Rebels at Sea Privateering in the American Revolution [Audiobook]

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 2,000 set sail over the course of the war, with tens of thousands of Americans serving on them and capturing some 1,800 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 war's success: diverting critical British resources to protecting their shipping, providing much-needed supplies at home, and bolstering the new nation's confidence that it might actually defeat the most powerful military force in the world.