A Basic Guide to Privateering Reading

Canadian Privateering: A Basic Reading Guide

Armour, Charles A. and Thomas Lackey. Sailing Ships of the Maritimes: An Illustrated History of Shipping and Shipbuilding in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, 1750-1925, Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1975.: Has a good chapter on privateering and prizes with some fine illustrations.
Conlin, Daniel. "A Historiography of Private Sea Warfare in Nova Scotia", Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society Vol. I, (1998), 79-92.
Johnston, A.J.B. The Summer of 1744. A Portrait of Life in 18th Century Louisbourg. Ottawa: Parks Canada, 1983.: Has a good account of the see-saw war between Louisbourg and New England privateers.
Kert, Faye. Prize and Prejudice: Privateering and Naval Prize in Atlantic Canada in the War of 1812, Research in Maritime History No. 11, (St. Johns, Nfld, 1997).: An important work by the Canadian authority on War of 1812 privateering, giving a more scholarly assessment than popular works such as C.H.J. Snider's, Under the Red Jack.
Leefe, John. The Atlantic Privateers: Their Story 1749-1815. Halifax: Petheric Press, 1978.: Leefe provides a good introduction to privateering and makes good use of documents to illustrate the formidable system of regulation for privateering.
MacMechan, Archibald. There Go the Ships. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1928.: Contains a good chapter about the logbook from a voayge by the large privateer ship Charles Mary Wentworth.
Raddall, Thomas H. The Rover: The Story of a Canadian Privateer. Toronto: Macmillan, 1958.
________ . Pride's Fancy. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1946.: While aimed at a junior high school audience, The Rover is still a good adult read, thanks to Raddall's very impressive research. Pride's Fancy is a melodramatic 1940s novel but provides a vivid and mostly accurate portrayal of the technical and economic side to privateering.
Snider, Charles Henry J. Under the Red Jack: Privateers of the Maritime Provinces in the War of 1812. London: Martin Hopkinson & Co., 1928.: Snider's work, while old fashioned and full of imaginary dialogue, was very well researched and Under the Red Jack remains a useful reference to Nova Scotian War of 1812 privateers.
Starkey, David. British Privateering Enterprize in the Eighteenth Century. Exeter Great Britain: University of Exeter Press, 1990.