In admiralty law prizes (from the Old French prise, "taken, seized"[1]) are equipment, vehicles, vessels, and cargo captured during armed conflict.

His Commentary claims that the etymology of the name of the Greek war god Ares was the verb "to seize", and that the law of nations had deemed looting enemy property legal since the beginning of Western recorded history in Homeric times.

This period largely coincides with the last century of fighting sail and includes the Napoleonic Wars, the American and French Revolutions, and America's Quasi-War with France of the late 1790s.

It was said to be the most important exposition of prize law published in English, along with the subsequent High Court of Admiralty decisions of William Scott, Lord Stowell (1743–1836).

With so much at stake, prize law attracted some of the greatest legal talent of the age, including John Adams, Joseph Story, Daniel Webster, and Richard Henry Dana Jr. author of Two Years Before the Mast.

Prize cases were among the most complex of the time, as the disposition of vast sums turned on the fluid Law of Nations, and difficult questions of jurisdiction and precedent.

A captured American privateer captain, 20-year-old Gideon Olmsted, shipped aboard the British sloop Active in Jamaica as an ordinary hand in an effort to get home.

But Pennsylvania authorities refused to enforce the decision, asserting the Continental Congress could not intrude on a state prize court jury verdict.

Firing under a false flag could cost dearly in prize court proceedings, possibly even resulting in restitution to the captured vessel's owner.

No matter how furious and bloody the battle, once it was over the victors had to collect themselves, put aside anger and exercise forbearance, treating captives with courtesy and civility to the degree prudence allowed.

Francis Upton's treatise on Maritime Warfare cautioned: Embezzlements of the cargo seized, or acts personally violent, or injuries perpetrated upon the captured crew, or improperly separating them from the prize-vessel, or not producing them for examination before the prize-court, or other torts injurious to the rights and health of the prisoners, may render the arrest of the vessel or cargo, as prize, defeasible, and also subject the tort feasor for damages therefore.

That is, instead of destroying her on the spot as was their prerogative, the privateer or naval officer would accept a scrip in form of an IOU for an agreed sum as ransom from the ship's master.

[23] On occasion a seized vessel would be released to ferry home prisoners, a practice which Lord Stowell said "in the consideration of humanity and policy" Admiralty Courts must protect with the utmost attention.

[24] While on her mission as a cartel ship she was immune to recapture so long as she proceeded directly on her errand, promptly returned, and did not engage in trading in the meantime.

[29] A proper prize court condemnation was absolutely requisite to convey clear title to a vessel and its cargo to the new owners and settle the matter.

The written interrogatories and ship's papers established the nationality of the prize and her crew, and the origin and destination of the cargo: the vessel was said to be "confiscated out of her own mouth.

[35] Prize captors need show only "reasonable suspicion" that the property is subject to condemnation; the owner bears the burden of proving the contrary.

[39] The ingenuity of belligerents in evading the law through pretended neutrality, false papers, quick title transfers, and a myriad of other devices, make up the principal business of the prize courts during the last century of fighting sail.

For example, during America's Quasi-War with France in the 1790s, corrupt French Caribbean prize courts (often sharing in the proceeds) resorted to pretexts and subterfuges to justify condemning neutral American vessels.

[54] Commerce raiding by private vessels[55] ended with the American Civil War, but Navy officers remained eligible for prize money a little while longer.

[56] Likewise Russia, Portugal, Germany, Japan, China, Romania, and France followed the United States in World War I, declaring they would no longer pay prize money to naval officers.

Shortly before World War II France passed a law which allowed for taking prizes, as did the Netherlands and Norway, though the German invasion and subsequent capitulation of all three of those countries quickly put this to an end.

But no nation now offers a share to the officers or crew who risked their lives in the capture: Self-interest was the driving force that compelled men of the sea to accept the international law of prize ... [including merchants] because it brought a valuable element of certainty to their dealings.