Definition
A term of maritime law referring to the embezzlement of goods aboard a ship. Plunderage occurs when cargo, stores, or other property carried on a vessel is stolen or misappropriated by members of the crew or others with access to the ship. A distinctive feature of the maritime rule is that the entire crew bears collective responsibility for embezzled goods when the actual wrongdoer cannot be identified, on the theory that the crew's failure to detect or expose the thief constitutes negligence sufficient to impose shared liability.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The embezzlement of goods on shipboard.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The embezzlement of goods on shipboard.
The common and legal definitions are closely aligned here, but the legal term carries specific operational weight that ordinary usage does not. In law, plunderage is not simply a descriptive label for theft at sea — it activates a collective liability rule peculiar to admiralty, making the word a term of art with procedural and remedial consequences distinct from ordinary embezzlement.
Why It Matters in Research
Plunderage is a narrow admiralty term, and researchers should approach it with three points in mind.
First, collective crew liability is the doctrine's core surprise. Unlike general theft or embezzlement on land, where liability follows the individual wrongdoer, plunderage doctrine imposes joint responsibility on the crew as a whole when the specific embezzler cannot be identified. This rule, grounded in the crew's collective duty of watchfulness, appears in Bouvier and the early admiralty reports but is easy to miss if a researcher approaches the term expecting ordinary embezzlement rules to apply.
Second, the term belongs almost exclusively to maritime and admiralty contexts. It will not appear in common law criminal digests or general tort indexes under this name. Researchers working in historical admiralty records — particularly colonial-era American courts, British prize court records, and early federal district court admiralty dockets — should look for plunderage as a distinct cause of action or charge rather than assimilating it into broader theft or conversion categories.
Third, the term's usage peaked in the 18th and early 19th centuries. By the late 19th century, American and British maritime practice increasingly absorbed specific maritime offenses into statutory frameworks governing crew misconduct, and the word plunderage becomes rarer in reported decisions. Researchers using post-1880 sources may find the concept present under different headings without the term itself appearing.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical sources are in complete agreement on the core definition: plunderage is the embezzlement of goods on shipboard. Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence offer bare statements of this rule without elaboration. Bouvier is the most substantive, adding the collective crew liability principle and citing early admiralty authority, including Abbott on Shipping and early federal admiralty reports.
The historical dictionaries do not address the term's relationship to statutory developments or its treatment in criminal versus civil admiralty proceedings, which limits their utility for researchers working in post-1850 sources. None of the entries distinguishes between plunderage by crew members versus pilferage by longshoremen or others, a distinction that became more relevant as commercial shipping practices evolved.
The Webster's 1913 entry, credited to Wharton, matches the legal definition exactly, confirming that the term carried no double meaning in general usage and was understood even outside legal circles as a maritime-specific word.
Jurisdictional Note
Admiralty jurisdiction over plunderage in the United States is federal. Because admiralty law falls within the constitutional grant of federal judicial power, American plunderage claims historically sounded in federal district courts sitting in admiralty, not in state courts. English admiralty practice, from which much of the doctrine descended, governed similarly through the High Court of Admiralty.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Admiralty and Maritime Law; Embezzlement; Crew Liability in Maritime Law.