The fishing industry has captains that use the same playbook as pirates - get guys drunk, put them on a boat, torture them into labour for years. If they refuse, there is no walking the plank, they just toss them into open waters. Slavery is still a thing and the fish in the shops puts money in the pockets of their "masters."
It was one bunch of thieves stealing from another bunch of thieves, yet only a fool would side with a pirate. They had no code at all, no honour and though they would speak ill of the crown soldiers and make a good show of it, they would slit they throat of man, woman or child for the merest whisper of gold.
The pirates stole the plunder taken by those who had sanitised such plunder.
The pirates came as all thieves do, cold hearted with cold swords to take what belonged to others and care not the true price payed nor by whom.
In those pirate days, the spoils of war were apt to become the spoils of ocean battles. Looting had become the way these humans operated, either in uniform or pirate regalia.