l commanders of
privateers (doc. no. 126), and each was required to furnish, or
bondsmen were required to furnish on his behalf, caution or
security[2] for the proper observance of these instructions and the
payment of all dues to the crown or Admiralty. Relations between the
commander and the crew, except as regulated by the superior authority
of these instructions and of the prize acts or other statutes, were
governed by the articles of agreement (doc. no. 202) signed when
enlisting.

[Footnote 1: See R.G. Marsden in _English Historical Review_, XXI.
251-257, and a commission in Rymer's _Foedera_, XVIII. 12.]

[Footnote 2: Specimen (1762) in Anthony Stokes, _A View of the
Constitution of the British Colonies_ (London, 1783), pp. 315-317.]

These were the essential documents of a privateering voyage. There
would probably be also accounts for supplies, like John Tweedy's very
curious bill for medicines (doc. no. 158), and accounts between crew
and owners (doc. no. 146), and general accounts of the voyage (doc.
no. 159). There might be an agreement of two privateers to cruise
together and divide the spoil (doc. no. 160). There might even be a
journal of the whole voyage, like the extraordinarily interesting
journal kept on the privateer _Revenge_ by the captain's
quartermaster in 1741 (doc. no. 145), one of the very few such
narratives preserved. Other documents of various kinds, illustrating
miscellaneous incidents of privateering, will be found elsewhere in
the volume.

Both privateers and naval vessels belonging to the government made
prize of ships and goods belonging to the enemy, but many questions
were certain to arise concerning the legality of captures and
concerning the proper ownership and disposal of ships and goods. Hence
the necessity for prize courts, acting under admiralty law and the law
of nations. The instructions to privateers required them (see doc. no.
126, section III.) to bring captured ships or goods into some port of
Great Britain or her colonial dominions, for adjudication by such a
court. In England, it was the High Court of Admiralty that tried such
cases. At the beginning of a war, a commission under the Great
Seal,[3] addressed to the Lords of the Admiralty, instructed them to
issue a warrant to the judge of that court, authorizing him during the
duration of the war to take cognizance of prize causes. After 1689, it
was customary to provide for trial of admiralty causes in colonial
po