One characteristic of the wars of the middle of the eighteenth century was the great development of privateering. ‘The privateers,’ writes Sir J. K. Laughton, ‘were, in their day, a most important item in the naval strength of the country, with this additional and especial merit, that they were most numerous and strongest when the royal navy was weakest or most severely taxed.... In looking for valuable services of privateers we find them not in the periods of our national glory, not during the wars of the French Revolution, when Howe and Hood and Nelson crushed the French navy; not during the later years of the Seven Years’ War, when Hawke and Boscawen and Saunders grandly maintained England’s supremacy; but during the war of American Independence or the war of the Austrian Succession, when the fortunes of the navy were at a low ebb.... In such times of disaster and disgrace the rough and ready work of the privateers appeared more brilliant, and had a very real national importance’ (_Studies in Naval History_, p. 201). Of two famous privateer captains, Fortunatus Wright and George Walker, the same author gives a full account, and the exploits of many others are recorded in _The Liverpool Privateers_, published by Mr. Gomer Williams in 1897. Their captures and their battles were sometimes the subject of verse, and therefore a few examples of ballads relating to them have been inserted. In July 1745, Captain Talbot in the Prince Frederick, with Captain Morecock in the Duke, captured two Spanish ships with cargoes worth over 3,000,000 dollars. The share of each seaman amounted to £850 (Laughton, p. 237; Beatson, _Naval and Military Memoirs_, i. 294; Boyse, _An Historical Review of the Transactions of Europe_, ii. 171). This capture is celebrated in _England’s Glory, or the French King Stripped_ (p. 194). At the beginning of the Seven Years’ War the Terrible privateer, commanded by Captain Death, was taken by the French privateer Vengeance, of St. Malo, on December 27, 1756. The Terrible had twenty-six guns, the Vengeance thirty-four. The crew of the Vengeance numbered 350, while the Terrible, weakened by sending away some men in a prize, could muster only 116. Out of them the captain and fifty men were killed outright, and over forty wounded before the ship was taken (Entick, _History of the Late War_, 1765, ii. 110). So desperate a fight, at a moment when the popular indignation against Byng for not fighting it out with La Galissonière was at its height, naturally roused enthusiasm, and Captain Death and the Terrible were celebrated in the ballad and the poem printed on pp. 204-5.