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All pirates are pirates<\/a>, right? Not quite. During the golden age of piracy, there were several distinct names for groups that sailed the high seas. These labels could tell you a lot about their actions and where they came from \u2013 and how they were seen in the eyes of the law.<\/p>\n The term pirate is probably the most general term for nefarious seafarers, coming from the Greek peirat\u0113s \u2013 meaning brigand \u2013 used since the 14th century as a term for someone who committed piracy. Traditionally, those known as pirates would use violence and intimidation to raid ships at sea or coastal settlements, and this term could be applied to any era, not just the golden age.<\/p>\n Privateers, though they were technically on the right side of the law, were often just pirates by another name. Crucial to the view of privateers\u2019 activities were letters of marque, which date to the late Middle Ages<\/a>; the earliest mention of such a letter is in a patent roll of Edward I<\/a> from 1293.<\/p>\n These were commissions from a country\u2019s authorities \u2013 the monarch or government \u2013 that allowed privately owned vessels to wage war against shipping from another country or territory. As they offered a cheaper option than building and maintaining a navy, many maritime nations made use of privateers to attack enemy shipping, and numbers often swelled in times of war.<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t uncommon for the lines between pirate and privateer to become blurred. Many who started out as privateers would stray outside their commission, raiding ports or ships beyond their licence. In 1691, a man named Thomas Tew<\/a>, who had been born in a British colony in today\u2019s Rhode Island, accepted a commission from Bermuda\u2019s governor for a privateering venture to Africa, to take a French fort located on the Gambia River.<\/p>\n Yet instead of attacking the French as promised, he and his crew sailed to the Indian Ocean and plundered a Mughal ship, returning to Rhode Island with substantial amounts of treasure.<\/p>\n Dr Rebecca Simon responds to your questions on the 17th-century golden age of piracy and discusses how accurate pop culture portrayals of pirates are on this episode of the HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast<\/a>Privateers and letters of marque<\/h2>\n