Methods for measuring the wartime economies of European shipping, c. 1750–1815

This note presents preliminary results from ongoing research on the relationship between privateering and maritime neutrality, c. 1750–1815. Drawing on two sources – the records of the High Court of Admiralty and the Danish and Swedish Algerian Sea Pass Protocols – it argues that maritime neutrality channelled and constrained the impact of privateering as inter-European conflicts expanded in scope and destruction. Focusing on the activities of Britain, as a major belligerent, and Sweden and Denmark as small neutral states, the note uses two quantitative methods. Shipping output is estimated as the number of days vessels operated at sea during wartime, compared with days ‘lost’ through capture by privateers. Combining these sources and methods provides a new perspective on how rulers and economic actors transformed law and diplomacy into instruments of profit: through neutrality, privateering pressures were redirected into legally sanctioned forms of exchange that turned war into opportunity.