which is about as dumb as (if not dumber than) pirates who don't touch another pirate's treasure.
That's easy to justify with a single word: hatred. Someone who turns to piracy because they hate the Spanish might not be interested in attacking anyone else, even if they aren't explicitly sanctioned as privateers by Spain's enemies.
The history of piracy is actually pretty interesting to dig into. They had a whole quasi-state going in the Carribean and were just as likely to recruit you as kill you, so there was definitely a moral code of some sort. From what I recall there wasn't a whole lot of inter-pirate competition and the closest you got was arguing about what to target during a particular season since a pirate ship was closer to a democracy in many cases than one might imagine.
That's easy to justify with a single word: hatred. Someone who turns to piracy because they hate the Spanish might not be interested in attacking anyone else, even if they aren't explicitly sanctioned as privateers by Spain's enemies.
The history of piracy is actually pretty interesting to dig into. They had a whole quasi-state going in the Carribean and were just as likely to recruit you as kill you, so there was definitely a moral code of some sort. From what I recall there wasn't a whole lot of inter-pirate competition and the closest you got was arguing about what to target during a particular season since a pirate ship was closer to a democracy in many cases than one might imagine.