The Prize Game: Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail
In the Middle Ages, European nations raised standing armies to fight their foes. At sea, however, their resources were much more limited and largely dependent on privately owned vessels and their crews. To stimulate the growth and ardor of their fleets, the monarchs of Renaissance Europe offered the crews of their naval vessels and licensed privateers a chance to get rich by plundering enemy ships and cargoes. These actions gave rise to the doctrine and practice of maritime prize--a subject little studied but regularly referred to by C. S. Forester, Patrick O'Brian, and other popular writers about the era. Now, after a decade of research in European and American archives, Donald A. Petrie explains the origins of prize taking, the rules of the sea that became universally accepted among the maritime powers of the world, and the final decline of prize taking during the nineteenth century.

Most of the book is devoted to rollicking, never-before-published sea stories about this form of looting that helped define the last century of fighting sail. From the North Cape of Norway to the southern tip of Africa, from Charleston, South Carolina, to the East River of New York, these tales of high-seas adventure span a broad area and period. For readers fascinated by warfare in the days of sail, in both history and fiction, Petrie has unveiled the mysteries of prize taking in a manner that is highly readable yet thoroughly authentic. His book is the first such study to be published in this country since 1861.

1101075582
The Prize Game: Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail
In the Middle Ages, European nations raised standing armies to fight their foes. At sea, however, their resources were much more limited and largely dependent on privately owned vessels and their crews. To stimulate the growth and ardor of their fleets, the monarchs of Renaissance Europe offered the crews of their naval vessels and licensed privateers a chance to get rich by plundering enemy ships and cargoes. These actions gave rise to the doctrine and practice of maritime prize--a subject little studied but regularly referred to by C. S. Forester, Patrick O'Brian, and other popular writers about the era. Now, after a decade of research in European and American archives, Donald A. Petrie explains the origins of prize taking, the rules of the sea that became universally accepted among the maritime powers of the world, and the final decline of prize taking during the nineteenth century.

Most of the book is devoted to rollicking, never-before-published sea stories about this form of looting that helped define the last century of fighting sail. From the North Cape of Norway to the southern tip of Africa, from Charleston, South Carolina, to the East River of New York, these tales of high-seas adventure span a broad area and period. For readers fascinated by warfare in the days of sail, in both history and fiction, Petrie has unveiled the mysteries of prize taking in a manner that is highly readable yet thoroughly authentic. His book is the first such study to be published in this country since 1861.

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The Prize Game: Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail

The Prize Game: Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail

by Donald A. Petrie
The Prize Game: Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail

The Prize Game: Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail

by Donald A. Petrie

Overview

In the Middle Ages, European nations raised standing armies to fight their foes. At sea, however, their resources were much more limited and largely dependent on privately owned vessels and their crews. To stimulate the growth and ardor of their fleets, the monarchs of Renaissance Europe offered the crews of their naval vessels and licensed privateers a chance to get rich by plundering enemy ships and cargoes. These actions gave rise to the doctrine and practice of maritime prize--a subject little studied but regularly referred to by C. S. Forester, Patrick O'Brian, and other popular writers about the era. Now, after a decade of research in European and American archives, Donald A. Petrie explains the origins of prize taking, the rules of the sea that became universally accepted among the maritime powers of the world, and the final decline of prize taking during the nineteenth century.

Most of the book is devoted to rollicking, never-before-published sea stories about this form of looting that helped define the last century of fighting sail. From the North Cape of Norway to the southern tip of Africa, from Charleston, South Carolina, to the East River of New York, these tales of high-seas adventure span a broad area and period. For readers fascinated by warfare in the days of sail, in both history and fiction, Petrie has unveiled the mysteries of prize taking in a manner that is highly readable yet thoroughly authentic. His book is the first such study to be published in this country since 1861.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781557506696
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Publication date: 08/28/1999
Pages: 240
Product dimensions: 4.99(w) x 8.04(h) x 0.91(d)

What People are Saying About This

James T. de Kay

This is one of those rare have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too books that manages to combine important scholarship and rip-roaring adventure in one easy-to-read package. For all its lawyerly precision, it manages to evoke the tang of salt spray and the whine of wind in the rigging with all the panache of a Forester or O'Brian.

Leonard F. Guttridge

Not only an important history but as lively a sea story as any Forester fan could wish for. Broadsides and blockades, mutiny and piracy--you'll find them all here."

Virginia Steele Wood

Here, for the first time in 138 years, we have an intelligible account of the doctrine and practice of maritime prize by privateers and naval vessels.

Ira Dye

An exciting and fascinating book, filled with gunnery duels, prize taking, and deception at sea. In the midst of all this the readers suddenly realize that they are also learning about the age of sail's international law of letters-of-marque, prizes, and captures from the expert in the field.

Alfred Rubin

Donald Petrie's The Prize Game is readable and exciting, embodies extraordinary research, and has implications that reach far beyond the technical aspects of the law of privateering and naval prize. It reawakens our awareness of facts and rules familiar to our ancestors that influenced their behavior and thus ours.

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