pirate's trade, are not, as is often supposed, essentials of the crime
of piracy.) But wide as is the legal distinction between the
authorized warfare of the privateer and the unauthorized violence of
the pirate, in practice it was very difficult to keep the privateer
and his crew, far from the eye of authority, within the bounds of
legal conduct, or to prevent him from broadening out his operations
into piracy, especially if a merely privateering cruise was proving
unprofitable. Privateering was open to many abuses, and it was not
without good reason that the leading powers of Europe, in 1856, by the
Declaration of Paris, agreed to its abandonment.

The object of the following collection of documents is not to give the
whole history of any episode of piracy or of the career of any
privateer, but rather, by appropriate selection, to illustrate, as
well as is possible in one volume, all the different aspects of both
employments, and to present specimens of all the different sorts of
papers to which they gave rise. Nearly all the pieces are documents
hitherto unprinted, but a few that have already been printed, mostly
in books not easy of access, have been included in order to round out
a story or a series. The collection ends with the termination of the
last colonial war in 1763. Presented in chronological order, it may
have a casual, as it certainly has a miscellaneous, appearance. But
variety was intended, and on closer inspection and comparison the
selection will be seen to have a more methodical character than at
first appears, corresponding to the systematic procedure followed in
privateering, in prize cases, and in trials for piracy.

On the outbreak of war in which Great Britain was involved, it was
customary for the King to issue a commission to the Lord High Admiral
(or to the Lords of the Admiralty appointed to execute that office)
authorizing him (or them) to empower proper officials, such as
colonial governors, to grant letters of marque, or privateering
commissions, to suitable persons under adequate safeguards.[1] The
Lords of the Admiralty then issued warrants to the colonial governors
(see doc. no. 127), authorizing them to issue such commissions or
letters of marque. A specimen American privateering commission may be
seen in doc. no. 144; a Portuguese letter of marque, and a paper by
which its recipient purported to assign it to another, in docs. no. 14
and no. 15. Royal instructions were issued to al