HISTORY

摘要

Pirates have been around ever since man first put to sea, and are still with us today. As our readers will probably know, the 21st century has witnessed a major increase in piracy, especially off the east coast of Africa. However, between the 15th and 19th centuries, an interesting variation of piracy, known as privateering, became commonplace around the world. Essentially, this was nothing more than a legalised form of piracy - in so far as piracy could ever be described as lawful. Privateering was, in effect, the government employing official burglars who were allowed to break into private houses to steal goods that were then used to boost official revenues.