HKB
ammunition, and military tools; and several other captures followed before any provision had been made for their condemnation,--a business which was thus thrown entirely upon the hands of General Washington.
The court established by the Legislature of Massachusetts, at its session in the autumn of 1775, for the trial and condemnation of all captures from the enemy, was enabled to take cognizance only of captures made by vessels fitted out by the Province, or by citizens of the Province. As the cruisers fitted out at the continental expense did not come under this law, General Washington early in November called the attention of Congress to the necessity of establishing a court for the trial of prizes made by continental authority.[92] On the 25th of November, the Congress passed resolves ordering all trials of prizes to be held in the court of the colony into which they should be brought, with a right of appeal to Congress.[93] But these resolves do not seem to have been, for a considerable period of time, communicated to General Washington; for, during the months of November, December, and January, he supposed it to be necessary for him to attend personally to the adjudication of prizes made by continental vessels,[94] and it was not until the early part of February that the receipt of the resolves of Congress led to a resort to the jurisdiction of the admiralty court of Massachusetts. When, however, this was done, an irreconcilable difference was found to exist between the resolves of Congress and the law of the Colony respecting the proceedings; the trials were stopped for a long time, to enable the General Court of Massachusetts to alter their law, so as to make it conform to the resolves; and in the mean while, many of the captors, weary of the law's delay, applied, without waiting for the decisions, for leave to go away, which General Washington granted.[95] As late as the 25th of April, 1776, there had been no trials of any of the prizes brought into Massachusetts Bay. At that date, General Washington wrote to the President of Congress, from New York, that some of the vessels which he had fitted out were laid up, the crews being dissatisfied because they could not obtain their prize-money; that he had appealed to the Congress on the subject; and that, if a summary way of proceeding were not resolved on, it would be impossible to have the continental vessels manned. At this time Captain Manly and his crew had not received their share of the valuable prize taken by them in the autumn previous.[96]