[Styria]

Marque is specific permission to cross (enemy) borders. Reprisal is specific permission to seize enemy property. The items seized are settled in a claims court once back home (giving it legal standing and maybe also to ensure that the shares were properly given out to the crew), and any people captured are prisoners of war. Being caught by the enemy while doing this gives you the standing of a pirate.

To the others, I doubt this is about mercenaries in Afghanistan. Someone with a letter of marque and reprisal against al Qaeda (and its allies, hopefully) might be able to get away with targetting them anywhere. And they could be informally told to go into Iran or some other problem country we aren't officially messing with over this yet, do their thing, and we could claim they're acting outside the letter while doing nothing about it.

I would like letters of marque and reprisal to be available, but I'm not brave enough to try acting under one. And whoever has them will have the nightmare of infiltrating countries where the people look different and speak different languages.

[rainingred]

Thanks for the explanation of Marque and Reprisal

...whoever has them [ Marque and Reprisal] will have the nightmare of infiltrating countries where the people look different and speak different languages.

Americans come in all shapes and sizes and many speak different languages. This is one nightmare I think some enterprising Americans could wake up from.

BTW It's nice to see so many Constitution lovers on FR today.