American Experience in British Prize Law, 1776-1804, with Suzanne Amy Foxley.

On today’s episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison charts a course across storm-tossed legal waters with historian Suzanne Amy Foxley, author of The American Experience of British Prize Law, 1776–1804.

From the decks of daring privateers to the hushed chambers of admiralty courts, Foxley reveals how the American Revolution was fought not only with muskets and cannon, but with writs, warrants, and meticulously argued cases. Together, they explore how captured ships became “prizes,” how neutral nations navigated perilous seas of diplomacy and commerce, and how early Americans learned to play a global legal game while still inventing their own nation.

Listeners will discover the human stories behind the paperwork: sailors gambling their lives for profit and patriotism, merchants insuring fortunes against the tides of war, and judges wrestling with British legal traditions in a world suddenly unmoored from the Crown.

It’s a conversation where maritime adventure meets courtroom drama, and where the Revolution emerges as a battle for legitimacy as much as liberty. Set your compass, trim your sails, and join us for a voyage into the law that helped shape America’s place on the world’s oceans

Transcript

WEBVTT
 
 00:00:01.054 --> 00:00:01.736
 Hello, everyone.
 
 00:00:01.836 --> 00:00:03.357
 Welcome to the Revolution Two-Fifty
 
 00:00:03.396 --> 00:00:03.857
 podcast.
 
 00:00:03.876 --> 00:00:04.618
 I'm Bob Allison.
 
 00:00:04.677 --> 00:00:06.519
 I chair the Rev Two-Fifty Advisory Group.
 
 00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:08.781
 We are a consortium of seventy five or
 
 00:00:08.820 --> 00:00:10.461
 so groups in Massachusetts planning
 
 00:00:10.481 --> 00:00:12.864
 commemorations of American independence.
 
 00:00:13.525 --> 00:00:16.207
 And our guest today is Suzanne Amy
 
 00:00:16.227 --> 00:00:16.766
 Folksley.
 
 00:00:17.367 --> 00:00:21.431
 And Suzanne Amy Folksley is a postdoctoral
 
 00:00:21.471 --> 00:00:23.472
 position at the University of Erfurt.
 
 00:00:24.073 --> 00:00:25.693
 And she completed her doctorate at the
 
 00:00:25.754 --> 00:00:27.635
 University of Oldenburg and has written
 
 00:00:28.091 --> 00:00:29.413
 really a great book,
 
 00:00:29.432 --> 00:00:31.774
 The American Experience of British Prize
 
 00:00:31.835 --> 00:00:33.337
 Law,
 
 00:00:35.338 --> 00:00:37.579
 looking at the experiences of American
 
 00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:40.262
 sailors and also the way that Americans
 
 00:00:40.643 --> 00:00:42.223
 diverge from the British system.
 
 00:00:42.243 --> 00:00:42.664
 Well, anyway,
 
 00:00:42.685 --> 00:00:43.886
 I'll let you talk about it because it's
 
 00:00:43.905 --> 00:00:44.627
 a great topic.
 
 00:00:44.667 --> 00:00:46.247
 So thanks for joining us, Suzanne.
 
 00:00:46.408 --> 00:00:47.368
 Well,
 
 00:00:47.408 --> 00:00:49.009
 thank you very much for having me on.
 
 00:00:50.011 --> 00:00:51.893
 I think it probably makes sense to start
 
 00:00:51.932 --> 00:00:54.155
 with what prize actually is or
 
 00:00:54.676 --> 00:00:55.576
 to be more specific,
 
 00:00:55.595 --> 00:00:57.216
 what privateering actually is,
 
 00:00:57.296 --> 00:00:59.677
 because that's what prize law is actually
 
 00:00:59.718 --> 00:01:00.277
 based on.
 
 00:01:00.457 --> 00:01:02.679
 So we have to imagine we're in a
 
 00:01:02.719 --> 00:01:05.060
 time where we don't have strong federal
 
 00:01:05.099 --> 00:01:05.599
 governments.
 
 00:01:06.221 --> 00:01:09.102
 So there is no big national navy available
 
 00:01:09.201 --> 00:01:09.602
 everywhere,
 
 00:01:10.121 --> 00:01:14.463
 especially to newly independent navies and
 
 00:01:14.483 --> 00:01:14.944
 nations.
 
 00:01:15.543 --> 00:01:17.165
 So what do you do if you don't
 
 00:01:17.204 --> 00:01:19.626
 have the money to maintain a strong navy?
 
 00:01:19.885 --> 00:01:21.486
 Well, you just use your merchant fleet.
 
 00:01:22.656 --> 00:01:24.798
 So essentially privateering means that you
 
 00:01:24.817 --> 00:01:27.640
 give out licenses to capture enemies in
 
 00:01:27.700 --> 00:01:31.042
 times of war to private merchants who are
 
 00:01:31.341 --> 00:01:32.121
 on route anyway.
 
 00:01:33.123 --> 00:01:35.364
 And this has often been described as a
 
 00:01:35.424 --> 00:01:37.265
 form of legal piracy.
 
 00:01:37.405 --> 00:01:38.805
 I like to put it in air quotes
 
 00:01:38.906 --> 00:01:41.387
 because there is no such thing as legal
 
 00:01:41.447 --> 00:01:43.588
 piracy.
 
 00:01:44.328 --> 00:01:46.569
 Or you have privateering and privateering
 
 00:01:47.090 --> 00:01:49.591
 is officially governed by various sets of
 
 00:01:49.671 --> 00:01:50.052
 laws.
 
 00:01:50.072 --> 00:01:51.453
 This is called the prize law.
 
 00:01:52.947 --> 00:01:54.948
 And I feel even though it's not quite
 
 00:01:54.968 --> 00:01:55.789
 as romantic,
 
 00:01:56.769 --> 00:01:58.870
 it's slightly easier to imagine it a bit
 
 00:01:58.909 --> 00:02:00.010
 more like customs.
 
 00:02:00.269 --> 00:02:02.811
 So you'll have one ship trying to halt
 
 00:02:02.831 --> 00:02:04.891
 a different ship to prove their papers,
 
 00:02:04.990 --> 00:02:06.671
 to see if they're legally trading,
 
 00:02:07.591 --> 00:02:08.752
 or if they're an enemy to try and
 
 00:02:08.792 --> 00:02:09.651
 capture that ship.
 
 00:02:10.171 --> 00:02:11.513
 And then it has to be taken into
 
 00:02:11.532 --> 00:02:12.272
 a court of law.
 
 00:02:12.752 --> 00:02:15.193
 And if it's a judged lawful prize, i.e.
 
 00:02:15.252 --> 00:02:17.473
 if it was a proper enemy ship,
 
 00:02:18.889 --> 00:02:21.591
 then it can be captured and the privateers
 
 00:02:21.610 --> 00:02:23.412
 who took it in will get a percentage
 
 00:02:23.451 --> 00:02:25.633
 of the value of that ship.
 
 00:02:25.834 --> 00:02:28.195
 Are these regular courts they're bringing
 
 00:02:28.235 --> 00:02:29.236
 these cases into?
 
 00:02:30.318 --> 00:02:32.038
 No, so these are special courts called,
 
 00:02:32.079 --> 00:02:33.479
 well, prize courts.
 
 00:02:34.881 --> 00:02:34.981
 Okay.
 
 00:02:35.002 --> 00:02:36.223
 Or courts of admiralty.
 
 00:02:37.103 --> 00:02:38.343
 It sort of depends where you are.
 
 00:02:38.403 --> 00:02:39.604
 So in London,
 
 00:02:39.625 --> 00:02:41.086
 you have the High Court of Admiralty,
 
 00:02:41.127 --> 00:02:43.487
 which as it is implied for Britain,
 
 00:02:43.549 --> 00:02:45.189
 it's the highest court that they have.
 
 00:02:45.921 --> 00:02:47.502
 And then, uh, in the empire,
 
 00:02:47.543 --> 00:02:49.463
 they spread out these vice Admiralty
 
 00:02:49.503 --> 00:02:49.984
 courts,
 
 00:02:50.044 --> 00:02:52.305
 which are all sort of inferior to the
 
 00:02:52.324 --> 00:02:53.686
 high court of Admiralty.
 
 00:02:54.645 --> 00:02:56.067
 And, um, they're special,
 
 00:02:56.287 --> 00:02:58.328
 especially in the English system because
 
 00:02:58.927 --> 00:03:01.229
 it's actually civil law and not common
 
 00:03:01.270 --> 00:03:01.569
 law.
 
 00:03:02.030 --> 00:03:03.371
 So you don't have jury,
 
 00:03:03.770 --> 00:03:06.012
 which is something that in America,
 
 00:03:06.132 --> 00:03:08.413
 especially is not considered, um,
 
 00:03:08.992 --> 00:03:11.555
 to be beneficial to everyone.
 
 00:03:12.294 --> 00:03:14.195
 So this is one of the sticking points.
 
 00:03:14.295 --> 00:03:14.596
 Interesting.
 
 00:03:15.044 --> 00:03:17.626
 Do the Americans set up prize courts once
 
 00:03:17.645 --> 00:03:20.407
 they've declared independence?
 
 00:03:20.426 --> 00:03:22.548
 They do, and they also have them before.
 
 00:03:22.568 --> 00:03:23.088
 I mean,
 
 00:03:23.109 --> 00:03:25.449
 there's this whole transition period.
 
 00:03:25.650 --> 00:03:26.091
 Essentially,
 
 00:03:26.151 --> 00:03:29.331
 as soon as settlers come to America,
 
 00:03:29.752 --> 00:03:32.114
 they more or less make up courts where
 
 00:03:32.133 --> 00:03:33.895
 they deal with cases of prize,
 
 00:03:34.014 --> 00:03:35.415
 even though they're not officially prize
 
 00:03:35.436 --> 00:03:36.556
 courts at this stage.
 
 00:03:37.356 --> 00:03:39.638
 And then the British Empire more or less
 
 00:03:39.657 --> 00:03:39.998
 goes, oh,
 
 00:03:40.359 --> 00:03:42.000
 we should be holding on to those.
 
 00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:43.300
 It should be our prerogative.
 
 00:03:43.420 --> 00:03:43.961
 And then they're all
 
 00:03:44.616 --> 00:03:46.576
 more or less closed down and newly
 
 00:03:46.836 --> 00:03:47.516
 reinstated.
 
 00:03:48.818 --> 00:03:50.679
 So the Americans had been doing this for,
 
 00:03:50.959 --> 00:03:51.179
 I mean,
 
 00:03:51.199 --> 00:03:53.300
 they'd been operating these courts for
 
 00:03:53.340 --> 00:03:55.420
 quite a while before your book begins.
 
 00:03:55.980 --> 00:03:56.860
 Yes, exactly.
 
 00:03:57.080 --> 00:03:59.723
 And the interesting thing is, in theory,
 
 00:03:59.742 --> 00:04:01.723
 they're all based on the law of nations
 
 00:04:01.824 --> 00:04:03.084
 or international law,
 
 00:04:03.903 --> 00:04:05.044
 but there isn't really a book,
 
 00:04:05.264 --> 00:04:06.966
 which is the law of nations.
 
 00:04:07.705 --> 00:04:09.667
 So everyone's arguing about what they're
 
 00:04:09.706 --> 00:04:10.467
 actually doing.
 
 00:04:10.766 --> 00:04:12.668
 And the American system is already very
 
 00:04:12.707 --> 00:04:14.068
 different from the British system.
 
 00:04:14.581 --> 00:04:16.382
 even before independence.
 
 00:04:16.403 --> 00:04:17.524
 Oh, interesting, interesting.
 
 00:04:19.245 --> 00:04:21.166
 Now, I'm just wondering, logistically, if,
 
 00:04:21.187 --> 00:04:23.588
 say, you are a ship and you're, say,
 
 00:04:23.649 --> 00:04:26.630
 off Barbados and I have a privateer that
 
 00:04:26.730 --> 00:04:27.672
 captures you,
 
 00:04:27.732 --> 00:04:31.475
 where would the likely place be?
 
 00:04:31.714 --> 00:04:33.156
 I'm not going to go into Barbados because
 
 00:04:33.175 --> 00:04:34.456
 there you're under the Empire, right,
 
 00:04:34.476 --> 00:04:35.377
 and you're a British ship,
 
 00:04:35.817 --> 00:04:37.800
 so you'd have to go somewhere else.
 
 00:04:38.581 --> 00:04:40.541
 Yes, well, officially,
 
 00:04:40.622 --> 00:04:41.802
 according to British law,
 
 00:04:41.822 --> 00:04:43.103
 you'd always have to take it into the
 
 00:04:43.144 --> 00:04:44.185
 closest port.
 
 00:04:44.995 --> 00:04:46.437
 But this never really happens.
 
 00:04:46.456 --> 00:04:48.978
 I mean, it does occasionally,
 
 00:04:49.019 --> 00:04:52.002
 but often there'll be certain rumors going
 
 00:04:52.041 --> 00:04:53.223
 around specific courts,
 
 00:04:53.343 --> 00:04:54.783
 especially about the judges there.
 
