On Recruitment: throughout this period one of the main methods of recruiting crew was to literally kidnap them. This was known as impressment. Groups of sailors would go ashore and form “press gangs” who would go out and kidnap able bodied men and force them into service aboard a ship where they would essentially be enslaved or if they were lucky, forced to sign a document making them indentured servants (slaves for a legally defined period after which they are released.) Impressed sailors would often earn a wage as well as a cut of any bounty or battle-prize won by the ship but conditions were still quite rough.

It was during the Golden Age if Piracy that state-owned and operated navies came into existence. During the previous period kings and lesser nobles or appointed military officers would contract private ships each campaign season to fight on a largely ad-hoc basis. Central command was rudimentary at best and the distinction between a merchant ship and a warship was negligible and dependent on for whom the captain of the ship in question was working at the moment. Both privateers, dedicated pirate ships, and ships owned and operated by state navies practiced impressment during this time and it was one of the main reasons that the US fought the War of 1812 against the British Empire.

Source: History BA degree

Edit: Nobles