Prize Money for Santa Brigida and Thetis 1799

[James]

When all of the prize money was paid out, how many peopls actually collected?
Was all of the prize money ever paid?(Rigging and Stores)?

James

[PMarione]

When prize money was not claimed, it went to Greenwich Hospital.
De question of "who got the prize money" is a tough one.
Officers had agents (bankers) who took their money business in charge.
The crew could take a collective agent (often linked to the purser or the secretary).

All the captures went through the Admiralty Court to be declared legal. Sometimes the captain had to pay a fortune to a captured ship's owners if the prize was declared illegal.

Admiralty Court judgements could take years and years. Some prize money of the napoleonic wars were still not adjudicated in the 1850's.

There probably was a lot of abuses concerning the crew's shares, crooks falsely claiming shares (if taken they could end hanged), "jews" bying shares at a very high discount...
There was also alot of problems with relatives claiming the shares of deceased men : more than one wife, mothers of natural children, fight between siblings...

@+P