 00:04:55.264 --> 00:04:56.605
 So there might be certain courts that
 
 00:04:56.644 --> 00:05:00.067
 you'll especially avoid because you think,
 
 00:05:00.088 --> 00:05:00.148
 oh,
 
 00:05:00.187 --> 00:05:01.408
 the procedure will be much more
 
 00:05:01.428 --> 00:05:02.949
 complicated or expensive there.
 
 00:05:03.571 --> 00:05:04.331
 But officially,
 
 00:05:04.350 --> 00:05:05.471
 you're supposed to take it into the
 
 00:05:05.492 --> 00:05:08.233
 closest court because this is in the
 
 00:05:08.293 --> 00:05:09.675
 interest of the people who've been
 
 00:05:09.716 --> 00:05:11.276
 captured because it will take the least
 
 00:05:11.297 --> 00:05:11.997
 amount of time.
 
 00:05:12.278 --> 00:05:12.817
 And if they have,
 
 00:05:13.771 --> 00:05:15.514
 anything on board that could spoil,
 
 00:05:15.654 --> 00:05:17.697
 like food, for example.
 
 00:05:18.398 --> 00:05:19.158
 Of course,
 
 00:05:19.199 --> 00:05:20.581
 time is of the essence because you are
 
 00:05:20.641 --> 00:05:23.384
 losing value the longer you are giving
 
 00:05:23.444 --> 00:05:24.807
 time for things to go off.
 
 00:05:25.507 --> 00:05:29.173
 So it's the closest court no matter what
 
 00:05:29.293 --> 00:05:29.954
 the flag is?
 
 00:05:31.709 --> 00:05:32.971
 No, it would be of your own,
 
 00:05:33.271 --> 00:05:34.031
 of your own nation.
 
 00:05:34.372 --> 00:05:34.552
 Yeah.
 
 00:05:34.673 --> 00:05:35.372
 Okay.
 
 00:05:35.673 --> 00:05:35.752
 Yeah.
 
 00:05:35.793 --> 00:05:37.615
 So it wouldn't make sense if you take
 
 00:05:37.634 --> 00:05:39.396
 a prize, if you're an American privateer,
 
 00:05:39.415 --> 00:05:40.637
 you're not going to bring a prize into
 
 00:05:40.697 --> 00:05:41.697
 London, for example,
 
 00:05:41.718 --> 00:05:43.560
 because they're saying, no,
 
 00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:44.680
 it's not a lawful prize.
 
 00:05:46.281 --> 00:05:47.802
 No, you're into your own, so to speak.
 
 00:05:47.843 --> 00:05:49.444
 It's all based on nationality.
 
 00:05:49.504 --> 00:05:51.627
 And even though people like to talk about
 
 00:05:51.706 --> 00:05:53.728
 how nationality is all constructed,
 
 00:05:53.788 --> 00:05:54.309
 et cetera,
 
 00:05:54.569 --> 00:05:56.690
 the whole system works on nationality.
 
 00:05:56.831 --> 00:05:58.892
 So you'll have to go back to your
 
 00:05:58.992 --> 00:06:00.134
 own flag, so to speak.
 
 00:06:00.213 --> 00:06:00.574
 Great.
 
 00:06:01.026 --> 00:06:01.127
 Now,
 
 00:06:01.166 --> 00:06:04.348
 do ships ever carry false papers or run
 
 00:06:04.408 --> 00:06:06.189
 up false flags as a way of eluding
 
 00:06:06.209 --> 00:06:07.932
 capture or capturing someone?
 
 00:06:08.932 --> 00:06:11.293
 All the time.
 
 00:06:11.353 --> 00:06:13.035
 This is more or less something that you
 
 00:06:13.055 --> 00:06:13.834
 find everywhere.
 
 00:06:14.315 --> 00:06:15.976
 The issue is not to be caught with
 
 00:06:15.997 --> 00:06:16.918
 the false papers.
 
 00:06:18.879 --> 00:06:20.879
 And they'll even raise like false flags
 
 00:06:20.959 --> 00:06:23.062
 and everything to try and essentially
 
 00:06:23.081 --> 00:06:23.661
 they're merchants.
 
 00:06:23.701 --> 00:06:24.401
 They want to, you know,
 
 00:06:24.523 --> 00:06:25.362
 they want to make money.
 
 00:06:26.144 --> 00:06:27.504
 The way that the mercantile businesses
 
 00:06:27.524 --> 00:06:27.785
 always work.
 
 00:06:28.774 --> 00:06:31.396
 And it's a way of providing security for
 
 00:06:31.437 --> 00:06:33.738
 what you do.
 
 00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:35.800
 But the interesting thing really is that
 
 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:38.422
 it's not just the flag of your ship
 
 00:06:38.661 --> 00:06:39.483
 that is important.
 
 00:06:39.562 --> 00:06:40.204
 It's also,
 
 00:06:40.324 --> 00:06:42.365
 you could be carrying neutral cargo.
 
 00:06:43.005 --> 00:06:45.548
 So every single piece of property that is
 
 00:06:45.588 --> 00:06:48.009
 on board that vessel can be adjudicated
 
 00:06:48.089 --> 00:06:49.651
 differently depending on from where that
 
 00:06:49.690 --> 00:06:50.331
 comes from.
 
 00:06:51.151 --> 00:06:52.473
 And when you're taken into court,
 
 00:06:52.512 --> 00:06:54.634
 there's a set of questions that people
 
 00:06:54.673 --> 00:06:55.735
 speak through with you.
 
 00:06:55.774 --> 00:06:57.175
 So they're called the standing
 
 00:06:57.216 --> 00:06:57.976
 interrogatories.
 
 00:06:58.872 --> 00:07:00.692
 And there's a set of standard questions
 
 00:07:00.713 --> 00:07:02.514
 that are always asked when a captured ship
 
 00:07:02.574 --> 00:07:03.814
 is brought into court,
 
 00:07:04.894 --> 00:07:06.675
 or less by three different people who are
 
 00:07:06.714 --> 00:07:07.175
 on board.
 
 00:07:07.194 --> 00:07:09.156
 So you have different versions of the
 
 00:07:09.196 --> 00:07:10.637
 story, which is quite interesting.
 
 00:07:11.317 --> 00:07:12.237
 And one of them is,
 
 00:07:13.038 --> 00:07:13.918
 where were you born?
 
 00:07:14.418 --> 00:07:16.178
 Where have you lived the last seven years?
 
 00:07:16.418 --> 00:07:17.480
 Where do you live now?
 
 00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:19.920
 What is the nationality that you would
 
 00:07:19.940 --> 00:07:20.880
 consider yourself?
 
 00:07:22.302 --> 00:07:23.541
 Interesting.
 
 00:07:23.562 --> 00:07:25.343
 Oh, so your place of abode and your...
 
 00:07:26.088 --> 00:07:27.752
 the place where your businesses are
 
 00:07:27.773 --> 00:07:28.194
 registered,
 
 00:07:28.233 --> 00:07:29.776
 they're also seen as different things.
 
 00:07:29.817 --> 00:07:31.841
 So we can already see that nationality is
 
 00:07:31.901 --> 00:07:34.708
 much more layered than just a flag,
 
 00:07:34.807 --> 00:07:35.209
 you know,
 
 00:07:35.269 --> 00:07:36.331
 it's made up of all these different
 
 00:07:36.370 --> 00:07:36.932
 components.
 
 00:07:37.889 --> 00:07:38.329
 Interesting.
 
 00:07:38.971 --> 00:07:39.550
 And this, of course,
 
 00:07:39.591 --> 00:07:42.233
 is why the American I'm just thinking that
 
 00:07:42.252 --> 00:07:44.314
 the War of eighteen twelve and in the
 
 00:07:44.334 --> 00:07:46.314
 years before the United States makes the
 
 00:07:46.355 --> 00:07:48.795
 case that neutral ships make for neutral
 
 00:07:48.836 --> 00:07:49.216
 goods,
 
 00:07:49.255 --> 00:07:51.637
 which seems to be a departure from this
 
 00:07:51.677 --> 00:07:52.278
 practice,
 
 00:07:52.458 --> 00:07:54.639
 as well as the the British maintain that
 
 00:07:54.839 --> 00:07:57.480
 most Americans were actually deserters
 
 00:07:57.500 --> 00:07:59.002
 from the British fleet to trying to
 
 00:07:59.041 --> 00:08:01.223
 establish what nationality is and is,
 
 00:08:01.742 --> 00:08:04.384
 as you say, a layered, complicated thing.
 
 00:08:05.526 --> 00:08:05.725
 Yeah,
 
 00:08:05.745 --> 00:08:07.007
 there's a really interesting book out
 
 00:08:07.026 --> 00:08:08.466
 there called Citizen Sailor,
 
 00:08:08.487 --> 00:08:11.629
 which goes more into these things.
 
 00:08:11.709 --> 00:08:12.269
 Well, essentially,
 
 00:08:12.309 --> 00:08:13.329
 it's hard for us to imagine,
 
 00:08:13.369 --> 00:08:15.110
 but it's a time where you don't have
 
 00:08:15.550 --> 00:08:17.651
 valid international documents.
 
 00:08:18.190 --> 00:08:20.711
 So if you're willing to refuse that
 
 00:08:20.732 --> 00:08:22.012
 something is a proper document,
 
 00:08:22.093 --> 00:08:23.093
 you can always say, well,
 
 00:08:23.112 --> 00:08:24.233
 you're not actually American.
 
 00:08:24.254 --> 00:08:27.014
 You're just showing us some forged pieces
 
 00:08:27.055 --> 00:08:28.656
 of paper because you didn't want to be
 
 00:08:28.675 --> 00:08:29.576
 part of the Royal Navy.
 
 00:08:31.857 --> 00:08:31.976
 yeah,
 
 00:08:31.997 --> 00:08:33.839
 this is one of the main contributions to
 
 00:08:33.879 --> 00:08:35.240
 the war of eighteen twelve, as you said.
 
 00:08:36.221 --> 00:08:37.381
 Is this why you cut the book off
 
 00:08:37.422 --> 00:08:38.102
 in eighteen oh four,
 
 00:08:38.123 --> 00:08:39.684
 just because you have this other
 
 00:08:39.725 --> 00:08:41.605
 well-known story afterwards and or maybe
 
 00:08:41.625 --> 00:08:42.506
 this is volume two?
 
 00:08:42.967 --> 00:08:43.408
 More or less.
 
 00:08:43.687 --> 00:08:44.970
 People have already looked into it.
 
 00:08:44.990 --> 00:08:46.951
 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
 
 00:08:47.011 --> 00:08:47.251
 You know,
 
 00:08:47.272 --> 00:08:49.053
 I also apply this family narrative.
 
 00:08:49.114 --> 00:08:51.235
 So I look through through the lenses of
 
 00:08:51.655 --> 00:08:52.756
 the Bayard family,
 
 00:08:52.836 --> 00:08:55.139
 which is a really interesting family with
 
 00:08:55.159 --> 00:08:56.039
 their own rights.
 
 00:08:57.107 --> 00:08:59.028
 but they sort of split up and they
 
 00:08:59.048 --> 00:09:00.528
 show very different aspects.
 
 00:09:00.568 --> 00:09:03.870
 So Robert Bayard grew up in colonial
 
 00:09:03.910 --> 00:09:05.291
 America and he became,
 
 00:09:06.231 --> 00:09:07.371
 actually completely forgotten,
 
 00:09:07.932 --> 00:09:09.673
 New York Vice Admiralty Judge,
 
 00:09:11.253 --> 00:09:13.494
 and then later returns because of the
 
 00:09:13.553 --> 00:09:14.575
 peace treaty, et cetera,
 
 00:09:14.634 --> 00:09:18.775
 and don't need any more prize courts on
 
 00:09:18.836 --> 00:09:20.277
 American soil at that point.
 
 00:09:20.976 --> 00:09:23.498
 And one of his relatives is Samuel Bayard,
 
 00:09:23.538 --> 00:09:25.058
 and he's an American patriot,
 
 00:09:26.888 --> 00:09:28.548
 He's completely embedded in the founding
 
 00:09:28.568 --> 00:09:30.910
 fathers' generation, more or less.
 
 00:09:31.350 --> 00:09:33.471
 He actually becomes an advocate for
 
 00:09:33.511 --> 00:09:34.793
 Americans in London.
 
 00:09:34.913 --> 00:09:36.714
 So he travels all the way to London
 
 00:09:36.774 --> 00:09:40.755
 and then becomes the first official who's
 
 00:09:40.975 --> 00:09:42.116
 put in, more or less,
 
 00:09:42.157 --> 00:09:45.178
 by the government to assist any Americans
 
 00:09:45.198 --> 00:09:47.820
 who have claims and are trying to reclaim
 
 00:09:48.620 --> 00:09:50.302
 their cargo or their vessels through the
 
 00:09:50.322 --> 00:09:52.903
 British prize court system.
 
 00:09:52.962 --> 00:09:53.384
 Interesting.
 
 00:09:53.884 --> 00:09:55.565
 We're talking with Suzanne Amy Folksley,
 
 00:09:56.054 --> 00:09:57.095
 who has written a book,
 
 00:09:57.115 --> 00:09:59.235
 The American Experience of British Prize
 
 00:09:59.275 --> 00:09:59.556
 Law.
 
