The privateer who plays so conspicuous a part in the maritime history of France is but a dim and subordinate figure beside the great disciplined and triumphant navy of this country. We can generally afford to neglect him and his doings altogether. Yet in the Seven Years’ War he does for one moment come forward in a manner so characteristic and instructive, that we may look at him very briefly before turning to the operations of honest warfare. Ever since the reign of Henry VIII. it had been the custom to favour these skimmers of the sea in Acts for the Encouragement of Seamen, which invited all sorts and conditions of men to set out armed ships to plunder the enemy. In the age of Elizabeth their part was honourable, for the privateers then were often gallant gentlemen—Raleigh or the Earl of Cumberland—who fitted out warships against the national enemy, as their ancestors had raised bands of spearmen and archers to follow King Edward or King Harry. But as the State grew in power and resources, such men found their proper place in the regular forces. The privateer tended more and more to become a mere vulgar plunderer. His competition with the navy for men had made him a nuisance, as far back as the time of the Commonwealth. The private ship with its slovenly discipline, and the greater chances of earning booty it offered, attracted all the restless spirits to whom the order of the navy was grievous. “A regular built privateer” became the naval officer’s phrase for a dirty, ill-managed, inefficient ship. The last great age of the privateer was the War of the Austrian Succession, when the navy was bad and incapable of blocking the enemy’s ports. In the Seven Years’ War, when the navy was equal to its work, the innate tendency of men, whose sole aim was plunder, to sink into mere pirates was rapidly shown. As French commerce soon disappeared off the sea, the privateers were driven to choose between starvation and the robbery of neutrals or even of their own countrymen. They made the choice which might have been expected of them. Very soon the outrages of the privateers in the Channel became a downright pest. They took to boarding neutral vessels, and to extorting booty or blackmail. At last the complaints of friendly states drove the British Government to adopt vigorous measures of repression. Extreme offenders found their way to Execution Dock, and in 1759 an Act was passed limiting the right to receive a “letter of marque” to vessels of over one hundred tons, belonging to owners who could give some guarantee of good conduct. An exception was made for small vessels belonging to the Channel Islands, which did some useful piloting and scouting work. The privateers are only mentioned here because the measures taken to restrain them show that the navy was growing in power to discharge its proper function, and that the country was coming to realise that it ought to leave the duty of representing it on the sea