PRIZE MONEY

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4047, 3 May 1932, Page 2

PRIZE MONEY

In the early days a seaman’s life was miserable beyond any modern realisation, and his great hope when upon the high seas, was to fall in with something in the nature of a prize: nor was ho at all particular whether he fell upon friend or foe, provided the booty was good, and no inconvenient questions wore asked afterwards (writes Flinders Barr in tbc Sydney ‘ Morning j Herald ’). This condition of general j aggressiveness applied more partieu- | larly to the days before there was a I regular Royal Navy, and when, if the | King needed ships, he hired them from I the merchants. Even in those far-away | times there were, besides King’s ships j or ships in the King’s service, the armed merchantmen which followed ! their business upon the great waters I and could more or loss protect them- ! selves, and the professed pirates which ■ preyed upon everyone. As Shakespeare j has it: “ There be land-rats and water- j rats, land-thieves and water-thieves— •! 1 mean pirates,” such as he speaks of j in ‘ Pericles,’ where we have: “ Ist pirate. A prize! A prize! 3rd pirate, Half part, mates, half part, come, let’s have her aboard suddenly ” Water rats, who would devour anything, though this 3rd pirate must have been either a very bad baud at arithmetic or an Irishman, otherwise be would not have suggested dividing the prize into three halves. As far back as the reign of King Henry the Fifth, if any Engishman had suffered loss or damage at the hands of foreigners and could get no redress from them, although there was a state of peace existing between the two countries, he was empowered by the laws of the realm, to apply to the Lord Privy Seal for what were called Letters of Request, which documents were sent to the offending persons overseas, requesting satisfaction. If no redress could be obtained, the Lord Chancellor was authorised to grant to tbo injured Englishman, under the Great Seal, what were termed Letters of Marque, by virtue of which he had the right to attack and seize the property of the offending nation, where, when, and how he could till he had recouped himself, without the risk of being treated as a robber or pirate. The Government found this a convenient way of satisfying importunate and influential subjects, without being under the necessity of going to war with the offending nation. In later times all Letters of Marque were issued by the Admiralty to British subjects, for use in war-time only. DRAKE’S RICH BOOTY. The first great British haul of prizemoney was that made by Francis Drake and his band of heroes in the Golden Hind during his famous voyage round the world in 1577-1580, when he captured in the Pacific the great Spanish galleon, the Cacafuego, and “ found in her great riches, as jewels and precious stones, 13 chests full of reales of plate, 80 pounds weight of pure gold, and 2(3 tons of silver.” The value of the whole booty in modern money would bo about one million and a-half pounds. The next great British prize fell to H.M.S. Centurion, of sixty-four guns, commanded by Commodore, afterwards Lord Anson, and was taken in much the same part of the world. The Centurion’s prize, captured also when on a voyage round the world, was the huge Spanish galleon from Manila, called Nostra Senora de Cabadonga, which surrendered after a fierce fight on June 20, 1743. Amongst her cargo were found 1,313,843 large silver pieces, and 35,082 ounces of silver, and she was worth to her lucky captors in present money about one and three-quarter million pounds. The Centurion had a very narrow escape from being made a prize herself, as just before she reached Portsmouth, on her homeward passage, she passed unseen, in a dense fog, right through the centre of a hostile French fleet going up Channel. From an old document mentioned by Pepys we find that in Queen Elizabeth’s time when a vessel of the Royal Navy captured a prize, b-sides their shares of the whole, “ the captain had the best piece of ordnance, the master the best anchor cable, the gunner the second piece of ordnance, the boatswain the maintop sayle, the boatswain’s mate the foretopsayle, the master’s mate the bonnet and spritsayle, the quartermaster tbc mison, the coxwaine the topgallant sayle, the chyrurgeon the ehyrurgeon’s chest and all chyrurgery s, the carpenter the carpenter’s tooles, and the trumpeter the trumpetts, il any. The marriners’ furniture, apparell, chests, and suchlike ; ; pillage, ami the same shared amongst the whole company.” Thenceforward new regulations concerning the distribution ol prize money were made from time to time, designed more particularly to encourage seamen to volunteer, such as one about 1070, when it was ordered that seamen should receive ten shillings per ton burden on all prizes taken by them, £G 13s Id for each piece ol ordnance, and £lO a gun for every man-of-war sunk or destroyed, also the pillage of all merchandise upon or above the gun deck. On May 1, 17G2, His Majesty's twenty-eiglit-gim frigate Active, and nineteen-gun sloop Favourite, captured off Cadiz without the interchange of a shot, tlie Spanish ship llermione, with cargo and treasure on board valued at £520.000, and in the same year a combined British naval anl military force captured the city of Havana and shared between them prize money to the amount of £740,000. The sum first distributed was £510,185, ol which the admiral and the military commander-iii-chiof each received £8(5,030. THE GREAT DAYS OF PLUNDER. The really exciting time, however, for both men-of-war and privateers was during the long period (trom 1793 to 1815) of tiie French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, during which era many fortunes were made at sea. Nelson was never lucky in the way ol making prize money, an injustice he often deplored, and ho even went to law on one occasion when he did not receive what he considered his correct share. Admirals did very well generally, as they were entitled to an eighth share of all prizes taken by vessels under their commands, in addition lo anything they would receive for captures when personally in action. A smart frigate on a good station lor prize money was much sought alter. 11.M.5. Aurora, a twenty-eight-gun frigate, was one of the fort untile ones during the time she was stationed on the Spam li roast, soon alter L9S. She wai often disgui.cl as a clum.-y old merchant hip, and in tin. way took