Could any one tell me where I could find information on French Privateers circa 1780s. One of theirs foundered on my patch in 1782, Salvediction, of 18 guns, nine and 12 pounders . Mick O'Rourke www.irishshipwrecks.ie

Could I suggest that a browse of the following might give you an outline regarding how they were organised : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer#France Some years ago I was in contact with a local French naval historian who had privateer captains as relatives, who, ISTR, had spent a lot of their time in the West Indies, and he had done quite a bit of research on the subject, with one of his relatives having been mentioned in William James' Naval History of GB, which he found on my website, but in our rather brief messages, neither being able to speak the other's language, and both probably using too many naval or colloquial terms etc. I got the feeling that whilst the captain or master needed the usual Letter of Marque, these escapades were invariably local affairs, and unless anything has been published regarding your vessel then you probably need to search out a local historian or someone familiar with that genre. I also put something on-line regarding the French Privateer, Robert Surcouf, but this was probably from 20+ years later and things had probably changed radically and politically by then ? http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/Naval_History_Laughton/Surcouf.html Paul On Sat, 2 Nov 2013 10:12:56 -0000, "Mick O Rourke" <[email protected]> wrote: >Could any one tell me where I could find information on French Privateers >circa 1780s. >One of theirs foundered on my patch in 1782, Salvediction, of 18 guns, nine >and 12 pounders . > >Mick O'Rourke > >www.irishshipwrecks.ie > > >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message 50° 33' N, 2° 26' W http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/Naval.html