 00:10:00.355 --> 00:10:01.956
 And you're talking about the,
 
 00:10:02.356 --> 00:10:05.118
 so what's the relationship between Robert
 
 00:10:05.138 --> 00:10:07.298
 Bayard and Samuel Bayard?
 
 00:10:07.318 --> 00:10:07.698
 I mean, they're,
 
 00:10:08.099 --> 00:10:11.139
 and then you also have William Bayard,
 
 00:10:11.200 --> 00:10:12.620
 Jr., who crops up.
 
 00:10:12.721 --> 00:10:13.341
 I mean, you've found.
 
 00:10:15.201 --> 00:10:15.442
 Well,
 
 00:10:15.581 --> 00:10:17.741
 so they're all part of this one big
 
 00:10:17.822 --> 00:10:18.322
 clan, I would say.
 
 00:10:19.562 --> 00:10:21.443
 They're not necessarily close relatives.
 
 00:10:22.524 --> 00:10:24.183
 However, they do seem to know each other,
 
 00:10:24.224 --> 00:10:25.164
 and it's really interesting
 
 00:10:26.054 --> 00:10:27.255
 William Bayard Jr.,
 
 00:10:27.296 --> 00:10:29.515
 who sort of goes further on.
 
 00:10:29.616 --> 00:10:30.976
 So I look into him a bit until
 
 00:10:30.996 --> 00:10:32.097
 the eighteen twenties.
 
 00:10:32.158 --> 00:10:34.239
 He's on the merchant side,
 
 00:10:34.298 --> 00:10:35.678
 so he doesn't actually go into the
 
 00:10:35.698 --> 00:10:36.779
 jurisdictional side,
 
 00:10:36.840 --> 00:10:38.740
 but he becomes a claimant in the system.
 
 00:10:41.322 --> 00:10:43.241
 He actually ends up being in New York,
 
 00:10:43.282 --> 00:10:45.283
 so he remains there when Robert Bayard
 
 00:10:45.342 --> 00:10:45.842
 leaves.
 
 00:10:46.844 --> 00:10:50.284
 Robert Bayard is his uncle and he manages
 
 00:10:50.325 --> 00:10:52.066
 to hang on to parts of the estate
 
 00:10:52.306 --> 00:10:54.006
 by taking on American nationality.
 
 00:10:54.567 --> 00:10:56.168
 But his father, for example,
 
 00:10:56.328 --> 00:11:00.371
 he leaves also with this exodus of people
 
 00:11:00.392 --> 00:11:02.613
 who are returning, quote unquote,
 
 00:11:03.033 --> 00:11:04.693
 to a country they've never actually lived
 
 00:11:04.714 --> 00:11:04.754
 in.
 
 00:11:04.774 --> 00:11:04.874
 Right.
 
 00:11:04.894 --> 00:11:04.994
 Yeah.
 
 00:11:05.075 --> 00:11:05.955
 Yeah.
 
 00:11:05.975 --> 00:11:07.096
 This is William Senior.
 
 00:11:07.895 --> 00:11:08.216
 Yes.
 
 00:11:08.657 --> 00:11:08.996
 Yes.
 
 00:11:09.496 --> 00:11:11.519
 And and they still continue working
 
 00:11:11.538 --> 00:11:11.899
 together.
 
 00:11:11.958 --> 00:11:13.259
 So it's a nice way of seeing how
 
 00:11:13.299 --> 00:11:15.821
 the family actually sort of spreads apart,
 
 00:11:16.061 --> 00:11:18.082
 but at the same time is still working
 
 00:11:18.123 --> 00:11:18.623
 as a unit.
 
 00:11:19.480 --> 00:11:24.481
 interesting yeah and you um looked at an
 
 00:11:24.522 --> 00:11:27.322
 astonishing number of cases to build your
 
 00:11:27.383 --> 00:11:29.403
 story so i'm wondering did the byards
 
 00:11:29.464 --> 00:11:30.844
 emerge from that or did you have an
 
 00:11:30.903 --> 00:11:34.044
 inkling about this family when you began
 
 00:11:34.125 --> 00:11:37.386
 working on the topic well i knew i
 
 00:11:37.407 --> 00:11:39.307
 wanted to look into samuel byard because
 
 00:11:40.087 --> 00:11:42.908
 okay in almost all the seventeen nineties
 
 00:11:43.328 --> 00:11:46.429
 prize paperwork as he's the main uh
 
 00:11:46.923 --> 00:11:48.823
 connection between the British system and
 
 00:11:48.844 --> 00:11:49.903
 the American claimants.
 
 00:11:51.845 --> 00:11:53.885
 But it was really just from that
 
 00:11:53.926 --> 00:11:55.365
 standpoint that I started looking and I
 
 00:11:55.385 --> 00:11:56.986
 was like, oh, there's a Robert Bayard.
 
 00:11:57.086 --> 00:11:59.148
 And then I went down that rabbit hole
 
 00:11:59.227 --> 00:12:01.849
 is genealogy and found out that they were
 
 00:12:01.869 --> 00:12:02.448
 related.
 
 00:12:03.450 --> 00:12:05.591
 And then I was like, oh,
 
 00:12:05.610 --> 00:12:07.390
 this is a great, great framework.
 
 00:12:07.711 --> 00:12:09.912
 And I was so surprised that even though
 
 00:12:09.932 --> 00:12:11.993
 it's such a big political clan,
 
 00:12:12.013 --> 00:12:12.413
 more or less,
 
 00:12:12.453 --> 00:12:14.533
 these figures have never really been
 
 00:12:14.573 --> 00:12:15.134
 looked into.
 
 00:12:16.942 --> 00:12:19.465
 which seems such a waste,
 
 00:12:19.504 --> 00:12:20.885
 so obviously I had to chase that.
 
 00:12:23.126 --> 00:12:25.849
 I looked into over a thousand appeals
 
 00:12:25.869 --> 00:12:28.931
 cases and about one thousand six hundred
 
 00:12:28.990 --> 00:12:30.851
 court entries for the revolutionary
 
 00:12:30.932 --> 00:12:31.292
 period,
 
 00:12:31.351 --> 00:12:35.514
 so the book covers both the British
 
 00:12:35.615 --> 00:12:38.736
 Revolutionary Prize Court in New York and
 
 00:12:38.756 --> 00:12:41.458
 then it goes on to Americans in London
 
 00:12:41.538 --> 00:12:41.999
 and how they
 
 00:12:43.240 --> 00:12:44.880
 were using the prize system to try and
 
 00:12:44.961 --> 00:12:46.922
 establish for themselves as an
 
 00:12:46.961 --> 00:12:49.302
 international player because obviously
 
 00:12:49.403 --> 00:12:51.725
 independence is not a snap moment.
 
 00:12:52.284 --> 00:12:54.186
 It takes time to try and get international
 
 00:12:54.245 --> 00:12:54.645
 voting.
 
 00:12:55.126 --> 00:12:56.386
 So I wanted it to be a slightly
 
 00:12:56.427 --> 00:12:58.568
 longer period and that's how I decided to
 
 00:12:58.609 --> 00:12:59.028
 arrange it.
 
 00:12:59.740 --> 00:12:59.841
 Right,
 
 00:12:59.860 --> 00:13:02.402
 because a lot is happening in those years.
 
 00:13:02.422 --> 00:13:03.922
 So now,
 
 00:13:03.942 --> 00:13:06.221
 the revolution is taking place in the
 
 00:13:06.241 --> 00:13:09.383
 British Occupy New York for most of it.
 
 00:13:09.482 --> 00:13:10.763
 Do they maintain a price court?
 
 00:13:10.822 --> 00:13:12.903
 Is there like a British Admiralty Court in
 
 00:13:12.943 --> 00:13:14.524
 New York then during the years?
 
 00:13:15.844 --> 00:13:17.424
 There's a floating vessel,
 
 00:13:17.825 --> 00:13:18.524
 the headquarters.
 
 00:13:19.585 --> 00:13:21.905
 And that's where almost all the paperwork
 
 00:13:21.946 --> 00:13:24.326
 is done during the initial fighting phase,
 
 00:13:24.405 --> 00:13:26.167
 and then it's moved back out onto land.
 
 00:13:26.927 --> 00:13:27.326
 But
 
 00:13:28.785 --> 00:13:31.027
 this is the one reason why this prize
 
 00:13:31.067 --> 00:13:32.687
 court and Robert Bayard as judge has
 
 00:13:32.726 --> 00:13:34.268
 practically not been researched,
 
 00:13:34.607 --> 00:13:37.009
 is the American narrative is essentially,
 
 00:13:37.028 --> 00:13:40.309
 we have British colonial prize courts
 
 00:13:40.350 --> 00:13:41.210
 until the year,
 
 00:13:42.091 --> 00:13:43.591
 and then we all make our own courts.
 
 00:13:44.010 --> 00:13:44.931
 But of course, well,
 
 00:13:45.010 --> 00:13:46.572
 New York sort of had its own court,
 
 00:13:46.591 --> 00:13:47.993
 but because it was fighting the whole
 
 00:13:48.013 --> 00:13:49.472
 time, there was no,
 
 00:13:49.513 --> 00:13:51.573
 not really time to actually adjudicate
 
 00:13:51.594 --> 00:13:52.033
 that.
 
 00:13:52.833 --> 00:13:54.394
 But as of the year,
 
 00:13:55.315 --> 00:13:56.815
 that's sort of where the historiography
 
 00:13:56.855 --> 00:13:57.975
 breaks at that point.
 
 00:13:58.715 --> 00:14:00.856
 there was still a prize court there until
 
 00:14:00.876 --> 00:14:03.178
 the Treaty of Paris has just sort of
 
 00:14:03.259 --> 00:14:04.179
 been lost.
 
 00:14:04.340 --> 00:14:06.341
 And all the records were moved back to
 
 00:14:06.380 --> 00:14:08.984
 London with Robert Bayard.
 
 00:14:09.083 --> 00:14:11.745
 And he went into the deputy register and
 
 00:14:11.826 --> 00:14:13.587
 he gave all the paperwork in.
 
 00:14:14.388 --> 00:14:16.450
 And that's all still there in London.
 
 00:14:16.990 --> 00:14:18.652
 Amazing.
 
 00:14:18.672 --> 00:14:18.871
 Yeah,
 
 00:14:18.912 --> 00:14:20.013
 but obviously the British aren't really
 
 00:14:20.033 --> 00:14:21.634
 interested in looking into that section of
 
 00:14:21.693 --> 00:14:22.095
 history.
 
 00:14:22.575 --> 00:14:23.916
 The Americans are like, well, you know,
 
 00:14:23.956 --> 00:14:25.538
 this wasn't really our court anymore.
 
 00:14:25.557 --> 00:14:25.817
 Right, yes.
 
 00:14:26.504 --> 00:14:30.548
 So far,
 
 00:14:30.589 --> 00:14:31.308
 we've been lost in this national
 
 00:14:31.328 --> 00:14:31.909
 historiography that we have.
 
 00:14:31.950 --> 00:14:32.309
 That's interesting.
 
 00:14:32.330 --> 00:14:33.451
 It's fascinating.
 
 00:14:33.471 --> 00:14:34.011
 So you, Jonathan,
 
 00:14:34.032 --> 00:14:35.994
 just pointed out that Massachusetts set up
 
 00:14:36.053 --> 00:14:37.995
 its own prize court in seventeen seventy
 
 00:14:38.034 --> 00:14:38.235
 five.
 
 00:14:38.735 --> 00:14:40.216
 And John Adams and Elbridge Gary,
 
 00:14:40.236 --> 00:14:40.518
 of course,
 
 00:14:40.638 --> 00:14:42.538
 Adams had argued a number of cases in
 
 00:14:42.599 --> 00:14:44.520
 Admiralty Court in the seventeen sixties.
 
 00:14:45.042 --> 00:14:45.961
 And Gary, of course,
 
 00:14:45.981 --> 00:14:47.403
 is someone familiar with them.
 
 00:14:47.464 --> 00:14:48.424
 They helped set up this
 
 00:14:49.124 --> 00:14:49.884
 prize court here.
 
 00:14:50.345 --> 00:14:51.966
 And then I'm imagining that Newport
 
 00:14:52.005 --> 00:14:53.888
 during, so these would be,
 
 00:14:53.947 --> 00:14:55.749
 the prizes would have been in New York
 
 00:14:56.229 --> 00:14:58.551
 merchant ships that the British had
 
 00:14:58.591 --> 00:15:01.793
 capped, that their Navy had captured.
 
 00:15:01.833 --> 00:15:02.033
 Well,
 
 00:15:02.134 --> 00:15:04.395
 it would be American merchant ships that
 
 00:15:04.416 --> 00:15:07.538
 were captured by British privateers.
 
 00:15:07.778 --> 00:15:08.719
 Okay.
 
 00:15:08.739 --> 00:15:09.418
 So in other words,
 
 00:15:09.438 --> 00:15:11.681
 they're generally all merchant ships.
 
 00:15:11.701 --> 00:15:11.821
 Right.
 
 00:15:12.542 --> 00:15:12.721
 Yeah.
 
 00:15:12.881 --> 00:15:13.261
 Yeah.
 
 00:15:13.322 --> 00:15:14.822
 And just that they have a license to
 
 00:15:14.863 --> 00:15:15.043
 do it.
 
 00:15:15.063 --> 00:15:16.565
 So yeah.
 
