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Court of Admiralty Prize Cases

The licensing and adjudicative paperwork of English prize jurisdiction, from letters of marque and sureties to examinations, seized ships' papers, sentences and appeals, generated by the High Court of Admiralty's Prize Court and by the colonial vice-admiralty courts and held at The National Archives, Kew, under the HCA letter code.

From1526Also writtenPrize papers; HCA prize records; High Court of Admiralty Prize Court records; Letters of marque declarations; Prize Papers (TNA HCA 32)

Prize adjudication was the machinery by which a capture at sea became lawful property. Without a sentence a capture was theft. The record survives at The National Archives, Kew, under the HCA letter code, in two bodies: the papers licensing private men-of-war, and those deciding what became of the captures. After the Restoration the civil business of the High Court of Admiralty divided, an instance court sitting continuously and a prize court sitting only in wartime, in the catalogue's words "revived by commission as needed".1

A court raised for a war lapsed at the peace, so this is a wartime archive, thin in the intervals. Whether the silence between the Treaty of Utrecht and the Spanish war of 1718 to 1720 was complete remains open: two pieces catalogued across it, HCA 34/30 and HCA 32/69, argue against a clean vacuum.

How a capture became property

A warrant from the Admiralty required the Judge to grant letters of marque. The commander declared on oath his ship, her burden and armament, his crew and his owners, and gave security against misconduct: a bond from sureties until 1696, when the bail replaced it, the Deputy Marshal certifying from 1689 that they were sufficient. The prize came in with her papers unbroken, her master examined on standing interrogatories. The captor filed a libel, any claimant an allegation, and the court gave sentence, condemning ship and cargo as prize or restoring them as neutral property.2

The series for the golden age

For 1690 to 1725 the sequence is short. Registers of declarations for letters of marque are HCA 26, catalogued at item level; the warrants, bonds and bails are HCA 25. Case papers, examinations and seized ships' papers are HCA 32, its alphabetical runs at HCA 32/49 to 32/93 within 1692 to 1727. Sentences are HCA 34/15 to HCA 34/30, covering 1689 to 1722. Appeals are in HCA 41 and HCA 42, and proceedings of the colonial vice-admiralty courts in HCA 49, which also holds records from trials of pirates, 1723 to 1733.3

What it holds for the pirates

The clearest item is a declaration of 11 December 1695 at HCA 26/3/58: William Kidd, commander of the Adventure Galley, 287 tons, 34 guns (the 1701 trial account gives 30), a crew of 70, with Admiral Russell, Robert Levingstone and Kidd himself among the owners. His defence in 1701 rested on the French passes taken with the Quedagh Merchant and the Rouparelle. Cornelius Neale Dalton, vindicating Kidd in 1911, printed them from the Journals of the House of Commons, though his two citations of the volume disagree, 18 in the text against the 13th on the Appendix C contents page. He held them suppressed at trial rather than lost, against the account that has them rediscovered among the Board of Trade papers about 1910.4

The want of a court shows too. Captain Howard of HMS Shoreham reported on 15 September 1716 that Jamaica sloops working the Spanish wrecks held commissions "from the Governor of Jamaica for the taking pirates, under which pretence they search the vessels", and that three had "turned pirates since. One Horngold, Jennings and Fernando". The wording is the calendar's; the manuscript has not been consulted. No condemnation paperwork for Henry Jennings's Florida takings has been identified in the prize series.5

The files catch pirates as cargo and as defendants. HCA 32/1901/29 covers the Margaret of New York, master Samuel Burgess, taken off the Cape of Good Hope in December 1699 with 115 enslaved Malagasy people and passengers reputed to be pirates.

Its limits as evidence

The strengths are specific: sworn, contemporaneous, standardised, produced by adversaries. So are the cautions. Cataloguing is uneven exactly here. Every war in HCA 32 except those of 1652 to 1697 is described at least by ship and master, but only the War of the Austrian Succession has the full modern description, and the Nine Years War material is flagged as under arrangement, though the pieces redistributed to HCA 32/1850 onwards in 2022 are described at item level. In this window a negative result proves nothing.6

Survival also runs by litigation. Uncontested condemnations leave thin files; the fat ones are those in which neutrality was pleaded, tilting the corpus towards neutral carriers and valuable cargoes. A libel is a pleading, not a finding, and an item in HCA 32 is evidence of what was alleged at sea.

How the Archive uses it

This cluster is the civil-law counterpart of the criminal records in HCA 1 and runs on into the Colonial Office correspondence and its printed calendar. No golden-age series is recorded as digitised in the catalogue, so the papers must be worked at Kew.

