the Admiralty.]

Though all rights of prize belong originally to the Crown, yet it has
been thought expedient to grant a portion of those rights to maintain
the dignity of the Lord High Admiral. This grant, (whatever it
conveys,) carries with it a total and perpetual alienation of the
rights of the crown, and nothing short of an Act of Parliament can
restore them; whereas the grant to private captors is nothing more
than the mere temporary transfer of a beneficial interest. The rights
of the Admiral, as distinguished from those of the Crown, are these;
that when vessels come in, not under any motive arising out of the
occasions of war, but from distress of weather, or want of provisions,
or from ignorance of war, and are seized in port, they belong to the
Lord High Admiral; but where the hand of violence has been exercised
upon them, where the impression arises from acts connected with war,
from revolt of their own crews, or from being forced or driven in by
the Queen's ships, they belong to the Crown.

This includes ships and goods already come into the ports, creeks, or
roadsteads, of all the Queen's dominions.[88]

[Sidenote: Acquisition of Captures.]

Persons fitting out Private Vessels under a Commission to cruise
against the enemy, acquire the property of whatever Captures they may
make, as a compensation for their disbursements, and for the risks
they run; but they acquire it by grant from the Sovran who issues out
the commission to them. The Sovran allows them either the whole, or a
part of the capture; this entirely depends on the nature of the
contract he has made with them.[89]

This grant of prize is, in terms, a grant of the property of the
Queen's enemies, but it is not restricted to the property of the
nations with whom we are at war. It is held in construction and
practice to embrace all property liable to be condemned as prize, and
which is not particularly reserved to the Crown, or the Admiralty.[90]

It depends, also, on the municipal regulations of each particular
power: and as a necessary precaution against abuse, the owners of
Privateers are required by the ordinances of commercial states to give
adequate security that they will conduct the cruize according to the
laws and usages of war, and the instructions of the Government; and
that they will respect the rights of neutrals, and bring their prizes
in for adjudication.

[Sidenote: Commissions of Privateers.]

The Commissions of Privateer