The Seven-Years War

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attacking the commercial livelihood of Great Britain's merchants.
It is ironic that the entire notion of privateering began in Great Britain. In 1649 a frigate named Constant-Warwick was constructed in England for a privateer in the employ of the Earl of Warwick.
Seeing how profitable this investment was, a great many of the English peerage commissioned their own privateers. saw the proliferation of privateering on both the English and French coasts as each attempted to disrupt their opponent's colonial trade. American investors quickly entered this battle, commissioning ships to prey upon cargo vessels coming to and from French colonial holdings in the Americas. Here began the American privateer heritage, and when the American Revolution began many of these same men viewed the opportunity to profit, and resumed their ventures. The American privateer vessel was a ship "armed and fitted out at private expense for the purpose of preying on the enemy's commerce to the profit of her ...

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cannon. However, these ships could not be outfitted with as many cannons as their owners desired. The term "pierced" refers to the rectangles that were cut in a ship's sides through which cannons were fired. Cannons were usually located on either the top deck, or the level just below it. This lower level was preferable because cannon operation required a good deal of space due to recoil, and lurching cannons were dangerous obstacles to crews working the sails on the main deck. However, these lower piercings were difficult to make after the ship was constructed and affected the structural integrity of the ship itself. It was much easier to piercing the sides of the ship on the main deck, ...

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