Nelson & His World

More from David Erskine's commentary on Augustus Hervey's Journal in which he refers to 'head money' and 'freight money'. The two last terms are new to me. Maybe Erskine's remarks might be of interest to others.

He points out that 'the financial attractions of naval service were not to be found in lavish pay or secure pensions. They were prize money, head money and freight money.'

He notes the jealousies, resentments and legal actions that occurred over disputed prize money and the jockeying among commanders for the stations most likely to yield big hauls. He then adds: 'the attractions of pursuing fat merchantmen were so strong that the Admiralty was forced to bribe its servants to attack the less valuable men of war.... a grant of £5 [was made] for every member of the enemy crew alive at the beginning of the action. This sum was distributed in like proportion to prize money, except that the flag officers got nothing. 'Head money', as this payment was called, seems to have been regarded as a fortuituous tip; prize money was a business'.


Freight money was another source of income, reserved exclusively for captains and flag officers, and had the advantage of being paid in both war and peace. 'Whenever a man of war carried bullion or coin on a voyage, whether on the public or on private account, the captain was entitled to a fee, of which the flag officer took one third.' The actual rate that was paid varied according to the risks involved.

Freight money was a very important source of income for captains and flag officers on foreign stations, and as you say Anna, was available in peacetime as well as war. I believe the East Indies was a particularly lucrative station for freight money.

Prior to Nelson's lawsuit with St Vincent over prize money, he was also involved, along with other junior flag officers, in a dispute with him over freight money. In the end, Sir William Parker took legal action against St Vincent as a test case to prove the point that junior flag officers in the fleet were entitled to one third of the admiral's one third. This came up in the thread on Nelson's lawsuit against St. Vincent. I think the distribution of freight money was not regulated by the Admiralty court, but was according to custom and practice, and thus more open to dispute.

Thanks for the pointer to the old thread - I'd completely overlooked the term 'freight money'.

Erskine expands a little on how freight money was calculated:

'The rate was fixed by an agreement between the merchants and all the captains on the station, and naturally this varied with the risks of the voyage. For instance, to convey coin from Lisbon to London was less hazardous than to run it from Lisbon to Genoa, past the lairs of the Barbary pirates; in war, still higher freights could be demanded. One and a half per cent seems to have been the highest rate that Hervey ever received, and one half of one percent the lowest.'

Immediately following the Napoleonic Wars, the Admiralty did of course step in and issue regulations about the carrying of 'freight' (in fact of course, cash in the shape of coin and bullion). These were published in the annual Navy List. The percentages of the value payable to captains varied from one 0.5% to 1.5% - the variation being determined by the distance it was carried. Additional payments (at the rate of half the captain's entitlement) was paid to the local commander-in-chief and to Greenwich Hospital for retired sailors. It seems likely that when the Admiralty regulated the rates to be paid, it chose a percentage which reflected the status quo at the end of the war in order to make it acceptable.

I am dubious as to whether Erskine is right when he says that the rate paid during the war varied with the 'danger.' The whole point of using warships to carry cash was because they were safe and designed for war. Can you imagine one of Nelson's captains demanding a higher rate from a merchant because the route (which he was taking anyway)'was dangerous'? I can't!

Brian