armateur

"armateur" — a kind of shipowner, or one who fits out and charters ships, and sometimes commands them himself — the profession of Jean Bart and Duguay

Brittany & Its Byways Fanny Bury Palliser

A great many single ships were taken from the English, notwithstanding the good look-out of our cruisers, who were so alert, that the privateers from this coast were often taken in four hours after they sailed from the French harbour; and there is hardly a captain of an armateur in Boulogne, who has not been prisoner in England five or six times in the course of the war.

Travels through France and Italy 2004