Letters of Marque---The documents that were given to privateers of the high seas to act on behalf of
the globe's governments during America’s colonial times, basically allowing monopolisation of the sea
and international trade. When one monopoly trading company was given
authorisation to collect taxes on tea from the colonists here on the eastern
seaboard of the USA, it was the last straw and the colonists dumped sea chests
containing tea overboard: the Boston Tea Party. There were many European vessels
sailing around the Caribbean and eastern seaboard of the Americas at this point,
some of which were stolen from the British Navy by sea captains who had turned
from privateer (legal pirate) to pirate (illegal pirate).