Whaleboat War


The Whaleboat War was a series of actions fought by American privateers in the aftermath of their government's loss in the Battle of Long Island and in the context of the subsequent Northern theater of the American Revolutionary War after Saratoga. The Americans used whaleboats rowed from the Province of New Jersey into New York Bay and from Connecticut Colony into Long Island Sound to rob British commercial shipping, occasionally making raids on coastal communities of Long Island. The privateers sold the booty thus captured and divided the proceeds among themselves.