Governor Stuart and the Letters of Marque

In 1798 Charles Stuart leaded the third and last (so far!) British conquest of Minorca. He tried to follow the example of the first British Governor, Sir Richard kane, and as a result he worked hard trying to improve the living conditions of the local population.

In the first place, he tried to solve the dear financial problems of the Universidades, the predecessor of the modern town councils. He pushed an important tax reform, mainly aimed to suppress the privileges of the clergy on the matter.

He also tried to solve the food shortage that the local population suffered. And he did so by issuing countless Letters of Marque. The holder of such a document, called privateer had the right to mount guns in any merchant or fishing ship that he might posses. The goal was to chase and size any ship under the flag of any country enemy of the British empire, namely France and Spain.

From a modern perspective such an activity would be highly unjustifiable, but by the standards of that time was quite acceptable. That kind of “legal piracy” was so widespread that even many warships were engaged in such a “sport” in order to improve the economy and the combat morale of their crews. In that case, such an activity was known with the curious term of Cruise. Of course this has nothing to do with the modern cruisers mooring in Mahon’s harbour.