Privateer

A privateer was a privately owned, armed vessel licensed by a state through a letter of marque to attack enemy shipping in wartime, with captured prizes condemned and sold for profit. Privateering let governments wage commerce war cheaply and gave merchants a wartime trade; figures from Francis Drake to American Revolutionary captains operated this way. It blurred into piracy when commissions lapsed or were exceeded. Most maritime powers abolished privateering by the 1856 Declaration of Paris.