Their business was, of course, to earn profits for the merchants who had fitted them out, and profits were most easily earned by preying upon inferior or defenseless vessels.They did not give up their effort to secure college community quinsigamond the world's trade that was never an American method of procedure.Private property on shore has long been respected by the armies of Christendom, and why its presence in a ship rather than in a cart makes it a fit object of plunder baffles the understanding.The historian Henry Adams, without attempting to give any complete list of captures made on the British coasts in 1814, cites these college community quinsigamond facts The 'Siren,' a schooner of less than 200 tons, with seven guns and seventy five men, had an engagement with His Majesty's cutter 'Landrail,' of four guns, as the cutter was crossing the Irish sea with dispatches.He found privateering veterans by the thousand eager to take up that manner of life once more.While there are no complete figures for the whole period of the war obtainable, it is not to be believed that quite so high a record was maintained, for dread of privateers soon drove British shipping into their harbors, whence college community quinsigamond they put forth, if at all, under the protection of naval convoys.Christopher and St.While armed to fight, college community quinsigamond if need be, that was not their purpose, and a privateersman who gained the reputation among owners of being a fighting captain was likely to go long without a command.He thus describes the change the British outfitters made in her When I had last seen her she was the most beautiful little craft, both in hull and rigging, that ever delighted the eyes of a sailor but the dock yard riggers and carpenters had fairly bedeviled her at least so far as appearances went.They were at once the admiration and the envy of the British, who imitated their models without success and tried to utilize them for cruisers when captured, but destroyed their sailing qualities by altering their rig and strengthening their hulls at the expense of lightness college community quinsigamond and symmetry.As the war progressed it became the custom of British merchants to send out their ships only in fleets, convoyed by one or two men of war, a system that, of course, could be adopted only by nations very rich in war ships.