 00:15:17.489 --> 00:15:19.029
 of course the thing is how do you
 
 00:15:19.049 --> 00:15:22.511
 define what they are because normally this
 
 00:15:22.591 --> 00:15:24.212
 international law framework is you're
 
 00:15:24.513 --> 00:15:26.254
 attacking an enemy and the enemy is
 
 00:15:26.313 --> 00:15:30.196
 generally foreign and now all of a sudden
 
 00:15:30.216 --> 00:15:31.716
 you have people who are just like you
 
 00:15:32.037 --> 00:15:33.197
 and how are you going to tell where
 
 00:15:33.217 --> 00:15:35.578
 they're actually from and of course it
 
 00:15:35.599 --> 00:15:36.860
 would be in their interest to say well
 
 00:15:36.919 --> 00:15:40.042
 actually we're on your side yeah yeah so
 
 00:15:40.302 --> 00:15:42.342
 it generally works that they they don't
 
 00:15:42.363 --> 00:15:43.823
 just have these interviews that they do
 
 00:15:43.844 --> 00:15:45.664
 with people and then check
 
 00:15:46.172 --> 00:15:47.393
 how many people were saying the same
 
 00:15:47.452 --> 00:15:47.753
 thing,
 
 00:15:47.993 --> 00:15:49.793
 but they also capture all the paperwork
 
 00:15:49.813 --> 00:15:51.815
 that's on board and use the paper trail
 
 00:15:51.995 --> 00:15:52.715
 for the court.
 
 00:15:53.596 --> 00:15:56.756
 And these papers are actually also largely
 
 00:15:56.797 --> 00:15:57.258
 in London.
 
 00:15:57.337 --> 00:15:59.318
 So when I used to work with the
 
 00:15:59.359 --> 00:16:00.499
 Prize Papers Project,
 
 00:16:00.519 --> 00:16:01.879
 they also have a portal where you can
 
 00:16:01.899 --> 00:16:04.321
 look at a lot of digitized images from
 
 00:16:04.341 --> 00:16:07.482
 this archive.
 
 00:16:07.783 --> 00:16:11.245
 And some of these materials are still
 
 00:16:11.684 --> 00:16:14.485
 originally closed letters from this
 
 00:16:14.525 --> 00:16:14.966
 period.
 
 00:16:14.986 --> 00:16:15.307
 Wow.
 
 00:16:16.591 --> 00:16:18.091
 part of the evidence trail and they're
 
 00:16:18.111 --> 00:16:19.753
 never open because they're a private mail.
 
 00:16:20.273 --> 00:16:20.754
 Amazing.
 
 00:16:21.573 --> 00:16:21.953
 So yeah,
 
 00:16:21.974 --> 00:16:24.336
 there's this whole untapped section that's
 
 00:16:24.355 --> 00:16:26.177
 still at the moment being digitized and
 
 00:16:26.197 --> 00:16:29.058
 hopefully really accessible to researchers
 
 00:16:29.099 --> 00:16:30.340
 and anyone who's interested in it.
 
 00:16:31.220 --> 00:16:31.760
 Amazing.
 
 00:16:31.921 --> 00:16:34.402
 So there's tremendous records and these
 
 00:16:34.621 --> 00:16:36.163
 are in London?
 
 00:16:36.923 --> 00:16:38.065
 Yes, these are all in London.
 
 00:16:39.317 --> 00:16:39.979
 I'm wondering, Suzanne,
 
 00:16:39.999 --> 00:16:41.639
 we're talking with Suzanne Amy Folksley,
 
 00:16:41.700 --> 00:16:43.861
 whose book is The American Experience of
 
 00:16:43.902 --> 00:16:45.884
 British Prize Law from seventeen sixty
 
 00:16:45.923 --> 00:16:46.745
 four to eighteen and four.
 
 00:16:47.164 --> 00:16:48.586
 If we could just talk about the process,
 
 00:16:48.625 --> 00:16:53.451
 let's suppose that I'm a merchant vessel
 
 00:16:53.711 --> 00:16:55.812
 that's been captured by privateer.
 
 00:16:57.293 --> 00:17:00.697
 What what what happens next?
 
 00:17:00.736 --> 00:17:02.578
 Well, obviously, you can have the
 
 00:17:03.254 --> 00:17:05.494
 could have the whole fight over if you
 
 00:17:05.515 --> 00:17:07.615
 don't want to actually be uh captured by
 
 00:17:07.635 --> 00:17:09.498
 another vessel that's true that's true so
 
 00:17:09.518 --> 00:17:11.459
 imagine i don't i fail to defend my
 
 00:17:11.499 --> 00:17:14.160
 vessel or get away yeah there was the
 
 00:17:14.180 --> 00:17:16.461
 chase you were too slow you were captured
 
 00:17:16.621 --> 00:17:18.142
 maybe one or two people were injured
 
 00:17:18.241 --> 00:17:20.743
 depending on the incident or you have the
 
 00:17:20.824 --> 00:17:22.805
 people who just go yeah you're faster than
 
 00:17:22.845 --> 00:17:25.246
 us anyway feel free to come on board
 
 00:17:26.166 --> 00:17:27.586
 then there'll be an exchange between the
 
 00:17:27.626 --> 00:17:29.588
 captains they'll look at the paperwork
 
 00:17:29.628 --> 00:17:30.308
 very much like a
 
 00:17:30.645 --> 00:17:32.827
 customs border crossing today you have to
 
 00:17:32.847 --> 00:17:35.790
 produce all the papers and then they'll go
 
 00:17:36.332 --> 00:17:40.316
 yeah well actually you are legal prize in
 
 00:17:40.415 --> 00:17:42.838
 our opinion so then the crew will be
 
 00:17:42.878 --> 00:17:45.020
 exchanged so you'll put a skeleton crew on
 
 00:17:45.040 --> 00:17:47.743
 board from the actual privateer so they
 
 00:17:47.763 --> 00:17:49.846
 will bring their own crew on board take
 
 00:17:49.885 --> 00:17:52.228
 over the vessel everyone who's on board
 
 00:17:52.248 --> 00:17:53.910
 becomes well
 
 00:17:54.980 --> 00:17:56.480
 obviously if you were an enslaved person,
 
 00:17:56.540 --> 00:17:57.781
 you were still considered property.
 
 00:17:57.821 --> 00:17:59.643
 But if you were crew or passengers,
 
 00:17:59.663 --> 00:18:00.844
 you become a prisoner of war.
 
 00:18:02.184 --> 00:18:04.905
 And then the skeleton crew and often the
 
 00:18:04.945 --> 00:18:07.367
 privateer as well will together go into
 
 00:18:07.407 --> 00:18:10.028
 port and then find a port where there's
 
 00:18:10.390 --> 00:18:13.211
 a prize court and proceedings will start.
 
 00:18:13.270 --> 00:18:16.772
 So this is quite different in the colonies
 
 00:18:17.513 --> 00:18:19.894
 than other parts of the British Empire.
 
 00:18:19.934 --> 00:18:21.256
 But for example, for New York,
 
 00:18:21.936 --> 00:18:22.537
 you will have,
 
 00:18:22.777 --> 00:18:24.198
 officially it starts with a light walk.
 
 00:18:24.433 --> 00:18:25.913
 this is when the privateer goes,
 
 00:18:26.594 --> 00:18:28.355
 this is the ship that I have captured.
 
 00:18:28.815 --> 00:18:30.474
 I think it should be condemned because
 
 00:18:30.515 --> 00:18:31.095
 it's an enemy.
 
 00:18:33.056 --> 00:18:33.976
 And then at the same time,
 
 00:18:34.016 --> 00:18:35.615
 it's supposed to be proclaimed like three
 
 00:18:35.655 --> 00:18:36.096
 times.
 
 00:18:36.215 --> 00:18:37.717
 So someone will go out and either it
 
 00:18:37.737 --> 00:18:38.876
 will be read out or it will be
 
 00:18:38.916 --> 00:18:41.477
 published or both saying, if anybody,
 
 00:18:41.978 --> 00:18:43.738
 if anybody knows why this ship should not
 
 00:18:43.778 --> 00:18:45.778
 be condemned, please come forward.
 
 00:18:46.077 --> 00:18:47.459
 It's a bit like a wedding moment.
 
 00:18:47.479 --> 00:18:48.878
 Right.
 
 00:18:48.919 --> 00:18:49.919
 Yeah.
 
 00:18:49.979 --> 00:18:50.118
 Yeah.
 
 00:18:50.138 --> 00:18:51.239
 Does anyone ever come forward?
 
 00:18:51.318 --> 00:18:51.479
 I mean,
 
 00:18:51.519 --> 00:18:53.400
 have you found people coming forward or is
 
 00:18:53.420 --> 00:18:54.279
 this really,
 
 00:18:54.901 --> 00:18:55.721
 Sometimes they do,
 
 00:18:55.760 --> 00:18:58.682
 because obviously if it is your vessel,
 
 00:19:00.343 --> 00:19:02.623
 your goods, you want to claim them back.
 
 00:19:02.883 --> 00:19:04.523
 So this is what you call stop, stop,
 
 00:19:04.544 --> 00:19:06.044
 stop.
 
 00:19:06.084 --> 00:19:08.204
 But because the New York court is very
 
 00:19:09.045 --> 00:19:10.806
 open and has flat hierarchies,
 
 00:19:11.026 --> 00:19:13.807
 it's much less regulated on who is allowed
 
 00:19:13.826 --> 00:19:15.567
 to actually present evidence in court.
 
 00:19:16.327 --> 00:19:17.988
 And that means the connections are much
 
 00:19:18.067 --> 00:19:19.127
 faster.
 
 00:19:19.167 --> 00:19:20.888
 So in London, everything takes forever.
 
 00:19:21.664 --> 00:19:23.445
 And in my research,
 
 00:19:23.486 --> 00:19:24.286
 I found that in general,
 
 00:19:24.306 --> 00:19:26.267
 it's twenty one days when you have three
 
 00:19:26.826 --> 00:19:28.667
 affirmations and then it goes straight
 
 00:19:28.688 --> 00:19:30.288
 into court and is condemned if nobody said
 
 00:19:30.308 --> 00:19:31.148
 anything against it.
 
 00:19:31.648 --> 00:19:31.888
 Wow.
 
 00:19:31.929 --> 00:19:33.789
 But there's still always the option of
 
 00:19:33.829 --> 00:19:37.070
 going back and trying to reclaim or to
 
 00:19:37.111 --> 00:19:37.530
 refuse.
 
 00:19:37.672 --> 00:19:38.332
 Obviously,
 
 00:19:38.811 --> 00:19:40.011
 you could always go on to take it
 
 00:19:40.051 --> 00:19:40.732
 on to appeal,
 
 00:19:40.813 --> 00:19:41.873
 but you have to have quite a lot
 
 00:19:41.893 --> 00:19:43.933
 of money to be able to afford that.
 
 00:19:43.973 --> 00:19:44.953
 I mean,
 
 00:19:44.973 --> 00:19:47.955
 we're talking over over a thousand to four
 
 00:19:47.996 --> 00:19:51.076
 thousand New York pounds.
 
 00:19:51.769 --> 00:19:54.191
 to just put as bond, more or less,
 
 00:19:54.230 --> 00:19:56.991
 if you want to take it on for
 
 00:19:57.011 --> 00:19:57.132
 appeal.
 
 00:19:57.152 --> 00:19:57.952
 Okay, so it's been condemned,
 
 00:19:57.972 --> 00:19:58.972
 but I want to appeal,
 
 00:19:59.053 --> 00:20:00.013
 so then I have to put up a
 
 00:20:00.054 --> 00:20:02.454
 bond that I'm not going to use this
 
 00:20:02.515 --> 00:20:04.515
 time to get away or evade.
 
 00:20:04.555 --> 00:20:04.935
 Exactly.
 
 00:20:04.955 --> 00:20:07.297
 I think it's generally also so that you
 
 00:20:07.336 --> 00:20:08.997
 can prove that you can actually pay the
 
 00:20:09.017 --> 00:20:11.999
 court fees because they are enormous.
 
 00:20:12.098 --> 00:20:14.420
 I'm guessing that you're not appointed a
 
 00:20:14.460 --> 00:20:15.839
 lawyer if you don't have one.
 
 00:20:16.440 --> 00:20:17.320
 If you have a lawyer,
 
 00:20:17.800 --> 00:20:19.281
 you can use him, but if not,
 
 00:20:19.422 --> 00:20:20.201
 you're on your own.
 
 00:20:20.987 --> 00:20:21.227
 Well,
 
 00:20:21.467 --> 00:20:24.509
 essentially the privateer is more or less
 
 00:20:24.689 --> 00:20:25.849
 represented by the crown.
 
 00:20:26.049 --> 00:20:27.691
 So they never have to organize anyone.
 
 00:20:29.070 --> 00:20:30.912
 But then you can, well,
 
 00:20:31.133 --> 00:20:32.452
 normally that you have agents,
 
 00:20:32.854 --> 00:20:34.974
 you have agents who organize a
 
 00:20:35.035 --> 00:20:36.375
 representation for you.
 
 00:20:37.076 --> 00:20:38.576
 And this is the big difference between
 
 00:20:38.817 --> 00:20:40.377
 London and America is that in London,
 
 00:20:40.417 --> 00:20:42.838
 you have to be a quote, quote, civilian.
 
