ABSTRACT
Holding a letter of marque also meant that the ship’s captain and crew could take all of the supplies on the ship and keep them for themselves as payment. At the start of the American Revolution, the British had 131 naval warships. New Yorkers said the harbor had so many ship masts it looked like a forest. The British Navy easily blocked the New York Harbor and sent ships to try to block harbors up and down the East coast of the colonies. George Washington did the only sensible thing: He authorized private citizens to become pirates and attack the British Navy. If a ship's captain had a letter of marque from the American colonies, it meant the ship could attack a British ship and the crew would be prosecuted as pirates. At the end of the war, the American colonies did build some ships and started a proper fighting navy, but the privateers had done the job Washington needed.
