Many of Effingham's captains were privateers as well as explorers, shipowners, and commanders. A government license distinguished their raiding from ordinary piracy by making them agents of a political authority. That status could bring their conduct within the recognized laws and customs of war, even when the practical search for authorization was opportunistic. Legal restraints on warfare predated the modern era and grew from much older chivalric and heraldic traditions. These independently minded maritime entrepreneurs had both commercial motives and a public wartime role.
Notable Point · 22:45-23:52
Privateering licenses place raiders inside the laws of war
Government licenses distinguished privateering from piracy and placed Elizabethan maritime violence within older legal traditions governing war.