 00:20:43.419 --> 00:20:45.000
 I use civil law.
 
 00:20:45.580 --> 00:20:46.040
 Okay.
 
 00:20:46.381 --> 00:20:48.241
 Don't really exist in the colonies.
 
 00:20:48.261 --> 00:20:49.883
 So you just have common law.
 
 00:20:50.417 --> 00:20:53.220
 professionals who go out and take on their
 
 00:20:53.240 --> 00:20:53.700
 cases.
 
 00:20:53.720 --> 00:20:53.819
 Okay.
 
 00:20:54.119 --> 00:20:55.161
 Okay.
 
 00:20:55.181 --> 00:20:58.583
 So, so was Samuel Bayard, was he doing,
 
 00:20:58.603 --> 00:20:58.722
 well,
 
 00:20:58.742 --> 00:21:00.223
 that's what he was doing in England when
 
 00:21:00.263 --> 00:21:02.105
 he was there in the.
 
 00:21:02.144 --> 00:21:02.365
 Well,
 
 00:21:02.484 --> 00:21:04.686
 actually he's slightly different as in
 
 00:21:05.366 --> 00:21:06.347
 during his time,
 
 00:21:06.528 --> 00:21:08.548
 the J treaty has been signed.
 
 00:21:08.588 --> 00:21:08.749
 Right.
 
 00:21:10.309 --> 00:21:12.490
 Which means there's this whole new
 
 00:21:12.671 --> 00:21:13.932
 international law framework,
 
 00:21:13.951 --> 00:21:15.633
 which pops up called arbitration.
 
 00:21:15.653 --> 00:21:16.753
 I don't know if you're.
 
 00:21:16.834 --> 00:21:16.933
 Okay.
 
 00:21:17.397 --> 00:21:19.058
 familiar with the subject it's more or
 
 00:21:19.078 --> 00:21:21.640
 less when governments decide to come
 
 00:21:21.680 --> 00:21:23.800
 together and politically decide what the
 
 00:21:23.840 --> 00:21:27.383
 legal steps should be every single case
 
 00:21:27.403 --> 00:21:31.224
 into court so there's a whole committee
 
 00:21:31.244 --> 00:21:33.405
 that's founded just to deal with priors
 
 00:21:33.445 --> 00:21:38.469
 cases and responsible and it's very um
 
 00:21:39.715 --> 00:21:40.676
 ironic in a way,
 
 00:21:40.737 --> 00:21:42.419
 because in the English system,
 
 00:21:42.818 --> 00:21:45.382
 only English civil-trained lawyers are
 
 00:21:45.402 --> 00:21:47.123
 allowed to present cases,
 
 00:21:47.763 --> 00:21:49.645
 which means that the American politicians
 
 00:21:49.826 --> 00:21:51.186
 are talking with their British legal
 
 00:21:51.227 --> 00:21:51.788
 counsel,
 
 00:21:52.107 --> 00:21:53.308
 who will then go and represent them
 
 00:21:53.328 --> 00:21:55.852
 against British legal counsel for the
 
 00:21:55.892 --> 00:21:56.332
 Crown.
 
 00:21:56.752 --> 00:21:57.212
 Okay, I see.
 
 00:21:58.940 --> 00:22:00.601
 We're talking with Suzanne-Amy Folksley
 
 00:22:00.681 --> 00:22:02.540
 about the American experience of British
 
 00:22:02.621 --> 00:22:04.182
 prize law.
 
 00:22:04.281 --> 00:22:07.022
 I'm wondering if we can go back then
 
 00:22:07.242 --> 00:22:08.103
 to the case.
 
 00:22:08.143 --> 00:22:12.664
 So we'll imagine it's been appealed.
 
 00:22:13.125 --> 00:22:14.325
 Well, imagine I have an appeal,
 
 00:22:14.404 --> 00:22:15.965
 but it's condemned and I don't have the
 
 00:22:15.986 --> 00:22:18.487
 four thousand pounds to post bond.
 
 00:22:18.527 --> 00:22:19.366
 So then what happens?
 
 00:22:20.615 --> 00:22:22.935
 Well, Ben, you've had bad luck.
 
 00:22:22.955 --> 00:22:24.196
 Yeah, I have had very bad luck.
 
 00:22:25.337 --> 00:22:25.897
 Essentially,
 
 00:22:26.298 --> 00:22:28.480
 the shippers then set up for auction all
 
 00:22:29.539 --> 00:22:30.060
 the goods.
 
 00:22:30.780 --> 00:22:33.222
 They'll be individually parceled and also
 
 00:22:33.363 --> 00:22:35.723
 auctioned off and that money will then go
 
 00:22:35.743 --> 00:22:36.243
 to the privateers.
 
 00:22:36.263 --> 00:22:36.664
 Oh, my goodness.
 
 00:22:38.385 --> 00:22:38.685
 Yeah.
 
 00:22:38.746 --> 00:22:41.847
 So that's very financially damaging.
 
 00:22:41.907 --> 00:22:45.109
 So I have one really interesting case,
 
 00:22:45.170 --> 00:22:46.329
 which is called The Mentor,
 
 00:22:47.211 --> 00:22:47.391
 and
 
 00:22:47.886 --> 00:22:49.528
 It's also one of these very unlucky
 
 00:22:49.588 --> 00:22:50.169
 motions.
 
 00:22:50.189 --> 00:22:53.030
 So it's captured actually after the Treaty
 
 00:22:53.050 --> 00:22:54.172
 of Paris was signed.
 
 00:22:55.192 --> 00:22:57.555
 And because the peace treaty was there,
 
 00:22:58.036 --> 00:23:00.136
 the owner of the vessel said, well,
 
 00:23:00.198 --> 00:23:01.699
 I won't need insurance anymore.
 
 00:23:01.719 --> 00:23:05.142
 So he gives up his insurance on the
 
 00:23:05.162 --> 00:23:05.662
 vessel,
 
 00:23:05.862 --> 00:23:08.023
 which is then captured and actually it's
 
 00:23:08.064 --> 00:23:08.565
 burned.
 
 00:23:09.605 --> 00:23:12.407
 And if you look in the case files,
 
 00:23:12.963 --> 00:23:16.164
 The privateering crew says, oh, well,
 
 00:23:16.204 --> 00:23:17.865
 actually, we didn't burn it.
 
 00:23:18.005 --> 00:23:19.105
 The Americans burned it because they
 
 00:23:19.125 --> 00:23:21.066
 didn't want it to fall into enemy hands.
 
 00:23:21.865 --> 00:23:23.047
 And the American crew says, well,
 
 00:23:23.086 --> 00:23:23.326
 actually,
 
 00:23:23.346 --> 00:23:26.468
 the British burned it as a retaliation for
 
 00:23:26.488 --> 00:23:27.107
 the war.
 
 00:23:27.768 --> 00:23:29.288
 So we never really find out what the
 
 00:23:29.388 --> 00:23:29.989
 answer is on this.
 
 00:23:30.169 --> 00:23:31.308
 The thing is, it's gone.
 
 00:23:31.328 --> 00:23:34.210
 And then it goes on to court because
 
 00:23:34.829 --> 00:23:35.690
 the owner says, well,
 
 00:23:35.809 --> 00:23:37.431
 somebody should be paying me for the fact
 
 00:23:37.471 --> 00:23:39.431
 that my ship is now gone just because
 
 00:23:39.871 --> 00:23:41.112
 these criminals didn't know that the war
 
 00:23:41.132 --> 00:23:41.571
 was over.
 
 00:23:42.827 --> 00:23:45.648
 And he ends up going into masses of
 
 00:23:45.689 --> 00:23:47.628
 debt trying to follow up his case.
 
 00:23:47.749 --> 00:23:50.569
 I think the ship was captured in seventeen
 
 00:23:50.690 --> 00:23:53.490
 eighty three and tried to take it to
 
 00:23:53.530 --> 00:23:54.810
 appeal two times.
 
 00:23:55.651 --> 00:23:57.172
 And in seventeen ninety nine,
 
 00:23:57.211 --> 00:23:57.971
 the judge goes,
 
 00:23:57.991 --> 00:23:59.873
 this is a very unfortunate case,
 
 00:23:59.932 --> 00:24:01.673
 but I can't give you compensation on the
 
 00:24:01.692 --> 00:24:02.833
 grounds of humanity.
 
 00:24:03.713 --> 00:24:06.534
 So it's really clearly stated, well,
 
 00:24:06.554 --> 00:24:08.035
 you know, it's just unfortunate.
 
 00:24:09.642 --> 00:24:10.863
 you'd have had insurance you'd have been
 
 00:24:10.883 --> 00:24:12.844
 covered that's kind of the attitude that
 
 00:24:12.864 --> 00:24:16.287
 the courts take you can insure against
 
 00:24:16.507 --> 00:24:19.229
 being captured by a privateer yes that's
 
 00:24:19.269 --> 00:24:22.131
 actually one of the um main reasons that
 
 00:24:22.151 --> 00:24:24.913
 people say privateering is a good strategy
 
 00:24:24.952 --> 00:24:26.794
 of war because it's not just the capture
 
 00:24:26.814 --> 00:24:28.595
 of enemy vessels but you also drive up
 
 00:24:28.654 --> 00:24:30.537
 insurance prices which damages their
 
 00:24:30.616 --> 00:24:33.598
 economy right but in general like
 
 00:24:33.679 --> 00:24:36.160
 privateerings very highly contested on how
 
 00:24:36.220 --> 00:24:37.961
 efficient it was because a lot of
 
 00:24:39.010 --> 00:24:40.951
 I'd say a lot of people from military
 
 00:24:41.010 --> 00:24:42.031
 strategy will say,
 
 00:24:42.112 --> 00:24:43.912
 privateering is not relevant because it's
 
 00:24:43.951 --> 00:24:45.112
 not the final blow.
 
 00:24:46.011 --> 00:24:47.932
 It's not the decisive victory.
 
 00:24:48.313 --> 00:24:50.373
 But might as well ask, well,
 
 00:24:50.393 --> 00:24:52.573
 would that point even have come if you
 
 00:24:52.613 --> 00:24:53.272
 didn't have them?
 
 00:24:53.973 --> 00:24:56.493
 Because they provide also, the thing is,
 
 00:24:56.534 --> 00:24:57.574
 of course, money.
 
 00:24:58.134 --> 00:25:00.494
 But if a ship is captured and brought
 
 00:25:00.535 --> 00:25:01.674
 in, for example, to New York,
 
 00:25:02.515 --> 00:25:03.875
 all the food, et cetera,
 
 00:25:03.894 --> 00:25:05.694
 that was there will be auctioned off in
 
 00:25:05.755 --> 00:25:06.236
 New York.
 
 00:25:06.895 --> 00:25:08.796
 So we're actually also attaining
 
 00:25:09.428 --> 00:25:11.270
 any resources that you might not have
 
 00:25:11.391 --> 00:25:15.156
 access to anymore interesting it's really
 
 00:25:15.176 --> 00:25:17.942
 an interesting strategy to use this or to
 
 00:25:18.021 --> 00:25:19.443
 use merchant vessels in this way and i
 
 00:25:19.463 --> 00:25:19.824
 know what the
 
 00:25:20.685 --> 00:25:22.708
 initially it's one of the reasons it was
 
 00:25:22.728 --> 00:25:25.230
 hard to recruit into the continental navy
 
 00:25:25.289 --> 00:25:28.172
 because men found privateering more
 
 00:25:28.311 --> 00:25:31.634
 lucrative and even though if a naval naval
 
 00:25:31.674 --> 00:25:33.797
 vessel did capture an enemy vessel they
 
 00:25:33.957 --> 00:25:36.038
 also could get prize money for it it's
 
 00:25:36.057 --> 00:25:39.080
 uh yeah yeah we're talking with suzanne
 
 00:25:39.141 --> 00:25:40.981
 amy folksley whose book is the american
 
 00:25:41.021 --> 00:25:42.963
 experience of british prize law from to
 
 00:25:45.924 --> 00:25:48.126
 So we mentioned that there are kind of
 
 00:25:48.186 --> 00:25:50.327
 differences between the American system,
 
 00:25:50.387 --> 00:25:51.409
 the British system.
 
 00:25:51.789 --> 00:25:54.392
 So after independence,
 
 00:25:54.471 --> 00:25:56.192
 and we'll say before Jay's treaty,
 
 00:25:56.212 --> 00:25:57.933
 when we try to arbitrate this,
 
 00:25:58.734 --> 00:26:00.476
 what are some of the differences in the
 
 00:26:00.715 --> 00:26:02.758
 way the Americans then develop a prize
 
 00:26:02.798 --> 00:26:05.660
 court system after independence?
 
 00:26:05.779 --> 00:26:07.761
 Okay, so originally,
 
 00:26:08.663 --> 00:26:11.104
 Congress recommends that every state sets
 
 00:26:11.183 --> 00:26:12.244
 up prize courts,
 
 00:26:12.645 --> 00:26:14.507
 but there are no regulations on how they
 
 00:26:14.547 --> 00:26:15.208
 ought to do that.
 
