Not that privateering was quite the same as piracy, but it came so close a second that the honest rogues who plied the two trades must often have been in danger of getting their perquisites and obligations somewhat merged.

It would have taken a very sharp judicial mind, or a singularly stout personal conscience, to make the distinctions between them in sundry and fairly numerous cases.
Wilson says: "In these troublous and not over-squeamish times, when commerce was other than the peaceful pursuit it has since become, a promising venture in privateering was often preferred to slower if safer sources of profit by the strong-stomached merchants and mariners of New York....

News that piracy under the guise of privateering was winked at by the New York authorities spread quickly among the captains serving under the black flag." Now there never was a lustier freebooter of the high seas than Capt.
Thomas Randall, known familiarly as "Cap'n Tom," commander of the privateering ship _Fox_, and numerous other vessels.

This boat, a brigantine, was well named, for she was quick and sly and yet could fight on occasion.

Many a rich haul he made in her in 1748, and many a hairbreadth escape shaved the impudent bow of her on those jolly, nefarious voyages of hers.