Rebels at Sea Audiobook Libro.fm

Description

The heroic story of the founding of the US Navy during the Revolution has been told many times yet largely missing from maritime histories of Americas first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels that truly revealed the new nations characterabove all its ambition and entrepreneurial ethos

In Rebels at Sea Eric Jay Dolin corrects that significant omission and contends that privateers as they were called were in fact critical to the American victory Privateers were privately owned vessels that were granted permission by the new government to seize British merchantmen and men of war As Dolin stirringly demonstrates at a time when the young Continental Navy numbered no more than about sixty vessels privateers rushed to fill the gaps Nearly 2000 set sail over the course of the war with tens of thousands of Americans serving on them and capturing some 1800 British ships

Some Americans viewed these men as cynical opportunists whose only aim was loot Yet Dolin shows that privateersmen were as patriotic as their fellow Americans and moreover that they greatly contributed to the wars success diverting critical British resources to protecting their shipping providing muchneeded supplies at home and bolstering the new nations confidence that it might actually defeat the most powerful military force in the world