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Prize Money

Chapter 2: INTRODUCTION.
By Quincy Wright
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About This Book

The study surveys municipal and international rules governing the disposition of property captured at sea and on land from ancient Greece and Rome through medieval maritime codes to modern British statutes and courts up to the early twentieth century. It traces legal doctrines and institutions—prize courts, letters of marque, admiralty jurisdiction, statutory grants and distribution schemes—while analysing tensions between state title and individual reward, the role of privateering, and the practical effects of different rules on naval conduct and neutral commerce. Historical examples and comparative analysis illuminate the evolution of law and administration and their operational consequences in wartime.

INTRODUCTION.

The rules for disposing of the proceeds of prizes captured in war is a question of municipal law. After a prize has been legally condemned, international law has no direct concern with the ultimate disposition which the captor state may choose to make of the proceeds. Indirectly, however, the prize money laws of different states may be of great interest to other states, for the character of the internal regulations in this matter may determine the amount of energy displayed by cruisers in making captures; the impartiality of national prize tribunals, the number of prizes and the number of condemnations made in a particular war; questions of vital interest to both belligerent and neutral merchantmen plying their trade on the high seas in time of war.

It is the purpose of this paper to investigate the character of prize money laws in force in various countries at different periods of their history, the conditions which have given rise to such rules, and the effect particular rules have had upon maritime captures in time of war.