es;" indeed, they were
urged to do so to please the king. The conditions generally provided
that a certain proportion of the profits should go to the king, in
return for the use of the ships. Such employment would be demoralizing
to any military service, but not necessarily all at once; and the
conditions imparted for the time a tone and energy to privateering
that it cannot always have. In truth, the public treasury, not being
able to maintain the navy, associated with itself private capital,
risking only material otherwise useless, and looking for returns to
robbing the enemy. The commerce-destroying of this war, also, was no
mere business of single cruisers; squadrons of three or four up to
half a dozen ships acted together under one man, and it is only just
to say that under seamen like Jean Bart, Forbin, and Duguay-Trouin,
they were even more ready to fight than to pillage. The largest of
these private expeditions, and the only one that went far from the
French shores, was directed in 1697 against Cartagena, on the Spanish
Main. It numbered seven ships-of-the-line and six frigates, besides
smaller vessels, and carried twenty-eight hundred troops. The chief
object was to lay a contribution on the city of Cartagena; but its
effect on the policy of Spain was marked, and led to peace. Such a
temper and concert of action went far to supply the place of
supporting fleets, but could not wholly do so; and although the allies
continued to keep their large fleets together, still, as the war went
on and efficiency of administration improved, commerce-destroying was
brought within bounds. At the same time, as an evidence of how much
the unsupported cruisers suffered, even under these favorable
conditions, it may be mentioned that the English report fifty-nine
ships-of-war captured against eighteen admitted by the French during
the war,--a difference which a French naval historian attributes, with
much probability, to the English failing to distinguish between
ships-of-war properly so called, and those loaned to private firms.
Captures of actual privateers do not appear in the list quoted from.
"The commerce-destroying of this war, therefore, was marked by the
particular characteristics of cruisers acting together in squadron,
not far from their base, while the enemy thought best to keep his
fleet concentrated elsewhere; notwithstanding which, and the bad
administration of the English navy, the cruisers were more and more
contr