Been awhile since I posted anything here but since my Google Fu is failing me big time on this, I’m turning to my favorite crowdsource for data. I’m trying to find some reference showing the amounts paid by the Royal Navy for ships “bought into the service” during the Napoleonic Wars. I can find a lot of references stating that prize money was paid for the capture of specific ships, just not how much was actually handed out. Or even something giving a range or an average. So far I have seen one Wikipedia entry giving details for the captured French frigate Réunion: “purchased for service with the Royal Navy after repairs had been completed… rated as a 36-gun frigate carrying 12 pounder cannon. Authorisation for the payment of prize money was published in the London Gazette on 4 February 1794,[10] amounting to £5,239…” And another for HMS Niemen, a French ship captured in 1809 which “The Admiralty purchased … for the sum of £29,979 2s 10d in prize money…”
So I can only find two numbers, with a span of 15 years, and there is a difference of £24,740 paid for ships that are reasonably close in class. Both would have ranked as fifth-rate frigates according tothis chart, and the Royal Navy converted the Niemen to a 38-gun ship after capturing her. I know the cargos of the ships are accounted for when determining prize money, as well as the condition of the ship and her guns, and presumably other factors too, just like when you trade in a used car. And the Gazette references cited as sources in those entries don’t give amounts of prize money paid, they typically just say that an amount has been authorized for persons involved in the capture of such-and-such ship. I’ve even chased down some references to the UK National Archives for the Admiralty Prize Court, but the documents that might have the numbers I’m looking for aren’t scanned.
Thanks for the links.
Gives me the idea that maybe Réunion was a tub or else there is a typo in the amount cited in that article. Even allowing for my hazy memory that Thetis and Santa Brigada were carrying treasure and thus inflated their value as prizes, it seems that tens of thousands of pounds is a more typical payout. I’ll have to dig into this and do a little math to get some averages.
Ah, once you know the things to search for Google will give you more on what you seek. Found a description of the Caroline taking San Rafael - another Spanish treasure ship of sorts, it turns out. She carried a cargo of copper and $500,000 in specie. So the prizes for these Spanish ships are more like outliers because of the value of their cargos. But knowing her cargo and the amount paid in prize money for her is a good start to figure the value of the vessel herself.
Works by the redoubtable N. A. M. Rodger — my post #81 in this thread, and Bernard Ireland mentioned in an earlier post there — might have some information.