After the Insurgent was captured by Captain Captain Thomas Truxtun commanding [USS Constellation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constellation_(1797). It seems that the ship was refitted and then the United States than purchased the ship for $84,500. It seems that the ship was claimed as a legitimate prize of the Quasi-war, brought to the West Indies to be refitted. It seems that it sailed from that refit as a gunned, crewed, named and flagged American warship January 30th during the war. So to my understanding of war prize rules of the age this ship should have become the property of the United States with out any fee to the State.
My question is whom would they have to pay? I noticed the ship was funded by an individual Pierre-Joseph Pénétreau, of Lorient France. In this age if a individual funded a ship instead of a state was the other country forced to repay the proper owner if captured? Would the original owner have any claim to recoup his losses from the capture of the ship? Thank you for your time.
The US government had to pay "prize money" to the Captain and crew of the USS Constellation.
By long tradition (in the Royal Navy, and in British and Common Law)a prize of war became the property of the crown, but the value (all or most of the value) was paid to the crew which captured the ship. An admiralty prize court determined the disposition of the ship.
If it was a merchant ship, the ship and cargo would usually be sold and the proceeds divided amongst the capturing crew (according to the customary rules). If it was a war ship, and still in good enough condition to be repaired and used again, the government would usually buy it for the navy. The Prize court would set the fair value, and the money would be distributed as prize money to the capturing crew.
The rules for the division of prize money were generally fixed and constant. Two eighths went to the Captain of the capturing ship; one eighth went to the Admiral to whom the captain reported; one eighth went to the commissioned officers; one eighth to the senior warrant officers; one eighth to the junior warrant officers and midshipmen; two eighths to the crew (with a further division here, as able seamen got a larger share than landsmen and boys).
A warship prize often represented a year's pay to the average sailor. A great merchant ship with a fabulously rich cargo could make them all independently wealthy for life (if they didn't blow it all on booze and high living).
So, the $84,500 would have been paid by the government of the United States to the crew of the USS Constellation.
Captain Truxton would have received $21,125 (assuming the US stuck to the customary division of prizes used by the Royal Navy - Not sure how they would have treated the Admiral's share, as the US Navy had no Admirals at this time.)
Although translating the value of money in days of yore into the equivalent value today is fraught with problems, application of an inflation index indicates that Captain Thruxton's share would be the equivalent of about $285,000 today.
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