The War of the Spanish Succession supplies both a spectacular prize and a sustained trade-defense crisis. An Anglo-Dutch force captured the Spanish treasure fleet at Vigo Bay in 1702. British merchant losses are put at 3,250 in that war and roughly 4,000 in the Nine Years' War, when Jean Bart led the French Dunkirkers. Those totals included fishing boats and ships that might be condemned, resold, and even returned to their former owners and crews. This repeated capture-and-resale cycle became a form of farming. Commerce warfare could operate as an enduring business rather than a sequence of isolated raids.
Notable Point · 26:00-28:58
Thousands of merchant losses force a trade-defense response
Vigo Bay, French privateer successes, and the repeated capture and resale of merchantmen show the scale and economic machinery behind Britain's 1708 response.