RE: Letters of marque

G'day,

> All this talk of pirates aside, I have to point out that Nations of a 
> certain size and larger guard their commerce with a vengance. 

Unfortunately they also tend to register their ships in small third
party
nations (to avoid liability and taxes etc) and thus are susceptible to
pirate raids such as happens around Indonesia and the Philippines. The
South
East Asian pirates do try and take on commercial shipping there as the
crews
are very small and unarmed - using water cannons to prevent boarding
rather
than waiting until the raiders are on board.

Cheers

Beth