British, Spanish, Portuguese, French - you name it, the nations were all in the "business" of boarding ships, appropriating/stealing both cargo and mariners - called pirates by the ones who lost, regardless of whether they held a letter of Marque from a sovereign government or only hoped for forgiveness if only they paid "duty" to that crown.
yes, I know they were all about "taking prizes" -- it's a big part of the plots of the books (and specifically Captain Aubrey looking for his prizes) -- he was a Captain of the British Navy, and while one of the novels was when he was out of the navy for a short stint, and had a letter of marque and was in charge of a private ship, most of the series the ships are ships of the line ... aka, they were owned by His Majesty, etc etc.
The U.S. Navy never operated this way, so it has always been very weird to us. It's all a bunch of mercenaries against each other.
So why the fascination with 17th (18th?) century piracy?
Hey now -- they were in the British navy!
Just because we're Americans, we don't need to call the British sailors pirates....
British, Spanish, Portuguese, French - you name it, the nations were all in the "business" of boarding ships, appropriating/stealing both cargo and mariners - called pirates by the ones who lost, regardless of whether they held a letter of Marque from a sovereign government or only hoped for forgiveness if only they paid "duty" to that crown.
yes, I know they were all about "taking prizes" -- it's a big part of the plots of the books (and specifically Captain Aubrey looking for his prizes) -- he was a Captain of the British Navy, and while one of the novels was when he was out of the navy for a short stint, and had a letter of marque and was in charge of a private ship, most of the series the ships are ships of the line ... aka, they were owned by His Majesty, etc etc.
The U.S. Navy never operated this way, so it has always been very weird to us. It's all a bunch of mercenaries against each other.