Throughout the churning tides of 1776 and 1777, John Brown, a prominent a prominent merchant from Providence, Rhode Island, amassed a fortune by investing in privateers. Through reviewing a comprehensive list of his privateers and their values, along with a list of the captures made by some of his privateers, and the values of the captured prize ships and their cargoes, it is possible to begin to determine just how profitable privateering was for Brown.
America’s most effective weapon at sea, by far, was privateering—the operation of privately owned commerce raiders. While the primary incentive for investors such as Brown was private gain, privateering also harmed Britain’s economy and war effort, while advancing the American war effort. From British ships, Americans captured gunpowder, weapons, food, blankets, cloth for uniforms, and other supplies desperately needed, not only by the Continental Army and Navy, but also by state militias and state navies.
Privateers were sanctioned by a government to attack enemy shipping and were required to be loyal to the country that commissioned them. Once an enemy vessel was captured, the captain of the privateer would typically select from his ship a prize master and a small prize crew with orders to sail the captured vessel, typically, to a safe U.S. port, so the prize could be adjudicated by an admiralty court. The admiralty court would conduct a trial by jury to determine whether the prize was lawfully taken. If it was, it would be sold at public auction. After deductions for court costs, the net proceeds would be divided typically fifty percent to the privateer’s owners (the investors) and fifty percent to the officers and crew.
One significant source relating to Brown’s holdings, which had previously received scant consideration by historians, can be found in “An Account of all the Rateable Estate belonging To John Brown, this 10th of January 1778, Exclusive of Lands not in this Town.”[1] This document lists the assets that Brown owned in Providence on January 10, 1778. He also ascribed values to many of the assets, including to privateers. This list is a key aide to understanding just how profitable privateering could be in the heady days of 1776 and 1777; in addition, the list also shows the type of investments a wealthy American merchant owned at this time. Brown provided his list to the Providence tax assessors, who used it to impose a property tax on him.