Insurgent privateers

They captured merchant vessels and slave ships to seize loot but they refused to fight against the Spanish Navy.

More than one hundred ships set sail from the United States, with more than three thousand American sailors and captains to fight as insurgent privateers.

The second most important port was La Habana, in Cuba where Spanish trade with the Americas suffered considerable damage.

The most important factor for reduction of Spanish commerce was not privateer attacks but loss of ports and new territories gained by republican countries.

The UK merchant fleet arrived from the Americas amounted to the fifteen percent of the total of their global commerce.