 00:26:16.284 --> 00:26:17.545
 more or less comes up with their own
 
 00:26:17.924 --> 00:26:21.587
 solutions and one of the big trends you
 
 00:26:21.607 --> 00:26:23.990
 could say is that most of them decide
 
 00:26:24.009 --> 00:26:26.612
 they want to have trial by jury rather
 
 00:26:26.732 --> 00:26:30.335
 than just having one judge decide which of
 
 00:26:30.375 --> 00:26:32.957
 course generally people that go out and
 
 00:26:32.998 --> 00:26:35.720
 privateer will come back to their local
 
 00:26:35.799 --> 00:26:37.721
 port because most of the privateering
 
 00:26:37.780 --> 00:26:40.604
 actions aren't taking place too far out to
 
 00:26:40.624 --> 00:26:40.824
 sea
 
 00:26:42.354 --> 00:26:43.535
 So in general,
 
 00:26:43.595 --> 00:26:45.655
 the jury trial goes their way because they
 
 00:26:45.695 --> 00:26:46.175
 know people.
 
 00:26:46.195 --> 00:26:46.296
 Right.
 
 00:26:46.656 --> 00:26:48.577
 Yeah.
 
 00:26:48.597 --> 00:26:50.018
 Which in the long term,
 
 00:26:51.038 --> 00:26:52.480
 Congress more or less has to go, well,
 
 00:26:52.519 --> 00:26:52.960
 actually,
 
 00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:54.881
 this is causing us international
 
 00:26:54.901 --> 00:26:56.961
 implications because we're supposed to be
 
 00:26:56.981 --> 00:26:58.583
 deciding about peace and war.
 
 00:26:59.423 --> 00:27:02.025
 And any other nation could go,
 
 00:27:02.144 --> 00:27:05.507
 you have wronged us by not properly
 
 00:27:05.586 --> 00:27:08.248
 adjudicating us according to our nations.
 
 00:27:09.692 --> 00:27:11.512
 which sort of makes these state courts
 
 00:27:11.553 --> 00:27:13.814
 really risky on a federal level.
 
 00:27:14.355 --> 00:27:16.796
 And that's why later on in like,
 
 00:27:16.875 --> 00:27:18.416
 in like, in like, in like, in like,
 
 00:27:18.436 --> 00:27:20.278
 in like, in like, in like, in like,
 
 00:27:20.298 --> 00:27:21.438
 in like, in like, in like, in like,
 
 00:27:21.458 --> 00:27:22.398
 in like, in like, in like, in like,
 
 00:27:22.419 --> 00:27:23.038
 in like, in like,
 
 00:27:37.537 --> 00:27:39.998
 they adjudicate in various state cases of
 
 00:27:40.057 --> 00:27:42.698
 prize and the states just go, yeah, well,
 
 00:27:42.738 --> 00:27:43.518
 but we don't agree.
 
 00:27:44.157 --> 00:27:46.999
 And they never actually follow up on these
 
 00:27:47.578 --> 00:27:48.179
 appeals.
 
 00:27:48.439 --> 00:27:48.959
 Interesting.
 
 00:27:49.660 --> 00:27:49.980
 Yes.
 
 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:51.619
 So this course has great international
 
 00:27:51.680 --> 00:27:54.500
 implications because the system is more or
 
 00:27:54.520 --> 00:27:54.701
 less,
 
 00:27:54.721 --> 00:27:56.080
 you can use this as a grounds for
 
 00:27:56.101 --> 00:27:57.540
 war like the Americans do in eighteen
 
 00:27:57.580 --> 00:27:57.861
 twelve.
 
 00:27:57.881 --> 00:27:59.902
 Right, right, right.
 
 00:27:59.961 --> 00:28:01.281
 And then I can imagine other countries,
 
 00:28:02.162 --> 00:28:03.782
 the British aren't the only country
 
 00:28:03.883 --> 00:28:05.522
 causing problems for American trade.
 
 00:28:06.417 --> 00:28:08.118
 the French, Algiers, Tripoli.
 
 00:28:08.138 --> 00:28:12.102
 I mean, so are there differences?
 
 00:28:12.662 --> 00:28:14.063
 I know your focus is on British,
 
 00:28:14.903 --> 00:28:15.864
 the British Americans.
 
 00:28:16.284 --> 00:28:17.464
 Do you look at all or have you
 
 00:28:17.484 --> 00:28:20.246
 thought, have anything on, say,
 
 00:28:20.286 --> 00:28:22.887
 what the French are doing in the first
 
 00:28:22.928 --> 00:28:24.269
 decade of the nineteenth century?
 
 00:28:25.429 --> 00:28:26.910
 I have looked a bit to the left
 
 00:28:26.970 --> 00:28:30.211
 and the right, as you say.
 
 00:28:30.251 --> 00:28:30.913
 Well, essentially,
 
 00:28:31.272 --> 00:28:32.814
 every nationality does it differently.
 
 00:28:32.834 --> 00:28:34.035
 I mean, they all have some basic
 
 00:28:34.997 --> 00:28:36.477
 principles that they more or less agree
 
 00:28:36.576 --> 00:28:36.696
 on.
 
 00:28:38.117 --> 00:28:38.857
 But for example,
 
 00:28:38.877 --> 00:28:40.898
 the French are very specific about these
 
 00:28:40.919 --> 00:28:42.818
 and these documents have to be on board.
 
 00:28:42.999 --> 00:28:43.939
 And if they're not on board,
 
 00:28:44.839 --> 00:28:45.660
 then it's price.
 
 00:28:46.279 --> 00:28:48.060
 There's no way of appealing it because you
 
 00:28:48.080 --> 00:28:49.500
 should have had that with you.
 
 00:28:50.520 --> 00:28:51.942
 And they're very strict on this level.
 
 00:28:52.102 --> 00:28:55.122
 And other neutral nations, for example,
 
 00:28:55.803 --> 00:28:58.383
 Denmark, et cetera, they're, of course,
 
 00:28:58.403 --> 00:29:00.604
 they're always lobbying to try and improve
 
 00:29:00.644 --> 00:29:01.503
 their rights.
 
 00:29:01.683 --> 00:29:03.125
 So even for a while,
 
 00:29:03.144 --> 00:29:04.484
 they're trying to stop this
 
 00:29:04.824 --> 00:29:06.944
 customs-like approach of people being able
 
 00:29:06.984 --> 00:29:09.806
 to stop and search a vessel and to
 
 00:29:09.885 --> 00:29:11.425
 see whether it's even prized or not.
 
 00:29:11.445 --> 00:29:13.446
 And they go, who made you?
 
 00:29:13.487 --> 00:29:14.988
 Like a policeman of the sea.
 
 00:29:16.647 --> 00:29:18.949
 And there's all these movements against
 
 00:29:19.068 --> 00:29:22.631
 British prize jurisdiction because we like
 
 00:29:22.651 --> 00:29:24.391
 to think of the Royal Navy as very
 
 00:29:24.451 --> 00:29:27.071
 successful and prowling the seas.
 
 00:29:27.412 --> 00:29:27.853
 But by the
 
 00:29:29.137 --> 00:29:30.599
 it's not actually clear that this is
 
 00:29:30.840 --> 00:29:32.002
 what's going to happen yet.
 
 00:29:32.242 --> 00:29:34.527
 So there's still loads of wiggle room for
 
 00:29:34.586 --> 00:29:37.471
 other parties to try and change the system
 
 00:29:37.530 --> 00:29:38.373
 the way they would like it.
 
 00:29:39.335 --> 00:29:40.316
 Interesting.
 
 00:29:40.375 --> 00:29:42.096
 Do Americans set up price courts?
 
 00:29:42.497 --> 00:29:42.717
 I mean,
 
 00:29:42.777 --> 00:29:44.458
 we have a couple of allies during the
 
 00:29:44.498 --> 00:29:46.138
 war, the French, the Spanish,
 
 00:29:47.900 --> 00:29:48.880
 and the Dutch.
 
 00:29:49.279 --> 00:29:51.161
 Are there any price courts set up in
 
 00:29:51.280 --> 00:29:52.942
 French or by Americans in these
 
 00:29:52.961 --> 00:29:53.402
 territories?
 
 00:29:53.442 --> 00:29:55.943
 Or would it be strictly if you're in
 
 00:29:55.963 --> 00:29:58.605
 the Danish Virgin Islands,
 
 00:29:58.644 --> 00:30:01.346
 it's a Danish court, or in Martinique,
 
 00:30:01.426 --> 00:30:02.207
 it's a French court?
 
 00:30:03.527 --> 00:30:04.606
 That's a really good question.
 
 00:30:06.968 --> 00:30:08.249
 Jonathan asked it to be fair.
 
 00:30:08.269 --> 00:30:12.230
 I know there are some alliances where
 
 00:30:12.250 --> 00:30:13.650
 they've said for certain courts,
 
 00:30:13.671 --> 00:30:14.951
 you're allowed to bring in ships from
 
 00:30:15.050 --> 00:30:16.330
 other nationalities because they're
 
 00:30:16.391 --> 00:30:16.832
 allies.
 
 00:30:17.912 --> 00:30:19.251
 But I don't know specifically if the
 
 00:30:19.291 --> 00:30:20.093
 Americans do this.
 
 00:30:20.113 --> 00:30:21.893
 I know there are some issues in the
 
 00:30:21.932 --> 00:30:24.693
 seventeen nineties because the French try
 
 00:30:24.713 --> 00:30:27.474
 and recruit French privateers in America.
 
 00:30:28.316 --> 00:30:30.875
 It blows up and becomes this big
 
 00:30:30.996 --> 00:30:32.376
 international issue.
 
 00:30:33.279 --> 00:30:35.221
 Because obviously, well,
 
 00:30:35.260 --> 00:30:37.842
 how can you be issuing different letters
 
 00:30:37.862 --> 00:30:41.044
 of mark for the letter of mark is
 
 00:30:41.064 --> 00:30:42.443
 the actual privateering license.
 
 00:30:42.484 --> 00:30:45.566
 And this, of course,
 
 00:30:45.586 --> 00:30:47.326
 is after Washington has proclaimed
 
 00:30:47.366 --> 00:30:49.067
 neutrality in the war between the French
 
 00:30:49.127 --> 00:30:50.508
 and the English.
 
 00:30:52.681 --> 00:30:55.663
 It raises all of these issues then about
 
 00:30:55.883 --> 00:30:57.462
 identity and national power.
 
 00:30:57.903 --> 00:30:58.324
 And of course,
 
 00:30:58.364 --> 00:31:00.384
 the Constitution gives Congress the power
 
 00:31:00.404 --> 00:31:02.185
 to issue letters of marque and reprisal.
 
 00:31:02.246 --> 00:31:04.066
 So we're trying to take that power away
 
 00:31:04.105 --> 00:31:07.188
 from states to do that for good reason.
 
 00:31:08.327 --> 00:31:08.888
 Yeah, exactly.
 
 00:31:08.929 --> 00:31:09.669
 That's how it works.
 
 00:31:09.788 --> 00:31:11.430
 I think there are about two thousand
 
 00:31:11.490 --> 00:31:14.351
 privateering licenses issued by the states
 
 00:31:14.490 --> 00:31:15.811
 in America during the revolution.
 
 00:31:16.730 --> 00:31:18.570
 And I think they say about two thousand
 
 00:31:18.651 --> 00:31:21.711
 three hundred captured British vessels.
 
 00:31:21.811 --> 00:31:23.192
 And obviously there could be a lot more
 
 00:31:23.212 --> 00:31:24.633
 than that because we don't have a record
 
 00:31:24.653 --> 00:31:26.173
 of every single one that was captured.
 
 00:31:27.233 --> 00:31:30.455
 And the fact is that before the
 
 00:31:30.496 --> 00:31:31.115
 revolution,
 
 00:31:31.615 --> 00:31:34.597
 the British colonial admiralty courts that
 
 00:31:34.637 --> 00:31:36.038
 were in the colonies,
 
 00:31:36.438 --> 00:31:39.480
 they were also used to adjudicate revenue
 
 00:31:39.519 --> 00:31:40.119
 cases.
 
 00:31:40.299 --> 00:31:42.381
 So they became incredibly unpopular.
 
 00:31:42.721 --> 00:31:42.941
 Right.
 
 00:31:43.712 --> 00:31:44.913
 You could use the fact that there was
 
 00:31:44.973 --> 00:31:47.076
 no trial by jury and just a judge
 
 00:31:48.278 --> 00:31:51.621
 to circumvent any local interests when you
 
 00:31:51.641 --> 00:31:53.442
 were looking at taxation, etc.
 
 00:31:54.304 --> 00:31:56.226
 And as a consequence of this,
 
 00:31:56.286 --> 00:31:57.326
 during the revolution, actually,
 
 00:31:57.346 --> 00:31:59.148
 a lot of these institutions were attacked
 
 00:31:59.249 --> 00:32:00.529
 by mobs and burnt.
 
 00:32:01.111 --> 00:32:03.051
 So we've lost all those records,
 
 00:32:03.613 --> 00:32:05.255
 which could also have contained.
 
 00:32:07.065 --> 00:32:07.546
 Amazing.
 
 00:32:07.645 --> 00:32:08.365
 Wow, wow.
 
