleged to have been done to him by

561-421: Is no longer the primary commercial product of whaling. Whaling is now done for whale meat for the relatively small culinary market. (Norwegian whalers account for about 20% of whales caught and Japanese whalers for about 60%.) Harpoon cannons , fired from harpoon ships with displacement in the hundreds of tons, are now universally used for commercial whaling operations. These motorized ships are able to keep up with

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612-714: Is now under the protection of the International Whaling Commission as the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary . The area formerly saw large scale commercial whaling operations by numerous countries before the moratorium. The three Japanese harpoon ships of the ICR serve a factory ship that processes the catch on board and preserves it on site in refrigerators, allowing the long endurance whaling missions. These whaling operations, which are claimed by Japan to be for research purposes, sell

663-512: Is the Pequod from the novel Moby-Dick . Letter of marque A letter of marque and reprisal ( French : lettre de marque; lettre de course ) was a government license in the Age of Sail that authorized a private person, known as a privateer or corsair , to attack and capture vessels of a foreign state at war with the issuer, licensing international military operations against

714-560: The Nisshin Maru of Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) is the only whaling factory ship in operation. As compared to whaling before and during the 19th century, which was executed with handheld harpoons thrown from oar-powered whaleboats (depicted most famously in Herman Melville's Moby Dick ) , whaling since the 1900s has been quite different. Whale oil , which fossil-fuel based alternatives has supplanted,

765-590: The Continental Congress , and lastly, after ratification of the Constitution , only Congress authorized and the President signed letters of marque. A shipowner applied for such a letter of marque by stating the name, description, tonnage , and force (armaments) of the vessel, the name and residence of the owner, and the intended number of crew, and tendered a bond promising strict observance of

816-547: The Dey of Algiers ". This particular commission was never put to use, as it was issued July 3, 1815, the same day the treaty was signed, ending the U.S. involvement in the war. In Britain in the 18th century, the High Court of Admiralty issued Letters of Marque. It was customary for the proposed privateer to pay a deposit or bond, possibly £1,500 (equivalent to £284,456 in 2023) as surety for good behaviour. The details of

867-481: The Norwegian and later British Royal Navies requisitioned a number of whalers for use in a variety of functions such as minesweeping , search and rescue , and anti-submarine warfare . Ten Allied vessels categorized as whalers were lost in the war. Since the 1982 moratorium on commercial whaling, few countries still operate whalers, with Norway , Iceland , and Japan among those still operating them. Of those,

918-666: The enumerated powers of Congress, alongside the power to tax and to declare war. However, since the American Civil War, the United States as a matter of policy has consistently followed the terms of the 1856 Paris Declaration forbidding the practice. The United States has not legally commissioned any privateers since 1815, although the status of submarine-hunting Goodyear airships in the early days of World War II created significant confusion. Various accounts refer to airships Resolute and Volunteer as operating under

969-511: The whaling industry in Nantucket and New Bedford . Whaleships carried multiple whaleboats , open rowing boats used to chase and harpoon the whale. The whaleship would keep watch from the crowsnest , so it could sail to the signal and lash the dead whale alongside. Then the work of flensing (butchering) began, to separate the whale into its valuable components. The blubber was rendered into whale oil using two or three try-pots set in

1020-667: The 18th century. Article I of the United States Constitution , for instance, states that "The Congress shall have Power To ... grant Letters of marque and reprisal ...", without separately addressing privateer commissions. During the American War of Independence, the Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812 , it was common to distinguish verbally between privateers (also known as private ships of war) on

1071-534: The Confederate sailors were convicted and hanged, and the Union eventually agreed to treat Confederate privateers as prisoners of war. Privateers were also required by the terms of their letters of marque to obey the laws of war, honour treaty obligations (avoid attacking neutrals), and in particular to treat captives as courteously and kindly as they safely could. If they failed to live up to their obligations,

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1122-754: The Congress of Paris at the end of the Crimean War , seven European states signed the Paris Declaration of 1856 renouncing privateering, and 45 more countries eventually joined them, which in effect abolished privateering worldwide. The United States was among a few countries that were not signatory to that declaration. In December 1941 and the first months of 1942, Goodyear commercial L-class blimp Resolute operating out of Moffett Field in Sunnyvale , California, flew anti-submarine patrols. As

1173-603: The East Indiaman Phoenix captured the French privateer General Malartic , under Jean-Marie Dutertre , an action made legal by a letter of marque. Additionally, vessels with a letter of marque were exempt from having to sail in convoy , and nominally their crew members were exempt, during a voyage, from impressment . During the Napoleonic Wars, the Dart and Kitty , British privateers, spent some months off

1224-435: The admiralty courts could — and did — revoke the letter of marque, refuse to award prize money, forfeit bonds, or even award tort (personal injury) damages against the privateer's officers and crew. States often agreed by treaty to forgo privateering between them, as England and France repeatedly did starting with the diplomatic overtures of Edward III in 1324; privateering nonetheless recurred in every war between them for

