He gives seamanlike hints on how a three-masted ship should escape. He shows the ship stations and duties when preparing for battle, where the master is to take up his position, where the gunner is to be stationed, what the mate and the carpenter are to be doing. He gives the best tactics with regard to the enemy’s boarding, and even discourses on the handling of a fleet of merchantmen, incidentally maintaining that for them the weather-gauge is not usually advantageous. He prefers having a fleet in double, treble or even quadruple line, and gives diagrams. It is a quaint book, of human as well as practical interest, and well indicates the fine spirit of our eighteenth century merchantmen. Those who read it must have found it extraordinarily useful. It may be as well, before proceeding further, to make quite clear the meaning of the two expressions “privateer” and “Letter of Marque.” Legally there was no difference, but in practice a privateer was a vessel which took out a licence for the purpose of cruising against the enemy’s merchant ships. In order to send the prizes into port she necessarily carried a large crew. A “Letter of Marque” was a merchant ship with a cargo bound for her port in the usual manner, but possessing this licence which exempted her from convoy, nominally protected her crew from being impressed, and gave her the right to attack an enemy merchantman without having to wait until the latter attacked her. In a word, she was primarily a merchantman, whereas the privateer was a fighting merchant cruiser.