Via Piratesinfo.com:

As the American Revolutionary War raged, the role of privateers could not be underestimated. In fact, strictly speaking, one of the first acts of American defiance was an act of piracy. The Boston Tea Party could technically be defined as piracy. During the whole of the Revolutionary War from the years 1776 to 1782, the total number of privateering ships outnumbered the ships of the Continental Navy by a factor of eleven to one (Maclay VIII). The Continental Congress even issued a proclamation authorizing large-scale privateering against English ships.

You may, by Force of arms, attack, subdue, and take all Ships and other Vessels belonging to Subjects of the King of Great-Britain, on the High Seas, or between High-water and Low-water Marks, except… Friends to the American Cause, which you shall suffer to pass unmolested, the Commanders thereof permitting a peaceable Search, and giving satisfactory information of the Contents of Ladings, and Definitions of the Voyages.

Yeeeargh, Ye Gutless Beltway Dems!

Image from Ryan Yount’s comic, Scurvy Dogs