Pirates And Privateers - New Perspectives on the War on Trade in the 18th and 19th Centuries

It is hardly surprising that privateering and piracy are so often confused since both shared the same aim: the plunder of other vessels and cargo. Yet, despite Admiral Nelson's objection that "the conduct of all privateers is, as far as I have seen, so near piracy that I only wonder any civilised nation can allow them", the fact remains that privateers did at least operate within a legal framework.

Historically, pirates have often been associated with a swashbuckling age inhabited by such figures as Captain Kidd and Henry Morgan. Both fictional and non-fictional accounts of their exploits have long featured in the annals of literature. But, as David Starkey, one of this book's co-authors and contributors makes clear in his introduction, while pirates have always preyed on trade "the privateers predatory operations were restricted to specified targets and subject to the due process of law."
The fourteen chapters really comprise an anthology of essays on a wide variety...

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