How Did Spain Fight In The 18th Century

The War of the Spanish Succession was a war over the succession of the Spanish kingdom. Conflict started when Charles II had died on November 1st, 1700 but had no obvious male heirs to the throne. However there were candidates within the Austrian and French kingdoms. The countries battled over who is going to take the kingdom. During the war, countries had used privateers who are privately own armed ships who are commissioned by the government to fight or harass other countries on the sea (Privateer History: A General Overview, n.d.). However, after the war was over the privateers were withdrawn and to be sent back to their home countries, but a good deal of them stayed and became pirates. This became the Golden Age of Piracy due to the mass introduction of piracy, the pirates would use ruthless tactics to plunder merchant ships, islands, and naval battleships.
There were conflicts of interest in Europe since the late 1690’s due to Charles II of …show more content…
When the privateers inevitably became pirates due to the promise of wealth, the countries had responded with their navies to fight the people they once gave the Letter of Marque. This didn’t work well as pirates would be on islands and ambush them, so they employed ex-privateers who went back to their countries to become ‘pirate hunters’. This also didn’t work because the pirates would use guerrilla tactics to destroy the pirate hunters. Therefore governors started giving pardons, however this did start to work as pirates could keep their wealth with no chance of it being taken. The Golden Age of Piracy only lasted for a decade, as the infamous pirates were either killed or got the king’s pardon, however this decade had a put such a strain on the economy of European countries that the West Indies and East Indies trade were almost destroyed due to the pirates around this