Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to work as a street prostitute.

1832

Westmoreland Gaz. 20 Oct. 1/4: It’s a clear case she was out privateering.

2. (US) to cause trouble, to act as a rowdy.

1835

W. Otter Hist. of My Own Times (1995) 59: In the evenings we would walk out in the market-house, that was the place of general rendezvous for privateering, and among the first things that threw itself in our way as an object of diversion, was an old woman.