In the late 18th Century, "privateers" were ships commissioned by governments to pillage, steal and burn merchant vessels. But few people know that during the Revolutionary war one band of privateers sailed under the orders of one of our greatest statesmen: Benjamin Franklin.

In 1778, while ambassador to France, Franklin hired privateers to capture British sailors and use them to exchange for the Americans held by the British in insufferable conditions. National Geographic dives into the Irish Sea with a group of underwater explorers on an expedition to investigate this piece of little known American history.

Not available for shipment outside of the U.S.

• 1 disc; 45 minutes
• Widescreen
• TV-PG
• © 2011

DVD-R Format

The DVD-R is a non-rewriteable digital format that is compatible with most commercial DVD players. The DVD-R format is created with MPEG2 Variable Bit Rate Compression with stereo sound.

How our DVDs and DVD-Rs Differ

Customers who purchase programs in the NG DVD-R Library will receive a non-interactive, play only disc. There is no chaptering information on these DVDs, but there are chapter marks approximately every five minutes, which make it easy to fast forward through a program. The DVD-R format provides the digital video and audio quality you expect from all of our DVDs.

NOTE: The NG DVD-R titles are not closed-captioned. We apologize for any inconvenience this limitation may cause.