Anne T. Converse Photography
Neith, 1996, Cover photograph
Wood, Wind and Water
A Story of the Opera House Cup Race of Nantucket Photographs by Anne T. Converse Text by Carolyn M. Ford Live vicariously through the pictures and tales of classic wooden yacht owners who lovingly restore and race these gems of the sea. “An outstanding presentation deserves ongoing recommendation for both art and nautical collections.” 10”x12” Hardbound book; 132 pages, 85 full page color photographs; Price $45.00 For more information contact: Anne T. Converse Phone: 508-728-6210 anne@annetconverse.com www.annetconverse.com
by Kurt D. Voss All proceeds from this pictorial history benefit the ELISSA preservation fund.
Published by Arcadia Publishing and Galveston Historical Foundation $21.99. 128 pages, 200 photographs Autographed copies available at (409) 763-1877, or online at:
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dependent upon locally manufactured arms and munitions, as well as those purchased in the West Indies or seized in battle. For its navy, Congress cobbled together a modest number of vessels, mostly converted merchantmen. Eleven of the colonies created some sort of state navy, seaborne militia, or “sea fencibles” that patrolled and defended their coastal enclaves. Congress realized that privateers harassing or interdicting British shipping on the Eastern Seaboard, the West Indies, and around the British Isles could wreak havoc on the home country by crippling its commerce. British shipowners responded by sending their ships to sea in convoys, requiring the Royal Navy to peel off assets to serve as escorts. Marine insurance rates increased dramatically, followed by inflation at home, providing the main impetus for the birth of the substantial American letter-ofmarque fleet, armed vessels that included whaleboats, sloops, cutters, brigs, and fullrigged ships. American privateering vessels increased in number from 66 in 1777 to 550 by 1781, then dwindled to 22 by the war’s end. Dolin takes his reader through a quick overview of the Revolutionary War as seen through a hypothetical privateer’s point of view and argues that the maritime enterprise of privateering was vital to the insurgent’s success. Historical accounts of individual privateers provide anecdotal detail and a fair amount of excitement in the telling. We meet John Greenwood, an army fifer, privateer, and dentist; Major General Nathaniel Greene and his relatives, who financed about twenty privateers; and James Forten, the black sailmaker, privateer, and abolitionist—among others. Britain, of course, mobilized its own privateers in countermoves. Dolin’s chapter “Hell Afloat,” on the adversities suffered by American seamen captured by the British, was exceptionally graphic and especially emotive, including verses of privateer Philip Freneau’s poem “The British Prison Ship.” The author devotes a major portion of his book to analyzing the efficacy of the privateering operation. It was at times accused of degrading American morals by offering men the opportunity to pursue profit over patriotism and castigated for
draining off manpower and ammunitions from the Continental Navy and Army. Privateering may not have been the decisive factor in the defeat of the British, but Dolin argues that the privateer fleet was an important cog in the martial machinery of the Revolutionary War through British losses of goods, ships, and men. Rebels at Sea is a worthwhile addition to Eric Jay Dolin’s superb scholarly library of maritime works. A few minor shortcomings are nonetheless worth mentioning. The author provided an extensive account of the Penobscot Expedition—but while several privateers took part in the debacle, it was not a privateering mission. Not addressed was the role that privateers played in relation to the slave trade and its consequences in North America and Great Britain. While privateers did not regularly capture slave ships or raid plantations, a small number of enslaved individuals found themselves taken as “prize cargo” during the conflict, and this would seem worth a mention. I was surprised at a couple of other individuals whose stories were omitted. These points noted, the author does not claim this work to be a comprehensive history. Rebels at Sea is a broad and well-researched examination of the role of letterof-marque vessels and privateering during the American Revolution. This new work is very much a welcome addition to Revolutionary War maritime history. Louis Arthur Norton West Simsbury, Connecticut Samuel Pepys and the Strange Wrecking of the Gloucester: A True Restoration Tragedy by Nigel Pickford (The History Press, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK, 2021, 293pp, biblio, illus, appen, notes, isbn 978-0-75-097553-9; $25.50hc) A prospective king sets out on a voyage from England to retrieve his wife in Scotland. The political climate of the period, charged with the nation-dividing struggle for religious supremacy between the Catholic Church and the Church of England, has cooled to the point that he—a Catholic—believes he can safely lay claim to the throne should his brother, the current monarch, pass on. But the ship in which he is sailing runs hard aground in SEA HISTORY 179, SUMMER 2022
