privateer

Ecclestone, a former second-hand car dealer, recognised a kindred spirit and was a kind of guardian angel at times as Jordan navigated the choppy waters of being a privateer team owner.

From BBC ● Mar. 20, 2025

His father, Jan Jansen, a Dutch privateer, was captured by one of the Moorish states in 1618.

From New York Times ● Dec. 3, 2019

It was here that the White Lion, a 160-ton English privateer ship, landed at what was then known as Point Comfort.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 14, 2019

A British privateer raids Spanish ships with his queen’s permission in 1585.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 9, 2019

There, Horace Hunley and his partners intended to operate the submarine as a privateer, helping the Confederacy break the blockade the North had placed on Southern ports.

From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler

These are licenses for private parties, known as privateers, to capture prizes at sea.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026

In theory, pirates plunder and pillage outside the law, while corsairs were privateers regulated by authorities.

From National Geographic ● Jan. 11, 2024

The privateers were sponsored by the state, and set a ransom of 500 Guineas for Capt Lambton who was sailing The Stephenson from Bristol to Newcastle at the time.

From BBC ● May 17, 2023

She theorizes that fake dollars could be passed to privateers trading on the black market.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 24, 2016

“Because,” Collins growled, “he sailed on privateers before he was knee high to a capstan. He knows guns. If we have trouble with the French he’ll be worth the rest of the crew put together.”

From "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch" by Jean Lee Latham

An 1856 treaty purported to ban privateering, but the U.S. refused to sign.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026

All of this sounds very nice and would no doubt be an improvement from the privateering corporate status quo.

From Slate ● May 9, 2024

The Protestant queen wanted colonies that would act as an ideological counterweight to Spanish Catholicism in the Americas and provide a base of operations for privateering expeditions that would raid Spanish shipping.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022

But secession slashed tariff receipts by eliminating busy Southern ports and by launching a fleet of Confederate privateering vessels on the seas.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 1, 2022

In 1619, the first Africans arrived in the Virginia colony on a privateering ship.

From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone