[Barnacle Bill]

I think the term you are looking for, to refer to "licensed" pirates, is privateer. Bucaneer is just a synonym for pirate, derived from the fact that the earliest Caribbean pirates were escaped slaves & convicts (much the same in those days) who originally hunted & tanned hides to support themselves before discovering that piracy was easier and more profitable. A privateer was someone in possession of a "Letter of Marque and Reprisal". This document was issued only during wartime, and authorized the privateer to raid the enemies of the issuing nation for the duration of the war. Countries did this because regular navies were virtually non-existent in peacetime, and could not be spared in wartime to fight in secondary theaters. The privateer kept the bulk of the loot from his raids, but the issuing government got a cut (with kickbacks to the individual issuing official, of course). So, if a war broke out all the pirates were quick to go see the nearest colonial governor of one of the combattants (another selection criteria being that the governor in question wouldn't shoot on sight) and apply for their letters. Sometimes the same guy would get a letter from both sides. One occupational hazard - if the war ended and you didn't hear about it before conducting a raid, the guy who issued the letter might just hang you for a pirate when you got back. This entire system fell into disuse once countries started maintaining large peacetime navies, and stationing regular navy squadrons in distance colonial waters.

The reason that the Spanish did not distinguish between pirates and privateers is that they did not recognize the right of any person of any other nationality to be in the Caribbean. A treaty between Spain and Portugal in 1494, arbitrated by the Pope, established "The Line" running north-south 370 miles west of the Azores. The Pope gave all of the New World west of The Line to Spain, east of it to Portugal. So, the Spanish considered anybody else colonizing west of The Line to be trespassing. The Spanish also had laws against their colonists trading with foriegn ships, so any foriegn ship west of the Line must be a pirate. This resulted in the condition described by the term "no peace beyond The Line", meaning no matter what the diplomatic state of affairs was in Europe the Spanish and everybody else were "fair game" to each other in the Caribbean (especially the English, since as Protestants they rejected the authority of the Pope).

During the reign of Elizabeth I, in the years leading up to the Spanish Armada incident, the English government turned a blind eye to the piratical activities of a group of English captains call the "Sea Hawks" (in return for a share of the loot). The did not issue "Letters of Marque & Reprisal" to the Sea Hawks, though, for reasons that we would today call "maintaining plausible deniability". The Spanish Ambassador would complain, and Good Queen Bess would shrug and say she had no control over what happened in Spanish colonies in the new world, there was no evidence against any of the Sea Hawks that would stand up in court, etc... The Sea Hawks then formed the nucleus of the English fleet which opposed the Spanish Armada. Some later colonial governors took much the same approach with pirates on a local level, before European governments finally cracked down in the early 1700's.

Still, creating pirates in enemy territory might be a valid intel project.

Ahr...beam 'em the Jolly Roger signal & fire a quantum torpedo across their bow, matey!