Privateer or Pirate? What's the Difference?

[William the Drake]

That is the reason the privaters to disappear from the modern times , these actions are very close to piracy and very dangerous - many privaters didn't even understand when they crossed the border , they was put on trial and even then they didn't understand it . To understand me - in most of the cases the letter of marque specifically note that not the ship under enemy flag must be hunted but ships owned or under contract to companies of the enemy states ( if my memory still serve me well such case was with William Kidd - he was put on charges for seizing a ship owned by East India Company flying under French colors ) .

 

Precisely. There are numerous accounts of when privateers straddled the line of pirate and privateer; sometimes deliberately, sometimes not. We know this happened because of the records of those that got caught (such as Kidd who held an English LoM, but was labeled a pirate after some confusion. He then went full-fledged pirate as he had no safe haven elsewhere) the privateers that acted outside of the lines of their letter of Marque but stayed Privateers were those that simply were not caught. Thus we have no account of them because, well, they got away with it.

 

As you stated before, a privateer is not paid like a Naval Captain. A privateer is only paid based on the prizes it takes. No prizes means no pay. So to say that a privateer who has been on a long cruise with no prizes would consider attacking a peaceful or neutral ship out of desperation for the sake of pay (and maybe via a disgruntled crew) is not outside the lines of reason. Again, it happened, but we just know of the ones that got caught and labeled pirates.

[Daneiel]

The Naval Captains also receive similar share of the prise they captured . The differences are that the naval captain also receive his monthly/year payment  as government employ , but the privater is self employ on government contract, he is responsible for the payment of his crew in similar way as the government to the navy sailors  , its not different then if you own company you don't expect the government to send you a check and you need to pay to your employees- right !!!!