Reprisals led to wanton aggressions, like those of the buccaneers, and wanton aggressions produced reprisals again. All governments encouraged their merchantmen to rob those of rival peoples as a means of promoting commerce, just as the warring fur traders on the American frontier were encouraged in their fights waged to the same end. The encouragement of reprisals was at all times more or less covert. In war times the armed merchantmen were openly commissioned and sent afloat not only to prey upon the ships of the enemy but upon those of neutral powers as well. It was the theory of all statesmen that the best way to encourage the shipping of one nation was to injure as much as possible, and by all means, the shipping of all rivals. As late as the end of the eighteenth century the Barbary pirates were subsidized by some governments to encourage them to prey upon the shipping of rivals. At one time the privateer captain was the judge of the offending of the neutral. Later, when privateers were obliged to carry captured ships before a court of admiralty, the difference between the robbery as committed by the privateer and the confiscation ordered by the court was found only in the course of procedure. A theorist here and there denounced the systems of reprisals and privateering. Governor Bradford was worried somewhat by the doings of Cromwell's men. Government officials denounced as pirates the privateers who smuggled in goods instead of bringing them in openly and paying the usual fees and duties. But the state of civilization warranted the Pilgrims in the warmth of the reception they gave to the pirates. How far the piratical cruisers influenced the American merchant marine is not definitely told in the documents, but it is certain that damage was inflicted. We get a glimpse of a vicious raid in the story of a French pirate (perhaps he had a commission, however) named Picor, who landed on Block Island in July, 1689. The pirates "remained in possession of the island, plundering the houses, and despoiling it of every moveable thing," for a week. Two of the islanders were tortured to make them reveal the hiding-place of valuables, and two negroes were killed. From the island the pirates went to New London, but they were driven away. On sailing toward the open sea once more, they were intercepted by two armed sloops that had been sent out from Newport under one Captain Paine. _A Naval History of Rhode Island_ says that Paine had "followed the privateering design" in former years as a lieutenant under Picor, and that the Frenchman, on recognizing him, fled, saying he "would as soon fight the devil as Paine." In the _Canadian Archives_ (1894) are two stories of raids upon French possessions, made in one case by "Englishmen" (they took Quebec), and in the other by "the people of Massachusetts."