Term
Prize court
also known as Admiralty court
Definition
The court that adjudicated the legality of a privateer prize and condemned it for sale. Prize courts operated under the admiralty law of the issuing state; in the English-speaking colonies of the Caribbean and North American Atlantic seaboard the vice-admiralty courts at Port Royal, Charleston, Williamsburg, and elsewhere were the principal forums. A privateer captain was required to bring the captured vessel, the master and crew, the cargo, and the ship’s papers before the court; if the court determined that the capture had been made within the terms of the captor’s commission, it issued a writ of condemnation under which the prize and cargo became the legal property of the captor for sale. The proceeds were then divided according to the standing arrangement among the captor, the crew, the syndicate that had financed the voyage, and (typically a tenth or a fifteenth) the Crown.
