Not a few of the failures and misfortunes of the Continental navy are to be laid at the doors of the Yankee privateersmen, whose love for Mammon exceeded that for their country.[194] A more patriotic course was to have been expected of certain substantial merchants who embarked in the business of commerce-destroying. But on the other hand, one might easily be too severe on many bold, simple, seafaring folk. The war, which deprived them of their gainful pursuits at sea, now pointed the way, as a recompense, to a new and attractive calling. Wives and babies were still to be fed, and plans for sweethearts to be realized. The new trade was as alluring as a lottery. Had not a neighbor drawn a competence sufficient for almost a lifetime by a successful haul of the enemy’s rich West Indiamen? It was true that another neighbor, who but recently sailed proudly for sea with women-folk waving a last good-bye, now languished in a prison-ship off New York, or was starving in the old Mill prison at Plymouth, England. “But then a man must take his chances,” each privateersman argued, “and it may be I, who by a fortunate cruise shall bring home enough Jamaica rum to fairly float my schooner, and every pint of it is as good as gold coin.” Due credit must always be given to the hardy and venturesome privateersmen for supplying the army and navy with the sinews of war, which they captured. To be sure, if Congress or the states wished their captured property, it was to be had by paying a good round price for it in the open market. Even here the government’s agents sometimes suspected collusions between the buyers and the agents of the captors to run up prices to the disadvantage of the government.[195] The privateersmen were engaged not in patriotic, but business ventures. Could one-half of this irregular service have been enlisted in the Continental and state navies, the other half could not have been better employed than in its work of distressing the enemy’s commerce, transports, and small letters of marque. Zealous eulogists of the privateers have overrun the cup of their merit. They have not always pointed out that the number of American privateers, merchantmen, fishermen, and whalemen captured by British privateers and small naval craft was comparable to the number of similar British vessels taken by the American privateers. The prison ships and naval prisons of the enemy at New York, in Canada, the British West Indies, and England were at times crowded with Americans captured at sea.[196] A few of these men England enlisted in her navy; and with others she manned a whaling-fleet for the coast of Brazil composed of seventeen vessels. It is, however, worthy of note that the supplies captured from the British were often almost indispensable to the colonists; while similar captures made by the British had to the captors little value.