Nelson & His World

Many thanks indeed for the links, Ian, and welcome to the forum.

As Tony noted above, Perkins' service was entirely in the West Indies. Is it possible that his race was not known to the Admiralty? He was clearly an extraordinary man, and as we've noted on other threads, several gifted black men achieved great things in the 18th century - remarkable against the background of slavery and exploitation. I wonder also, if he was much enriched by the prizes he took. Is anything known of this? I'm interested to hear that you are planning a work of fiction. It would make a wonderful TV docu-drama - but rather expensive to produce with all those engagements at sea?

Do keep us posted about any more discoveries. And we are always glad to give a 'puff' to forum members' books.

I imagine the Admiralty would have been aware of his heritage. Perkins never presented himself at Trinity house, and was not born in England. In 1783 they denied Rodney's promotion of Perkins to commander, something that rarely happened to such a notable commander in chief.

To answer the other question, the simple answer is maybe. The London Gazette (online) is littered with Perkins' captures and of the few advertisements from prize agents that I've found that specify a figure for the captain, it would appear that he would have been eligible for a great deal of prize money.

Prize money in itself was elusive however and many prize agents only paid out money in London or major English ports. This would have then have required Perkins to "factor" the credit at possibly an horrendous rate. He would therefore only get 10 or 20 pence to the £1. He was involved in several significant captures (other than the commerce raiding of his early days as a commander) for which he would have received quite a large sum in gun money, head money and possible prize money.

Unfortunately he may not have been able to leave his money to anyone on the event of his death. Captain Jemmy Darrell, a bermudian who was born a slave and became a pilot was unable to leave his money to his wife and children and when he died it reverted to the state. I am not sure that colonial law was universal and it may have been different between Jamaica and Bermuda.

So my guess would be, yes he won a lot of prize money but did not either claim it or have the ability to strike a significant enough bargain with the prize agents.

He would have had his salary as both an lieutenant and captain that would have more than outweighed any salary for a former slave on the islands.

There is an article that alludes to his piracy, or at least to the fact that he had an arrangement with a french pirate that they would capture and recapture English/ allied shipping from one another, each stripping the cargo a little at each capture and thus making a lot of money. This too is possible although I would suspect that the article is slightly race biase and there was an element of jealousy involved in the amount of captures that Perkins took.

I apologise if I've rambled a little. Prize money was the open dirty little secret of the navy and has always fascinated me. No one has been able to codify it and explain it machinations properly in a book and it is extraordinary that such an essential part of the way in which the navy operated has been so overlooked. The London Gazette, if you can work out its search functionality is a marvel for showing just what people were paid for capturing vessels. The prize money for the Battle of Cape St Vincent, for example, where they only captured 4 of the enemy ships was £140,000. Of which Jervis received 1/8th, 1/8th was split between about 21/22 captains and so on. One afternoon and Jervis earned around 500 times what the average man earned in a year. One of Perkins' captures earned him £53, roughly a third of his annual salary for one ship.

The practice, whereby the crown (or equivalent republican head of state) waived their legal right to retain the value of captured enemy vessels and their cargoes in time of war and passed it on to the officers and crews of the capturing ship(s) as an incentive, was entirely legitimate in terms of international law and was practiced by all nations. The workings of the system are certainly not secret. Those interested in the British position might like to read 'The Prizes of War; The Naval Prize System in the Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815' (Sutton Publishing 1998), an exhaustive study by Richard Hill.

Brian

Thanks Brian, I'll certainly check it out. When I said open dirty secret what I meant was that a lot of the nations pride was hard won not through patriotic fervour but through the desire for prize money. The papers and journals of the day and later books, particularly by Victorian writers glossed over it very loudly with phrases like "disinterested zeal". I am not attempting to belittle those brave men, many of whom, I am sure, weighed prize money as little more than a welcome bonus against the pride of honour and patriotism, I am simply trying to be a realist. There was an overriding reason for prize money and it's a shame that so few historians have used it effectively as part of their research.