 00:32:09.446 --> 00:32:11.509
 We're talking with Suzanne Amy Folksley,
 
 00:32:11.548 --> 00:32:13.351
 whose book is The American Experience of
 
 00:32:13.391 --> 00:32:14.311
 British Prize Law,
 
 00:32:14.352 --> 00:32:18.536
 She is now doing postdoctoral work at the
 
 00:32:18.615 --> 00:32:19.777
 University of Erfurt,
 
 00:32:20.277 --> 00:32:22.440
 having received her doctorate at the
 
 00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:24.101
 University of Oldenburg.
 
 00:32:24.602 --> 00:32:26.583
 I want to ask how you got interested
 
 00:32:26.623 --> 00:32:28.085
 in this particular subject.
 
 00:32:29.888 --> 00:32:29.989
 Yeah,
 
 00:32:30.028 --> 00:32:31.630
 it does seem a bit off the mark.
 
 00:32:32.691 --> 00:32:33.211
 It's great.
 
 00:32:33.451 --> 00:32:33.751
 It's great.
 
 00:32:33.811 --> 00:32:34.511
 I mean,
 
 00:32:34.592 --> 00:32:36.473
 it's a fascinating story and you tell it
 
 00:32:36.493 --> 00:32:36.953
 very well.
 
 00:32:36.973 --> 00:32:38.634
 I mean, I love it,
 
 00:32:38.715 --> 00:32:40.757
 but it is rather out there.
 
 00:32:40.836 --> 00:32:41.017
 You know,
 
 00:32:41.037 --> 00:32:42.337
 it's not the first thing people come up
 
 00:32:42.357 --> 00:32:43.919
 with when you say you look into history.
 
 00:32:44.779 --> 00:32:46.320
 It's because I originally started in
 
 00:32:46.480 --> 00:32:48.123
 working in the prize papers project.
 
 00:32:48.163 --> 00:32:49.784
 So I knew I wanted to do something
 
 00:32:50.324 --> 00:32:54.646
 with actually the prize appeals because I
 
 00:32:54.686 --> 00:32:56.628
 found these really interesting because I
 
 00:32:57.162 --> 00:32:59.064
 They're the HCA forty five series at the
 
 00:32:59.104 --> 00:33:01.025
 National Archives in London because all
 
 00:33:01.045 --> 00:33:03.247
 the appeals are printed and bound,
 
 00:33:04.107 --> 00:33:06.108
 whereas most of the other manuscripts are
 
 00:33:06.148 --> 00:33:07.671
 actually the original papers or they're
 
 00:33:07.691 --> 00:33:08.391
 still handwritten.
 
 00:33:10.232 --> 00:33:11.093
 And this, of course,
 
 00:33:11.733 --> 00:33:13.434
 looking forward towards the digitization
 
 00:33:13.474 --> 00:33:14.395
 project, et cetera,
 
 00:33:14.855 --> 00:33:16.958
 will give us a vast amount of data
 
 00:33:17.018 --> 00:33:18.378
 because it's more or less machine
 
 00:33:18.398 --> 00:33:18.839
 readable.
 
 00:33:19.840 --> 00:33:21.761
 So I've been able to compile a whole
 
 00:33:21.781 --> 00:33:23.983
 lot of statistics in my in my book.
 
 00:33:24.666 --> 00:33:26.147
 by looking at them and say,
 
 00:33:26.167 --> 00:33:27.709
 where were people most likely to come
 
 00:33:27.769 --> 00:33:28.048
 from?
 
 00:33:28.148 --> 00:33:29.328
 Where were they generally captured?
 
 00:33:29.368 --> 00:33:30.769
 How big were the vessels that were
 
 00:33:30.809 --> 00:33:31.329
 captured?
 
 00:33:31.490 --> 00:33:32.911
 How many people did they have on board?
 
 00:33:33.571 --> 00:33:34.771
 All these kinds of things.
 
 00:33:36.113 --> 00:33:37.292
 As they're printed,
 
 00:33:38.374 --> 00:33:40.414
 it makes them easier to search.
 
 00:33:41.214 --> 00:33:43.737
 And I knew I wanted to incorporate those.
 
 00:33:43.856 --> 00:33:44.856
 And then I sort of looked out and
 
 00:33:44.876 --> 00:33:46.617
 went, actually, a revolution.
 
 00:33:47.159 --> 00:33:49.519
 That might have really changed prize law.
 
 00:33:50.119 --> 00:33:51.500
 And I'd originally thought I was going to
 
 00:33:51.540 --> 00:33:53.122
 just do like a history of the American
 
 00:33:53.162 --> 00:33:53.842
 prize courts.
 
 00:33:54.643 --> 00:33:55.923
 And then when I started, I was like,
 
 00:33:56.183 --> 00:33:56.505
 oh, wow,
 
 00:33:56.704 --> 00:33:59.307
 every court is so different in the
 
 00:33:59.326 --> 00:34:01.528
 procedure and where the records are that I
 
 00:34:01.567 --> 00:34:03.309
 decided to more or less just focus on
 
 00:34:03.329 --> 00:34:05.411
 New York for the revolutionary period and
 
 00:34:05.431 --> 00:34:08.552
 then look at Americans in London for the
 
 00:34:08.592 --> 00:34:09.213
 second part.
 
 00:34:09.454 --> 00:34:11.996
 But that's how I originally got into it
 
 00:34:12.036 --> 00:34:13.817
 was by actually working in the archives
 
 00:34:13.876 --> 00:34:16.498
 and working and cataloguing with these
 
 00:34:16.958 --> 00:34:19.121
 letters and all the other papers that you
 
 00:34:19.141 --> 00:34:19.842
 find on board.
 
 00:34:19.882 --> 00:34:20.501
 Are there
 
 00:34:21.994 --> 00:34:24.054
 Favorite stories you have found as you've
 
 00:34:24.074 --> 00:34:25.476
 been, I mean, you've told us a few,
 
 00:34:25.615 --> 00:34:28.536
 the mentor, the Bayard family, you know,
 
 00:34:28.976 --> 00:34:30.157
 if you were going to write a novel.
 
 00:34:33.219 --> 00:34:33.498
 Well,
 
 00:34:34.039 --> 00:34:37.681
 I very much enjoyed a case where an
 
 00:34:37.721 --> 00:34:42.103
 American ship was carrying coffee and it
 
 00:34:42.163 --> 00:34:43.884
 actually turned out that the coffee was
 
 00:34:43.943 --> 00:34:46.545
 French and they hid all the paperwork that
 
 00:34:46.824 --> 00:34:48.706
 it was French coffee inside a barrel of
 
 00:34:48.726 --> 00:34:49.166
 coffee,
 
 00:34:49.246 --> 00:34:51.126
 which was then found when she was
 
 00:34:51.146 --> 00:34:51.567
 searched.
 
 00:34:53.409 --> 00:34:55.090
 And this then goes to court because the
 
 00:34:55.150 --> 00:34:57.152
 actual vice admiralty court where they are
 
 00:34:57.512 --> 00:34:58.273
 just says, oh, well,
 
 00:34:58.313 --> 00:35:00.454
 as part of the cargo was French,
 
 00:35:00.474 --> 00:35:01.534
 we're going to condemn all of it,
 
 00:35:01.835 --> 00:35:02.494
 which is not legal.
 
 00:35:03.255 --> 00:35:04.757
 So they actually go in for an appeal.
 
 00:35:05.797 --> 00:35:09.440
 And I just love that idea of finding
 
 00:35:09.460 --> 00:35:10.539
 it in the barrel of coffee.
 
 00:35:10.559 --> 00:35:14.083
 And there are so many individual stories.
 
 00:35:14.302 --> 00:35:16.643
 And, you know,
 
 00:35:16.664 --> 00:35:18.224
 it's people that are in these records
 
 00:35:18.284 --> 00:35:20.686
 that's what I find most fascinating.
 
 00:35:20.706 --> 00:35:20.847
 So
 
 00:35:21.590 --> 00:35:22.710
 I mean, some of them obviously,
 
 00:35:23.512 --> 00:35:25.393
 some of them are more violent encounters
 
 00:35:25.452 --> 00:35:28.856
 and people actually die on board when
 
 00:35:29.235 --> 00:35:30.317
 people are trying to, you know,
 
 00:35:30.476 --> 00:35:31.677
 refuse to be captured.
 
 00:35:32.798 --> 00:35:35.059
 But what I really like,
 
 00:35:35.320 --> 00:35:38.503
 I went to Washington and looked at records
 
 00:35:38.563 --> 00:35:40.123
 in the National Archives and Records
 
 00:35:40.143 --> 00:35:40.864
 Administration.
 
 00:35:41.945 --> 00:35:45.367
 And the thing is, if you look there,
 
 00:35:45.407 --> 00:35:46.148
 you have loads of
 
 00:35:46.467 --> 00:35:48.389
 American merchants who we normally don't
 
 00:35:48.429 --> 00:35:49.971
 have because we just have the British
 
 00:35:50.010 --> 00:35:50.510
 record.
 
 00:35:50.831 --> 00:35:53.813
 And they're all writing in with their
 
 00:35:53.853 --> 00:35:54.554
 stories and saying,
 
 00:35:54.614 --> 00:35:56.494
 do I qualify for compensation?
 
 00:35:56.554 --> 00:35:57.976
 Is it worth me going to court?
 
 00:35:58.016 --> 00:36:00.177
 And they're asking the US government this
 
 00:36:00.197 --> 00:36:02.860
 with Samuel Bayard and all that load
 
 00:36:02.880 --> 00:36:03.500
 around him.
 
 00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:05.041
 And for example,
 
 00:36:05.101 --> 00:36:07.422
 one of the cases was a whaling season
 
 00:36:07.503 --> 00:36:09.605
 where someone had been trying to capture
 
 00:36:09.804 --> 00:36:12.706
 whales off the South African coast,
 
 00:36:12.726 --> 00:36:13.126
 I think.
 
 00:36:16.280 --> 00:36:16.960
 essentially,
 
 00:36:17.541 --> 00:36:19.601
 a British vessel had come up and said,
 
 00:36:19.800 --> 00:36:20.081
 well,
 
 00:36:20.141 --> 00:36:22.242
 if you try and harpoon one whale before
 
 00:36:22.282 --> 00:36:25.023
 we are full, then we'll harpoon you,
 
 00:36:26.664 --> 00:36:27.704
 which is obviously not legal.
 
 00:36:29.525 --> 00:36:30.585
 And as a result,
 
 00:36:30.666 --> 00:36:32.567
 they then moved into different waters,
 
 00:36:32.586 --> 00:36:33.766
 because obviously the British ship was
 
 00:36:33.806 --> 00:36:34.606
 bigger than they were,
 
 00:36:35.208 --> 00:36:37.327
 and were then captured by the French as
 
 00:36:37.347 --> 00:36:38.768
 a result of having moved.
 
 00:36:39.329 --> 00:36:41.269
 And this American captain then went, well,
 
 00:36:41.289 --> 00:36:42.771
 can I get compensation from the British
 
 00:36:42.811 --> 00:36:44.731
 government for having forced me out of
 
 00:36:44.771 --> 00:36:45.811
 where I was actually allowed to be?
 
 00:36:46.556 --> 00:36:47.356
 Yeah.
 
 00:36:47.496 --> 00:36:49.818
 And it's obviously not a clear case.
 
 00:36:50.077 --> 00:36:50.518
 Yeah.
 
 00:36:50.538 --> 00:36:52.139
 It's really interesting because all these
 
 00:36:52.159 --> 00:36:55.501
 just very individual circumstances.
 
 00:36:55.541 --> 00:36:56.922
 And of course, because it's maritime,
 
 00:36:56.942 --> 00:36:59.163
 you have people who respond and say,
 
 00:36:59.302 --> 00:36:59.503
 you know,
 
 00:36:59.563 --> 00:37:01.443
 if you have information on my case,
 
 00:37:01.563 --> 00:37:02.844
 please send it to this address because
 
 00:37:02.864 --> 00:37:03.644
 I'll be at sea.
 
 00:37:04.945 --> 00:37:05.686
 Right.
 
 00:37:06.186 --> 00:37:09.248
 My partners at this address and the kind
 
 00:37:09.268 --> 00:37:10.068
 of connections.
 
 00:37:10.889 --> 00:37:11.188
 Wow.
 
 00:37:11.750 --> 00:37:13.210
 So do you know if they get compensated
 
 00:37:13.251 --> 00:37:13.911
 for having to move?
 
 00:37:15.289 --> 00:37:16.530
 No, they didn't get compensated.
 
 00:37:16.911 --> 00:37:18.192
 Oh, that's too bad.
 
 00:37:18.211 --> 00:37:19.132
 The government just went,
 
 00:37:19.512 --> 00:37:21.932
 you're free to privately prosecute this
 
 00:37:21.952 --> 00:37:22.253
 case,
 
 00:37:22.313 --> 00:37:24.315
 but we won't take it on with governmental
 
 00:37:24.335 --> 00:37:24.554
 aid.
 
 00:37:24.715 --> 00:37:25.554
 We don't recommend you do that.
 
 00:37:25.574 --> 00:37:30.858
 So a ship itself that's condemned then is
 
 00:37:30.938 --> 00:37:31.398
 auctioned off.
 
 00:37:31.438 --> 00:37:34.099
 What happens to the sailors?
 
