privateer

The game follows Kenway, also from Swansea, as he sails to the Caribbean as a privateer looking for wealth, and evolves into a pirate, then assassin.

From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026

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

From New York Times ● Dec. 3, 2019

The San Juan Bautista, a Spanish ship transporting enslaved Africans, was bound for Mexico when it was attacked by the White Lion and another privateer, the Treasurer, and forced to surrender its African prisoners.

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

“I guess a privateer would be a pirate in peacetime. But this is war. We only capture English ships.”

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

Letters of marque regulate against abuses; privateers are paid only if they honor all the restrictions on their activities.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026

She either became a privateer herself, taking to the Mediterranean Sea to attack Spanish holdings such as Gibraltar, or she licensed privateers to attack Spain in her name.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2024

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

Genêt’s first action in the United States was to hire American privateers, privately owned and manned ships, to attack and plunder British ships in the name of his government.

From "An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793" by Jim Murphy

By reviving prize law and privateering, the U.S. would enhance its leverage in the Strait of Hormuz.

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