1275-505: The carcasses could be processed, or to its factory ship anchored in a sheltered bay or inlet. With the later development of the slipway at the ship's stern , whale catchers were able to transfer their catch to factory ships operating in the open sea. Previous to that was the whaleship of the 16th to early 20th centuries, driven first by sail and then by steam. The most famous example is the fictional Pequod in Moby-Dick , based on

1326-640: The civilian crew was armed with a rifle, a persistent misconception arose that this made the ship a privateer and that she and sister commercial blimps were operated under letters of marque until the Navy took over operation. Without Congressional authorization, the Navy would not have been able to legally issue any letters of marque. Article I of the United States Constitution lists issuing letters of marque and reprisal in Section 8 as one of

1377-522: The coast of Sierra Leone hunting slave-trading vessels. The procedure for issuing letters of marque, and the issuing authority, varied by time and circumstance. In colonial British America , for instance, colonial governors issued such letters in the name of the Crown. During the American War of Independence , authorization shifted from individual state legislatures , followed by both the states and

1428-632: The control of the Spitsbergen whale fishery between 1613 and 1638. The Dutch were the first Europeans to visit Svalbard, and this gave a head start to whaling in the Dutch Republic . In the late 18th and early 19th century, the owners of whalers frequently armed their vessels with cannons to enable the vessels to protect themselves against pirates, and in wartime, privateers . Weapons were also carried on vessels visiting Pacific islands for food, water, and wood in order to defend themselves from

1479-554: The country's laws and treaties , and of international laws and customs. The United States granted the commission to the vessel, not to its captain, often for a limited time or specified area, and stated the enemy upon whom attacks were permitted. For example, during the Second Barbary War (1815), President James Madison authorized the brig Grand Turk (out of Salem, Massachusetts) to cruise against "Algerine vessels, public or private, goods and effects, of or belonging to

1530-480: The course of the year. The whale catcher was developed during the Steam-powered vesselage , and then driven by diesel engines throughout much of the twentieth century. It was designed with a harpoon gun mounted at its bow and was fast enough to chase and catch rorquals such as the fin whale . At first, whale catchers either brought the whales they killed to a whaling station , a settlement ashore where

1581-589: The eight years of the American Revolutionary War , ships from the tiny island of Guernsey carrying letter of marque captured French and American vessels to the value of £ 900,000 (equivalent to £145,029,851 in 2023). Privateers from Guernsey continued to operate during the Napoleonic Wars . Although privateering commissions and letters of marque were originally distinct legal concepts, such distinctions became purely technical by

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1632-627: The enemy's army". During the Middle Ages , armed private vessels enjoying their sovereign's tacit consent, if not always an explicit formal commission, regularly raided shipping of other states, as in the case of the English Sir Francis Drake 's attacks on Spanish shipping. Queen Elizabeth I (despite protestations of innocence) took a share of the prizes. Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius 's 1604 seminal work on international law, De Iure Praedae ( Of The Law of Prize and Booty ),

1683-543: The flags of three different countries and on opposite sides in the same war. Likewise the notorious Lafitte brothers in New Orleans cruised under letters of marque secured by bribery from corrupt officials of tenuous Central American governments, to cloak plunder with a thin veil of legality. The letter of marque by its terms required privateers to bring captured vessels and their cargoes before admiralty courts of their own or allied countries for condemnation. Applying

1734-718: The letters of marque issued by James while in exile in France, and prosecuted captured sailors operating under them as pirates. During the American Civil War , Union authorities likewise attempted to prosecute Confederate privateers for the criminal act of piracy. When the Confederate privateer Savannah was captured in 1861, its crew was put on trial in New York. The Confederate government, however, threatened to execute captured Union soldiers in retaliation if any of

1785-448: The letters of marque provided that, should they have the opportunity to take a prize, they could do so without being guilty of piracy. Similarly, the Earl of Mornington , an East India Company packet ship of only six guns, also carried a letter of marque. Letters of marque and privateers are largely credited for the age of Elizabethan exploration , because privateers were used to explore

1836-515: The meat from these operations on the market, allowed under the current moratorium to defer research costs. They are highly controversial, and are challenged by anti-whaling parties as being merely a disguise for commercial whaling. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has clashed with the Japanese whalers in the Antarctic in confrontations that have led to international media attention and diplomatic incidents. The most famous fictional whaling ship

1887-715: The next 500 years. Benjamin Franklin had attempted to persuade the French to lead by example and stop issuing letters of marque to their corsairs, but the effort foundered when war loomed with Britain once again. The French Convention did forbid the practice, but it was reinstated after the Thermidorian Reaction , in August 1795; on 26 September 1797, the Ministry of the Navy was authorized to sell small ships to private parties for this purpose. Finally, after

1938-637: The one hand, and armed merchantmen, which were referred to as "letters of marque", on the other, though both received the same commission. The Sir John Sherbrooke (Halifax) was a privateer; the Sir John Sherbrooke (Saint John) was an armed merchantman. The East India Company arranged for letters of marque for its East Indiamen ships, such as the Lord Nelson . They did not need permission to carry cannons to fend off warships, privateers, and pirates on their voyages to India and China but,

1989-564: The opportunity arise. In July 1793 the British armed whaleship Liverpool , of 20 guns, captured the French whaleship Chardon . However, the French crew succeeded in retaking their vessel. Also that year, an armed British whaleship captured the French whaleship Hébé in Walvis Bay . During the War of 1812 , the U.S. Navy captured two British whaleships, Atlantic and Seringapatam , and used them as warships. During World War II ,

2040-425: The rules and customs of prize law , the courts decided whether the letter of marque was valid and current, and whether the captured vessel or its cargo in fact belonged to the enemy (not always easy, when flying false flags was common practice), and if so the prize and its cargo were "condemned", to be sold at auction with the proceeds divided among the privateer's owner and crew. A prize court's formal condemnation

2091-661: The same three East Indiamen participated in an action in the Straits of Malacca . They came upon a French frigate , with some six or seven British prizes, with a crew replenishing her water casks ashore. The three British vessels immediately gave chase. The frigate fled towards the Sunda Strait . The Indiamen were able to catch up with a number of the prizes, and, after a few cannon shots, were able to retake them. Had they not carried letters of marque, such behaviour might well have qualified as piracy. Similarly, on 10 November 1800,

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2142-546: The seas. Under the Crown, Sir Francis Drake , Sir Walter Raleigh , and Sir Martin Frobisher sailed the seas as privateers; their expedition reports helped shape the age of Elizabethan exploration. In July 1793, the East Indiamen Royal Charlotte , Triton , and Warley participated in the capture of Pondichéry by maintaining a blockade of the port. Afterwards, while sailing to China,

2193-415: The ship, including tonnage, crew and weapons were recorded. The ownership of these ships was often split into ⅛ shares. Prizes were assessed and valued with profits split in pre-agreed proportions among the government, the owners, and the captain and crew. A letter of marque and reprisal in effect converted a private merchant vessel into a naval auxiliary. A commissioned privateer enjoyed the protection and

2244-411: The sleeker and fast-swimming rorquals such as the fin whale , that would have been impossible for the muscle-powered rowboats to chase, and allow whaling to be done more safely for the crews. The use of grenade-tipped harpoons has greatly improved the effectiveness of whaling, allowing whales to be killed often instantaneously as compared to the previous method in which whales bled to death, which took

2295-674: The sometimes hostile inhabitants. At the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, British privateers captured several French whalers, among them Necker and Deux Amis , and Anne . Dutch privateers captured Port de Paix and Penn . At the time, many French whalers transferred to the American flag, the United States being neutral in the Anglo-French war. Some whaleships also carried letters of marque that authorized them to take enemy vessels should

2346-479: The specific terrorists, instead of warring against a foreign state. The terrorists were compared to pirates in that they are difficult to fight by traditional military means. On April 15, 2009, Paul also advocated the use of letters of marque to address the issue of Somali pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden . However, the bills Paul introduced were not enacted into law. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine ,

2397-648: The start of a war to issue letters of marque to privateers, who financed their own ships in expectation of prize money. Marque derives from the Old English mearc , which is from the Germanic * mark- , which means boundary, or boundary marker. This is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *merǵ- , meaning boundary, or border. The French marque is from the Provençal language marca , which

2448-596: Was an advocate's brief defending Dutch raids on Spanish and Portuguese shipping. King Henry III of England first issued what later became known as privateering commissions in 1243. These early licences were granted to specific individuals to seize the King's enemies at sea in return for splitting the proceeds between the privateers and the Crown . The letter of marque and reprisal was documented in 1295, 50 years after wartime privateer licenses were first issued. According to Grotius, letters of marque and reprisal were akin to

2499-423: Was required to transfer title; otherwise the vessel's previous owners might well reclaim her on her next voyage, and seek damages for the confiscated cargo. Questions sometimes arose as to the legitimacy of a letter of marque, especially in cases of disputed sovereignty during civil wars or rebellions. Following the deposition of James II of England , for instance, the new Privy Council of England did not recognize

2550-625: Was subject to the obligations of the laws of war . If captured, the crew was entitled to honorable treatment as prisoners of war , while without the licence they were deemed mere pirates " at war with all the world ," criminals who were properly hanged . For this reason, enterprising maritime raiders commonly took advantage of " flag of convenience " letters of marque, shopping for cooperative governments to license and legitimize their depredations. French/Irishman Captain Luke Ryan and his lieutenants in just over two years commanded six vessels under

2601-408: Was universally condemned. In practice, the differences between privateers and pirates were sometimes slight, even merely a matter of interpretation. The terms "letter of marque" and "privateer" were sometimes used to describe the ships which typically operated under the marque-and-reprisal licences. In this context, a letter of marque was a lumbering, square-rigged cargo carrier that might pick up

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