The Republic's Private Navy: The American Privateering Business as Practiced by Baltimore in the War of 1812

Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1977. First edition. First edition [stated]. Presumed First printing. Hardcover. Very good in good dust jacket. Price clipped. DJ has some wear and soiling, and sticker residue on front flap.. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 356 p. Illustrations. Notes. Selected Bibliography. Index. Published for Mystic Seaport, Inc. Volume VIII in The American Maritime Library. This is a carefully researched and fully documented study of all aspects of Baltimore's extensive privateering operations on both land and sea. After tracing the roots and growth of privateering until its history overlaps that of Baltimore, Garitee describes that port's rapid development in the four decades before the War of 1812. The merchants and mariners who built the port, aided by the shipbuilders whose skill made the famous Baltimore schooners the fastest sailing vessels of their time, became the owners and operators of the private armed ships that successfully defended the city during the war. In addition to analyzing the shipowners' backgrounds and wartime roles, the author describes all the business and legal aspects of the privateering system-from the financing, insuring, equipping, and staffing of the privateers to the complexities of prize distribution through admiralty courts and auctions.