The Privateersman Author:Captain Frederick Marryat Captain Frederick Marryat was born July 10 1792, and died August 8 1848. He retired from the British navy in 1828 in order to devote himself to writing. In the following 20 years he wrote 26 books, many of which are among the very best of English literature, and some of which are still in print. Marryat had an extraordinary gift for the inventi... more »on of episodes in his stories. He says somewhere that when he sat down for the day's work, he never knew what he was going to write. He certainly was a literary genius. "The Privateersman" was published in 1846, the twenty-third book to flow from Marryat's pen. Privateering is legalized piracy at sea. -- Nick Hodson« less