Privateer (Historic)

A privateer was a privately owned and crewed armed vessel commissioned by a sovereign, through a letter of marque, to capture enemy merchant ships in wartime for profit; the term also named the captain and crew. Captures were taken before a prize court for condemnation, and the proceeds were divided among owners and crew. Privateering supplied a cheap auxiliary navy from the medieval period to the Napoleonic Wars. The 1856 Declaration of Paris abolished it among its signatories; the United States declined to accede, though it issued no letters of marque after the War of 1812.