Sep

27

The historical moment is France's declaration of war against England and Holland in 1793. From Cochrane: Britannia's Last Sea King, by Donald Thomas, p. 37:

However, a young officer in Cochrane's position, joining the navy with a hope of enriching himself with prizes, faced a more powerful enemy than France or Spain, and one whose weapons were a good deal more sophisticated: the Admiralty and its prize courts. In the view of many serving officers, these courts were at best unsympathetic and, all too often, cynically corrupt. It was relatively common for a hopeful young commander and his men to find that, after a hard-won capture, the Admiralty proposed to appropriate the entire value of the prize. It was always open to the heroes to fight for their claim in the prize court. But even if they won the case, they might hear that the cost of the proceedings had swallowed up more than the sum due to them, so that they were now in debt to the court as well as having been robbed of the proceeds of their valour.

A man might complain publicly or privately against the prize system. But before he set himself up as a "sea lawyer", he was well advised to remember that this very employment, let alone his promotion, lay in the hands of the Admiralty itself. In consequence, there was a good deal of private grumbling and very little public campaigning.

Vic writes:

very much like the market where often the only way to receive or fight back is to sign away your rights in a preliminary hearing or arb.


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