The total registered tonnage of British-flag merchant shipping in 1792 is 1,365,000 tons. Since then the value of prizes has accumulated to the benefit of government. The Prize system was ultimately abandoned at the beginning of the 20 th century (Britain in 1948) when it was found citizens could be conscripted and required to fight on nationalist patriotic grounds without extra cost. The interested reader will need to refer to the Asia and China chapters for several additional reports of individual prize-taking around India and China. There is also a detailed Instruction from owners to the Captain of an American privateer. There is a useful Editorial note in an article dated 9 th August 1794 below indicating the India Company employed only 17 Indian-financed privateers and frigates in Asian seas. Records are quite sparse but a few references can be seen of auctions of treasure in the Asia chapters and sales of prize goods in the China chapters. In India an important part of the army’s prizes derived from confiscation of the native prince’s treasure. There was also a payment for head money, based on the numbers of enemy soldiers captured. It was paid in respect of guns and public stores seized after the capture of enemy towns. Prize money was also available to the army. As recipients were often cruising in distant seas, an Agency system developed in British ports which skimmed-off a handsome income from the sailors. Throughout most of the wars, the fund was distributed one eighth to the Admiral, one quarter to the Captains and the rest to other officers, leading hands and ordinary crew in fractions. The Indian Courts gave effect to the East India Company’s rules under which it claimed 50% of prizes captured within its jurisdiction. As Pitt said in a debate reproduced below ‘prize-taking is the key to British success in war.’īullion or specie was preferred for its fixed value goods and ships tended to return less than expected in the forced sales of the Prize Courts, particularly those far from London – the Mediterranean and West Indian courts, for example. Its effects have not yet, so far as I know, been quantified although Hill in ‘The Prizes of War’, 1998, provides useful information and Green’s ‘The Royal Navy and Anglo-Jewry’, 1989 is worthwhile reading. Prize-taking gave important support to the British war-time economy. It is also true that a minority of seamen volunteered for the job and formed a core of professionalism to lead the impressed men however it is my belief that the mortar of solidarity on British warships was the income from prize-taking. This rather bleak philosophy overlooks the close community of a ship at sea when a Captain must work hard to maintain the loneliness of command. The officers and men must be kept in such fear of the certainty and viciousness of punishment that the alternative of following orders and risking death was always preferable. The Admiralty philosophy for the management of the Royal Navy was simple. There are also some actions off South America which appear in the chapter of that name. This chapter addresses prize-taking in the European and Asian theatres during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. They became the stuff of legend and the financial foundations of dynasties. A great many fortunes were made by the ship’s officers. Prize-taking and hierarchical discipline were the keys to British naval effectiveness.

Prized mercy brave frontier