The swashbuckling English sea captains of the Elizabethan era were known as"Sea Dogs". They were a breed apart. They were adventurers who combined considerable maritime and military skill they allowed them to successfully seize Spanish treasure. For four decades, Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Walter Raleigh, Martin Frobisher, and lesser known names fought a private war with Spain, the great naval power of the day. The skills they developed on the High Seas help English defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588 and formally begin exploration and seriously consider colonializing in North America.

To the Spanish men like Francis Drake and John Hawkins were pirates and if caught were treated as such. To the English the legal status of these sea dogs and technically may of their actions strayed into the realm of piracy. The circumstances which permitted them to get away with piracy were unique and in the eyes of much of the English society, their action were considered acceptable. Many late 16h century English seamen regarded trade and plunder as inseparable, performed by all kind of men, from smugglers and cut throats to nobility, taking forms from legitimate privateering to unrestricted piracy. During the Elizabethan period sea-plundering be came increasingly identified with patriotic motives and with the struggle to maintain protestant religion.

The difference between a pirate and a privateer is that the privateer attacks the enemies of his country under the license of from the government, while a pirate attacks anybody, irrespective of nationality. In theory, attacks on Spanish ships who did not hold a privateering license were acts of piracy. In western England piracy was partly legitimized by support from the gentry and local authorities. . . .the Crown, increasingly ceased to condemn the pirates, provided they attacked foreign ships, preferably Spanish ones. Small-scale piracy continued to thrive throughout the Elizabethan era with the government only half-heartily attempting to suppress it. If provoked the Queen would restrain the pirates When her envoy, carrying a christening gift to the French court was attacked in the English Channel in 1753–she sent her fleet and troops into the West Country to round up the pirates.

The support for piracy and privateering came from all quarters of the English society.
Queen Elizabeth was a secret partner, but well known to King Philip. The Queen loaned ships and took her share of the loot from privateering expeditions aimed at Spanish or French shipping. The long conflict with Spain was rooted in an English hunger for Spanish treasure and a commercial and maritime rivalry. The depredations of the Sea Dogs convinced Philip that he must act against England. There best known achievement is defeating the Great Armada and with it the threat of Spanish Catholic absolutism. They bedeviled the Spanish treasure fleet and thus gained for England a share of the American bullion flowing into Europe. The English then formed overseas trading companies and very modest colonization attempts were made in the Caribbean and North America by Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh. One of these colonies was Jamestown, one of the foundation stones of the future United States.

The Elizabethan era was the Age of Exploration from which emerged the Famous Elizabethan Pirates and the Golden Age of Pirates! Many of the Elizabethan explorers were also classed as pirates due to their attacking the Spanish treasure fleet and the Spanish colonies. Heroes or Villains? Explorers or Pirates? Queen Elizabeth's 'pirates' brought wealth and power to England! If, on their voyages, the Explorers encountered the opportunity to raid Spanish ships this would not have been greeted with disapproval from the Queen Elizabeth. The Elizabethan Explorers therefore gained the reputation of being pirates. A pirate is a person who robs or plunders at sea, or sometimes the shore, without a commission from a recognized sovereign nation.

The gentry in West Country saw the amalgamated forces of patriotism, plunder, and Protestantism as motivation to fuel the fires of piracy. Along the southern coast, some local refused to police piracy ....Drake, Hawkins, Martin Frobisher and Raleigh all came from environments where they had powerful local connections and had supporters who were heavily invested in maritime ventures, including discriminating piracy. These sea dogs emerged from a society which saw plundering on High seas as an acceptable pursuit for gentlemen merchants adventurers and their actions were supported by their peers. As the officials who should have curtailed piracy, often invested pirate venture themselves or were related to the pirates...It this large scale-participation of the southern gentry in discriminating piracy into the Transatlantic plundering of the Elizabethan “sea dogs.

Source; Angus Konstom, Elizabethan Sea Dogs, 1560 - 1605, Elite 70, Ospray/Military, England, 2000. pp 4-9 and http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/famous-elizabethan-pirates.htm