 00:37:34.460 --> 00:37:34.679
 Yes,
 
 00:37:34.739 --> 00:37:35.940
 this is still one of the things that's
 
 00:37:35.960 --> 00:37:38.161
 not quite clear because they sort of just
 
 00:37:38.242 --> 00:37:39.422
 disappear off the record.
 
 00:37:39.641 --> 00:37:41.402
 Yeah.
 
 00:37:41.443 --> 00:37:42.423
 Well, obviously the
 
 00:37:43.018 --> 00:37:43.717
 captains,
 
 00:37:43.998 --> 00:37:46.259
 the captains must have been relatively
 
 00:37:46.358 --> 00:37:47.760
 free to move around,
 
 00:37:48.059 --> 00:37:49.760
 as I know they meet up with legal
 
 00:37:49.780 --> 00:37:54.342
 counsel like Bayard and other people.
 
 00:37:54.362 --> 00:37:54.802
 To be honest,
 
 00:37:54.882 --> 00:37:56.684
 not sure what actually happens to the
 
 00:37:56.724 --> 00:37:57.764
 sailors that are brought aboard.
 
 00:37:58.304 --> 00:38:00.085
 I can tell you there's been some research
 
 00:38:00.246 --> 00:38:03.327
 into enslaved people, and they generally,
 
 00:38:03.387 --> 00:38:04.947
 they just get sold as if they're property.
 
 00:38:05.648 --> 00:38:06.708
 Interesting.
 
 00:38:06.927 --> 00:38:07.509
 Which is, of course,
 
 00:38:07.648 --> 00:38:10.010
 also a big issue for anyone who is
 
 00:38:10.469 --> 00:38:12.090
 a person of color and cannot,
 
 00:38:12.210 --> 00:38:12.630
 quote unquote,
 
 00:38:13.791 --> 00:38:19.313
 These people become more or less property
 
 00:38:19.373 --> 00:38:21.273
 of the British government at this point.
 
 00:38:21.293 --> 00:38:25.713
 So sad.
 
 00:38:25.793 --> 00:38:26.373
 It is, it is.
 
 00:38:26.875 --> 00:38:29.054
 And then even when the British government
 
 00:38:29.094 --> 00:38:30.875
 was patrolling against the slave trade off
 
 00:38:30.914 --> 00:38:31.434
 of Africa,
 
 00:38:31.474 --> 00:38:33.076
 they would not then return these people.
 
 00:38:33.195 --> 00:38:34.135
 They would take them, say,
 
 00:38:34.155 --> 00:38:37.615
 to Cape Town or someplace then where
 
 00:38:37.735 --> 00:38:39.597
 essentially they would be indentured
 
 00:38:39.637 --> 00:38:39.916
 there.
 
 00:38:41.043 --> 00:38:41.943
 So, yeah, exactly.
 
 00:38:42.164 --> 00:38:42.605
 I mean,
 
 00:38:42.625 --> 00:38:44.365
 even during the trying to abolish the
 
 00:38:44.385 --> 00:38:46.085
 slave trade, this still continues.
 
 00:38:46.326 --> 00:38:48.246
 And all the people that are captured on
 
 00:38:48.286 --> 00:38:50.507
 warships or then, you know,
 
 00:38:50.547 --> 00:38:51.829
 turn into property more or less.
 
 00:38:52.349 --> 00:38:53.309
 And the thing is, of course,
 
 00:38:53.349 --> 00:38:54.650
 with the crew,
 
 00:38:55.369 --> 00:38:57.590
 if you capture a crew and take them
 
 00:38:57.731 --> 00:38:58.811
 out of the, so to speak,
 
 00:38:58.831 --> 00:38:59.831
 the military equation,
 
 00:39:00.612 --> 00:39:02.132
 this is also a way of damaging the
 
 00:39:02.172 --> 00:39:03.193
 opponent's war effort.
 
 00:39:03.673 --> 00:39:05.155
 So I'm pretty sure it would have been
 
 00:39:05.195 --> 00:39:09.137
 quite difficult to try and release people
 
 00:39:09.177 --> 00:39:09.996
 because it was not in.
 
 00:39:10.318 --> 00:39:11.679
 strategic interests of the military.
 
 00:39:11.699 --> 00:39:11.780
 Yeah.
 
 00:39:11.800 --> 00:39:11.980
 Yeah.
 
 00:39:13.081 --> 00:39:14.842
 I know of some anecdotally of some
 
 00:39:15.101 --> 00:39:17.143
 American privateers who wind up in
 
 00:39:17.344 --> 00:39:20.126
 Dartmoor and other prison ships in New
 
 00:39:20.146 --> 00:39:25.148
 York.
 
 00:39:25.590 --> 00:39:27.130
 And there's quite a lot of reports about
 
 00:39:27.411 --> 00:39:28.972
 the bad treatment that we have there.
 
 00:39:29.311 --> 00:39:31.213
 But I know that people are also released.
 
 00:39:31.233 --> 00:39:33.775
 I'm just not quite sure of how that
 
 00:39:33.795 --> 00:39:35.717
 process works because we just need so much
 
 00:39:35.757 --> 00:39:36.416
 more research.
 
 00:39:36.436 --> 00:39:37.018
 I know.
 
 00:39:37.137 --> 00:39:38.378
 I know.
 
 00:39:38.798 --> 00:39:38.878
 Yeah.
 
 00:39:39.731 --> 00:39:41.713
 Maybe the documents you're finding will
 
 00:39:41.753 --> 00:39:42.032
 help.
 
 00:39:42.112 --> 00:39:43.753
 And maybe that's a really,
 
 00:39:43.793 --> 00:39:45.652
 it's fascinating how much more there is to
 
 00:39:45.693 --> 00:39:46.733
 know about this world.
 
 00:39:47.853 --> 00:39:48.634
 Oh, yeah, for sure.
 
 00:39:49.673 --> 00:39:51.534
 And the whole thing with how the process
 
 00:39:51.574 --> 00:39:53.934
 works, what we talked about before.
 
 00:39:54.675 --> 00:39:54.875
 I mean,
 
 00:39:54.956 --> 00:39:56.556
 I more or less had to reconstruct all
 
 00:39:56.576 --> 00:39:58.655
 of that with the proclamations and the
 
 00:39:58.675 --> 00:40:01.277
 libel.
 
 00:40:01.717 --> 00:40:03.097
 Because it's a dead system.
 
 00:40:03.297 --> 00:40:03.797
 And more or less,
 
 00:40:03.876 --> 00:40:06.057
 nobody uses this system of law anymore in
 
 00:40:08.481 --> 00:40:09.141
 Not America,
 
 00:40:09.302 --> 00:40:10.862
 but most other countries signed that they
 
 00:40:10.882 --> 00:40:12.402
 would no longer use privateering.
 
 00:40:13.702 --> 00:40:14.204
 And since then,
 
 00:40:14.264 --> 00:40:15.664
 it's just more or less not really being
 
 00:40:15.884 --> 00:40:16.103
 used.
 
 00:40:16.204 --> 00:40:16.483
 I mean,
 
 00:40:17.565 --> 00:40:18.864
 it did come up again in the Civil
 
 00:40:18.905 --> 00:40:19.965
 War for the US.
 
 00:40:21.585 --> 00:40:22.106
 Officially,
 
 00:40:22.166 --> 00:40:24.286
 America never actually signed any
 
 00:40:24.347 --> 00:40:25.786
 paperwork to say they would get rid of
 
 00:40:25.827 --> 00:40:26.427
 privateering.
 
 00:40:26.467 --> 00:40:29.509
 That's why in relatively recent times,
 
 00:40:29.568 --> 00:40:31.829
 people have argued that it would be useful
 
 00:40:31.909 --> 00:40:34.971
 to use it against Chinese economy.
 
 00:40:35.050 --> 00:40:36.170
 That's one of the things that's
 
 00:40:37.088 --> 00:40:39.570
 Another thing that popped up was Russian
 
 00:40:39.650 --> 00:40:41.170
 oligarchs because of Ukraine.
 
 00:40:41.710 --> 00:40:43.690
 But when you read these articles,
 
 00:40:43.731 --> 00:40:45.952
 you also notice it's generally people that
 
 00:40:45.972 --> 00:40:47.693
 don't understand the legal basis because
 
 00:40:47.733 --> 00:40:49.393
 they think it's just a private contractor
 
 00:40:49.434 --> 00:40:50.315
 and then you don't have any law.
 
 00:40:50.335 --> 00:40:52.936
 The whole system works because it's
 
 00:40:52.956 --> 00:40:53.195
 wartime.
 
 00:40:53.215 --> 00:40:55.436
 Yeah, yeah.
 
 00:40:55.556 --> 00:40:57.518
 I think other countries who don't buy into
 
 00:40:57.538 --> 00:40:58.958
 this would simply see it as piracy.
 
 00:40:58.978 --> 00:41:01.460
 Exactly.
 
 00:41:01.539 --> 00:41:02.780
 Only that it's private actors,
 
 00:41:02.820 --> 00:41:03.440
 quote unquote.
 
 00:41:03.853 --> 00:41:06.456
 Private, right, yeah.
 
 00:41:06.496 --> 00:41:08.038
 We've been talking with Suzanne Amy
 
 00:41:08.097 --> 00:41:08.617
 Folksley.
 
 00:41:08.637 --> 00:41:09.878
 We probably could go on all day,
 
 00:41:09.918 --> 00:41:10.980
 but I know it's near the end of
 
 00:41:11.019 --> 00:41:11.721
 the day for you.
 
 00:41:11.840 --> 00:41:15.284
 So she's coming to us from the University
 
 00:41:15.324 --> 00:41:16.065
 of Erfurt,
 
 00:41:16.605 --> 00:41:18.126
 where she's a postdoctoral fellow,
 
 00:41:18.166 --> 00:41:19.347
 having completed her book,
 
 00:41:19.367 --> 00:41:21.369
 The American Experience of British Prize
 
 00:41:21.429 --> 00:41:24.712
 Law, .
 
 00:41:21.670 --> 00:41:22.710
 So thank you so much, Suzanne.
 
 00:41:22.731 --> 00:41:23.972
 This has been fun talking to you.
 
 00:41:23.992 --> 00:41:24.853
 Thank you for the invitation.
 
 00:41:24.873 --> 00:41:26.034
 It's always nice to share some of my
 
 00:41:26.054 --> 00:41:30.958
 expertise.
 
 00:41:31.322 --> 00:41:33.123
 There's a lot more individual stories in
 
 00:41:33.143 --> 00:41:34.744
 the book if anyone wants to look into
 
 00:41:34.903 --> 00:41:36.824
 the more human side and the statistics and
 
 00:41:36.985 --> 00:41:37.726
 all that.
 
 00:41:37.746 --> 00:41:38.226
 That's great.
 
 00:41:38.306 --> 00:41:38.666
 Very good.
 
 00:41:38.686 --> 00:41:39.445
 So thank you so much.
 
 00:41:39.465 --> 00:41:41.887
 And I want to thank Jonathan Lane,
 
 00:41:42.027 --> 00:41:43.887
 our producer, the man behind the curtain,
 
 00:41:43.967 --> 00:41:44.608
 and our listeners.
 
 00:41:44.628 --> 00:41:44.809
 You know,
 
 00:41:44.829 --> 00:41:46.208
 we thought initially we'd have a handful
 
 00:41:46.248 --> 00:41:47.650
 of our friends listening, tuning in.
 
 00:41:48.090 --> 00:41:49.469
 But we actually have listeners all over
 
 00:41:49.489 --> 00:41:50.710
 the world, Suzanne, every week.
 
 00:41:50.731 --> 00:41:51.311
 We thank them.
 
 00:41:51.331 --> 00:41:52.572
 And if you're in one of these places
 
 00:41:52.612 --> 00:41:54.311
 and want some of our Revolution Two-Fifty
 
 00:41:54.351 --> 00:41:55.972
 swag, send Jonathan an email,
 
 00:41:56.012 --> 00:41:58.074
 jlane at revolutiontwofivo.org.
 
 00:41:58.780 --> 00:41:59.340
 And this week,
 
 00:41:59.521 --> 00:42:01.943
 I want to thank our friends in, actually,
 
 00:42:02.043 --> 00:42:02.483
 Erfurt.
 
 00:42:03.043 --> 00:42:04.346
 You may be one of them, Suzanne.
 
 00:42:05.547 --> 00:42:07.309
 But, you know, you have an audience there.
 
 00:42:07.409 --> 00:42:09.811
 East Brunswick, New Jersey, in Utrecht,
 
 00:42:10.791 --> 00:42:12.273
 important treaty signed there.
 
 00:42:12.594 --> 00:42:14.016
 Savoy in Upper Saxony,
 
 00:42:14.376 --> 00:42:16.577
 Sussex Inlet in New South Wales,
 
 00:42:16.717 --> 00:42:19.141
 as well as in Tel Aviv, Hamburg,
 
 00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:20.842
 and Wokingham in...
 
 00:42:21.563 --> 00:42:23.025
 uh the south of england so thank you
 
 00:42:23.485 --> 00:42:25.126
 all and thank you to those in places
 
 00:42:25.186 --> 00:42:27.268
 between and beyond and now we will be
 
 00:42:27.327 --> 00:42:29.010
 piped out on the road to boston