For other uses, see Corsair . Corsairs were French privateers from the north-western French port of St-Malo, located on the northern coast of Brittany. Since the corsairs gained, to some, a swashbuckling reputation, the word corsair is also used generically as a more romantic or flamboyant version of the word privateer, or even of the word pirate. The barbary pirates of north Africa were sometimes called "Turkish corsairs". The name "corsair" derives from the commissioning document received from the king, the Lettre de Course ("racing letter" or "racing commission"). The "race", la course, was a euphemism for chasing down foreign merchant shipping. The Lettre de Course was known in other countries as a letter of marque and reprisal (in French Lettre de Marque); the French often preferred the different term of Lettre de Course but the document was the same in substance.

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