What this cluster cannot yet give is the paperwork at the seam where piracy happened: no condemnation or restitution file has been found for Jennings's Florida takings, whether Jennings personally held a Jamaica commission is not shown, and no golden-age Bahamian or Jamaican prize register has been traced.

What the evidence does not settle

Kidd's French passes

  • The whereabouts of Kidd's original French passes is unestablishedLikely
  • Dalton's two citations of the Commons Journal volume disagreeVery likely

Henry Jennings's Florida takings

  • What condemnation or restitution paperwork survives for Jennings's Florida takings
  • Whether Jennings personally held Hamilton's commission, or shared one, is unclear

Prize commission lapse dates

  • The prize commission's 1713 to 1721 lapse and revival dates are unfixed

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. Soon after the Restoration the civil business of the High Court of Admiralty divided into an instance court, which sat continuously, and a prize court, which existed only in wartime and was revived by commission as needed; the surviving records of both are held at The National Archives, Kew, under the HCA letter code. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archive research guide and catalogue: The National Archives, High Court of Admiralty records research guide (SRC017-001); HCA 32, High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Prize Papers, catalogue series description (SRC017-003)
  2. Letters of marque required a warrant from the Admiralty to the Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, a declaration on oath by the commander reciting his ship, her burden, her armament, his crew and his owners, and security given by sureties, the bond being replaced by the bail from 1696 and the Deputy Marshal certifying from 1689 that the sureties were sufficient; adjudication then ended in a sentence either condemning ship and cargo as lawful prize or restoring them as neutral or friendly property. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archive catalogue and research guide: HCA 25, High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Warrants, Bonds and Bails for Letters of Marque, catalogue series description (SRC017-004); The National Archives, High Court of Admiralty records research guide (SRC017-001)
  3. The prize sequence for 1690 to 1725 runs across HCA 26, the registers of declarations for letters of marque from 1689; HCA 25, the warrants, bonds and bails; HCA 32, the prize papers, whose alphabetical runs at HCA 32/49 to 32/93 carry covering dates within 1692 to 1727; HCA 34/15 to HCA 34/30, the sentences for 1689 to 1722; HCA 41 and HCA 42 for appeals; and HCA 49, the vice-admiralty proceedings, which also holds records arising from trials of pirates, 1723 to 1733. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archive catalogue series and piece entries: The National Archives catalogue descriptions for HCA 25 (SRC017-004), HCA 26 (SRC017-006), HCA 32 (SRC017-010), HCA 34 and its pieces HCA 34/15 to HCA 34/30 (SRC017-002, SRC017-011), HCA 41 (SRC017-014), HCA 42 (SRC017-015) and HCA 49 (SRC017-005)
  4. A declaration for letters of marque of 11 December 1695, catalogued as HCA 26/3/58 at folio 59 of the register, records William Kidd as commander of the Adventure Galley, of 287 tons and 34 guns with a crew of 70, and names Admiral Russell, Robert Levingstone and Kidd himself among the owners. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archive catalogue item entry: Declaration for letters of marque, William Kidd, Adventure Galley, The National Archives, HCA 26/3/58, folio 59 (SRC017-019); Confirmed as the content of the declaration, the 1701 trial account giving 30 guns and the ship record carrying both counts
  5. Captain Howard of HMS Shoreham reported on 15 September 1716 that the Jamaica sloops working the Spanish wrecks held commissions "from the Governor of Jamaica for the taking pirates, under which pretence they search the vessels", and that three of them had "turned pirates since. One Horngold, Jennings and Fernando". Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Calendared colonial correspondence: Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, vol. 29, November 1716, entry 408.ii, Capt. Howard, HMS Shoreham, to Mr Burchett, South Carolina, 15 September 1716; originals at The National Archives, CO 137/12 (SRC017-021)
  6. HCA 32 is unevenly catalogued for this period: every war except those of 1652 to 1697 is described at least by the name of the ship and the name of the master, only the War of the Austrian Succession, HCA 32/94 to 32/159, carries the full modern description, and the Nine Years War material remains flagged as under arrangement, though the pieces redistributed to HCA 32/1850 onwards in 2022 are described at item level. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archive catalogue series and subseries descriptions: HCA 32, High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Prize Papers, catalogue series description including arrangement note (SRC017-003); Nine Years War [under arrangement], HCA 32 subseries description (SRC017-008); captured ships with names beginning A, HCA 32/1850, described at item level (SRC017-009)