PRIZE MONEY
One reason why men volunteered for the Royal Navy was the lure of prize money. When an enemy ship was captured, the value of the vessel and contents was assessed and an equivalent sum distributed as prize money among the men of the ship that made the capture. Spanish treasure ships were particularly profitable. Admirals received the largest share, followed by captains, lieutenants and so on, down to the most inexperienced hand. Successful admirals and captains bought large country estates with prize money and a lucky seaman might have enough to buy a pub for his retirement.
In early 1800, the frigate HMS Endymion captured several ships, and the following year the crew received their prize money. With his share, Lieutenant Charles Austen purchased presents of topaz crosses on gold chains for his sisters, Jane and Cassandra. This jewellery is now in Jane Austen’s House Museum at Chawton ( janeaustens-house-museum.org.uk). Jane used this incident as a theme in her novel Mansfield Park, where William Price buys his sister Fanny an amber cross, though he cannot afford a gold chain. Seamen were obsessed by prize money, and Jane Austen has William dreaming of prize money to provide for his family.
See Richard Hill’s The Prizes of War: The Naval Prize System in the Napoleonic Wars 1793–1815 (Stroud, 1998), especially pages 248– 49 and 256–58 where he lists TNA and other sources.