Term
Letter of marque
also known as Privateer commission
Definition
A formal commission issued by a state, in time of war, authorising a private vessel to attack the shipping of a named enemy state and to keep a share of the resulting prizes after condemnation by an admiralty or prize court. The letter was the legal instrument that distinguished a privateer from a pirate, with the substantial caveat that the issuing state alone recognised the distinction — an English privateer commissioned against Spain was, in Spanish view, simply a pirate operating with a piece of paper. The Lafitte brothers’ Galveston operation worked under successive Cartagenan and Mexican letters of marque against Spanish shipping; the Spanish authorities classified them as pirates throughout.
