Name of Vessel:

Royal Bounty

Master of Vessel:

Thomas Compton

Rig of Vessel:

Ship

Date of Capture:

14 January 1778

Place of Capture:

75 miles south of Cape Sambro Lighthouse, Nova Scotia

Captor:

American prisoners

Home Port:

From What Port:

Halifax, Nova Scotia

To What Port:

Newport, Rhode Island

Cargo:

270-280 American prisoners

Tonnage:

300

Battery:

Crew:

16 [total]

Owners:

Prize master:

Prize crew:

Ordered Into:

Marblehead, Massachusetts

Into What Port:

Marblehead, Massachusetts

Date Arrived:

24 January 1778

Date Tried:

27 March 1778

Date Sold:

Action:

No

Recaptured:

No

Comments: The 300-ton ship Royal Bounty was a former Greenland trade vessel, captured by the Americans and then re-captured by the British. While laying at Halifax, Nova Scotia, she was taken up for use as a cartel vessel to be used in a prisoner exchange. Royal Bounty, under Thomas Compton, was to be escorted on her mission by HM Brig Cabot (Lieutenant Edmund Dod). Approximately 270 or 280 American prisoners were sent aboard the ship. On 6 January 1778 Dod issued a set of signals for the Royal Bounty, including private recognition signals. On 9 January Captain Sir George Collier issued Compton’s sailing orders: he was to proceed to sea and stay with the escort. If Royal Bounty parted company from the Cabot, Compton was to go to Rhode Island. An additional private instruction, dated 11 January, was issued to Compton by Collier: “If the Prisoners should happen to take the Command of the Ship from you & carry her into Boston, you are in that Case to apply to Mr. Robert Peirpont (Commissary of Prisoners) shew him this paper & demand a Return of those Subjects of his Majesty, in Exchange . . .”

Cabot, Royal Bounty, and ten merchant vessels sailed from Halifax on 12 January. The next day, about seventy-five miles south of Cape Sambro, the prisoners aboard the Royal Bounty began a mutiny. On Compton’s signal Cabot bore down to her and “Supres’d the Mutiny” by threatening to fire on the Royal Bounty and clear the decks. Later that night the Royal Bounty began going ahead of the convoy and  Cabot had to fire a shot at her as a signal to return. On 14 January the weather became very cold with hard gales filled with snow and sleet. About 1430 Cabot saw the Royal Bounty put about to run before the wind. Dod chased after her but she was lost from sight by 1500 and the Cabot went looking after the rest of the convoy.

When the prisoners discovered that the Royal Bounty had parted from the convoy they rose on the crew and seized the vessel. The passage was rough and smallpox was raging aboard the ship: fourteen of the prisoners died en route, including two who fell overboard. Royal Bounty arrived at Marblehead, Massachusetts on 24 or 26 January. The British Commissary of Prisoners at Newport knew of the seizure by 24 January and, in a letter to Nicholas Cooke, the Governor of Rhode Island, said that the cartel would probably be carried in to a northern American port. When the British demanded the liberation of an equal number of prisoners, the Massachusetts Council, in a letter to Cooke dated 2 February 1778, pointed out that the Royal Bounty was bound from one British port (Halifax) to another (Newport) and could hardly be called a cartel. On 19 February the British, having heard that the Royal Bounty was considered as a capture, again demanded the release of the vessel and credit for the prisoners.

The Americans certainly did consider the Royal Bounty as a prize. She was libeled on 23 February in the Massachusetts Maritime Court of the Middle District, on behalf of “John Guliker and others.” Trial was set for 27 March 1778. On 28 February the British again demanded the return of the vessel and crddit for the prisoners. The British commissary of prisoners, Charles Waller, had now heard that the ship had been sold for the benefit of the prisoners. Towards the end of March, Massachusetts sent an emissary on a prisoner exchange mission, to Lord Howe at Newport. In the interview Howe mentioned the Royal Bounty affair and noted that it was going to affect prison exchanges in the future. On 27 March the Massachusetts Commissary of Prisoners informed Waller that the Royal Bounty was considered as a prize, had been condemned in the Maritime Court, and the prisoners considered as liberating themselves. Further, the crew of the Royal Bounty were considered as prisoners and subject to exchange.

[NDAR, XI, 45 and 46 note, 73 and 74 note, 94-95 and 95 note; 98-99 and 99 note, 99 and note, 115-116 and 116 note, 147-148, 200 and note, 229 and note, 263-264 and 264 note, 288-291, 356 and note, 378, 406-407 and 407 note, 418-419, 461-462 and 462 note, 757-758 and 758 note, 783-785 and 785 note, 801-802]

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