"Legal Pirates"

In the days of fighting sail, a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was a government licence authorizing a person (known as a privateer) to attack and capture enemy vessels and bring them before admiralty courts for condemnation and sale. Cruising for prizes with a Letter of Marque was considered an honorable calling combining patriotism and profit, in contrast to unlicensed piracy which was universally reviled. The French used the term lettre de course for their letters of marque, giving rise to the term corsair. Letter of Marque can sometimes describe the vessel itself: a "Letter of Marque" generally refers to a lumbering square-rigged cargo carrier that might pick up a prize if the opportunity arose, whereas a "privateer" was a fast and weatherly fore-and-aft rigged vessel heavily armed and heavily crewed, intended exclusively for fighting.

A "letter of marque and reprisal" would involve permission to cross an international border to effect a reprisal (take some action against an attack or injury) authorized by an issuing jurisdiction to conduct reprisal operations outside its borders.

ecchi_fan_83 wrote:

Thank you for the super helpful information there, I enjoyed reading about it

Nick_Toryu wrote:

Thanks for the wiki link Tyrfing.

Tyrfing wrote:





...I can't tell if everyone's being sarcastic or not.